Opinion

In the financial world, bonus disappointment is cause for anguish, outrage, and sometimes a job change. Rather than enjoy guides on how to splurge on a foreign bolt-hole, victims are left instead to write pseudonymous columns about how Jeremy Corbyn’s views now pervade the corner office. When even Deutsche Bank AG pays bonuses, it seems unfair not to get what ...

Back in 1992, Singapore feared that its gleaming new subway would be wrecked by people using something sticky to disable automatic train doors — so it banned chewing gum. Twenty-six years later, the prohibition on the import, manufacture and sale of gum is still in place, even though the utility of that harsh curb has never really been proved: Hong ...

The role of economic growth in advanced democracies is not mainly the accumulation of more material goods. By any historical norm, even today’s poor are staggeringly wealthy. Economic growth plays a more subtle role. It gives people a sense that they are getting ahead and are in control of their lives. It serves as the social glue that holds us ...

It’s disingenuous to think that India’s biggest banking fraud was just one bent officer in a bumbling state-run lender enriching an uncle-nephew pair of greedy diamond merchants. That’s the spin Punjab National Bank (PNB) is trying to put on the $1.8 billion scam that went on for seven years. According to the lender’s version, PNB’s former employee Gokulnath Shetty provided billionaire ...

A scandal in Latvia is raising questions about the European Central Bank’s ability to do its job. The details remain murky, but the ECB should move swiftly to reassure investors that its high standards will be upheld throughout the euro zone. A report by the US Treasury has alleged widespread money laundering at ABLV Bank AS, one of Latvia’s largest ...

At Davos in January, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India was open for business and even likened protectionism to terrorism. This month his government raised tariffs on nearly 50 product groups, from clocks and kites to TV and auto components. The measures follow new duties imposed in December on electronic goods such as mobile phones and microwave ovens. The ...

Ahead of the Russian presidential election, President Vladimir Putin is keen to ensure that Russians’ real disposable incomes as measured by official statistics don’t decline. So the State Statistical Service has made sure of it. On February 19, the government agency reported that in January, the disposable income measure was unchanged from January, 2017. To produce that result, it had ...

When SpaceX’s 230-foot Falcon Heavy blasted off on February 6, it became a global sensation. But a much quieter launch three days earlier may turn out to be more important. That’s when a 31-foot rocket known as the SS-520-5 took off from Japan’s Uchinoura Space Center. It’s the smallest rocket ever to place an object into Earth orbit — and ...

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel say they want to make the common currency area more resilient and adaptable, but their two countries have traditionally disagreed over how that should be achieved. Can crack economists from the relevant countries solve the problem for them? They are giving it a shot — but building a European consensus will ...

Here’s today’s quiz: What poses the greatest threat to America’s economy? (a) federal budget deficits; (b) China; (c) trade deficits; (d) ineffective schools; (e) the internet; (f) none of the above. The correct answer is (e), the internet — the technological wonder of the age. True, all the other threats are real. Runaway budget deficits could raise interest rates. China ...