Opinion

President Donald Trump takes economic indicators seriously, except when he doesn’t. He’s boasted that recent stock market highs endorse his leadership; before the election, he said it was all a bubble. In the same way, before he took office, low unemployment was a phony number that meant nothing; now it’s a sure sign of success. In general, stock-market performance is …

President Trump’s intensifying feud with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has led to speculation that this could be a prelude to a formal break with the Republican Party. I have no idea what’s going on in Trump’s mind. And it’s absolutely true that he’s constructed an inner circle in the White House that has very few connections to the Republican …

Most experts debating bail-in and bail-out strategies agree that banks should build capital and shrink balance sheets as the best way to avoid a collapse and rebuild after one. But researchers are suggesting a more personalized version of that recipe that makes the difference between life and death for struggling firms. In a recent paper, Bank of Italy’s Emilia Bonaccorsi …

In a recent episode of HBO’s sitcom “Silicon Valley,” a lawyer tries to extort money from a struggling startup by threatening to sue it for patent infringement. The troll, who understands nothing about the underlying technology, owns a patent so broad as to be unenforceable, but knows that the victims of his perfectly legal extortion scheme lack the financial resources …

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has defiance in his blood. It’s said his grandfather once asked what would happen if America defeated North Korea in war, to which his father answered: “If we lose, I will be sure to destroy the Earth. What good is the Earth without North Korea?” President Trump has decided to confront what’s probably the …

Traveling through Macedonia this week led me to ponder the importance of a hegemon. More generally, many small, vulnerable countries—including Macedonia—will require an outside benefactor to secure their futures. A summary of Macedonian history doesn’t sound entirely promising. In the late 14th century, the region was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. That boosted Macedonian development in some regards, but it …

The 10th anniversary of the financial crisis has prompted a lot of analysis about what we’ve learned and whether we’re ready for the next one. Pretty much everything you need to know, though, can be found in one chart: the capital ratios of the largest US banks. Capital, also known as equity, is the money that banks get from shareholders …

The Brexit deadline of March 2019 creeps ever closer, and exit talks are under way—but Britain’s government still doesn’t know what it wants. This failure to set a clear goal, much less devise a strategy for achieving it, isn’t all that surprising, given the political mess caused by Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to call an early election. It’s nonetheless …

In just a few years, Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have managed to ensure that they have practically no political rivals of consequence left. Four years ago, the map of India was a patchwork, with the BJP, its national rival the Congress, and multiple regional parties vying for supremacy at the state and federal level. Today, the BJP …

The firing of a Google employee for writing a memo that suggested women are biologically less equipped for engineering and management jobs has triggered a whole range of reactions, from those who strongly support the company’s action to those who see it as repression of free speech. Where you come out on this is partly a function of your assessment …