Opinion

The opening scene of “The Karate Kid” left a big impression on me. A struggling, working-class single mom in New Jersey packs her family and all of her worldly possessions into a green station wagon and heads west to California in search of a better life. As a child who had only ever known one town, I was astonished by ...

Spotify AB will soon shine a bright light on just how big the holes are in our capital markets. Far more than just bankers should take note. Sometime, reportedly by the end of March, shares of the streaming music service will start trading for the first time. The deal, a direct listing, has received attention for some time because it’s ...

Senator Bernie Sanders says it’s worth following the example of ‘our brothers and sisters in Iceland’ who last year passed the world’s most demanding law on equal pay for men and women. But the legislation, which took effect on January 1, could end up hurting women without some added measures. Even ultra-egalitarian Iceland isn’t ready to take them. No other ...

Since 2009, as policy makers have sought to return the global economy to normal, ‘stability’ has usually been their byword. Unfortunately, their actions have only created a false calm — a ‘stable instability,’ to coin a paradoxical phrase. Although a repeat of the financial crisis has so far been avoided, this relative tranquility has had the effect of derailing normal ...

As we begin a new year, it’s worth reflecting on the paradoxical and frustrating nature of progress. Progress is often disappointing, because even when it indisputably occurs (as it often does), it spawns new problems or reveals that old problems were underestimated in their complexity or inertia. Gains are forgotten and taken for granted. They become part of society’s norms, ...

Over the holidays the Washington Post interrupted the good cheer to bring us “a preview of a US without pensions.” Peter Whoriskey tells the story of 998 people who lost pension benefits when McDonnell Douglas closed a plant in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1994. It’s a story that features bankruptcies, lost homes and long-deferred retirements. It’s compelling, it’s sad, and it’s ...

Is nuclear power dying out? The world’s second-biggest infrastructure investor just bet $4.6 billion that it’s not. Westinghouse Electric Co., the slice of Toshiba Corp.’s bankrupt nuclear business focused on providing fuel and maintenance services to power stations, will be bought at that price by Brookfield Asset Management Inc.’s private equity arm Brookfield Business Partners LP, the company said. Brookfield ...

You’d think the Indian economy had returned to rosy health. It seems to have recovered from two enormous disruptions—Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision just over a year ago to withdraw 86% of the currency in circulation, and the poorly-planned rollout in the middle of 2017 of the new goods and services tax (GST). Exports are no longer declining, as they ...

I hate to be a party pooper, but I am. Apple Inc.’s decision to do the right thing for customers will be bad for business. You probably know that Apple (sort of) apologized for not telling people about a software tweak it made about a year ago that slowed performance of iPhones with worn out batteries, to prevent them from ...

Bitcoin rose 88 percent from December 1 to 19, then fell 23 percent by December 30, 2017, a net 44 percent increase for the month. Attention naturally focused on those events, but the important longer-term story is what’s happening within the entire cryptocurrency sector. The market value of all non-bitcoin crypto assets rose 153 percent during bitcoin’s upswing, and 4 ...