Opinion

After years of talks, central banks and financial regulators have finally agreed on the Basel III rules for bank capital. That’s a good thing, mostly. The deal improves the regulatory framework and will give banks greater clarity about what’s required. It’s also a timely reminder that international policy cooperation can work. There’s a catch, however: The new rules have been ...

At a European Union summit this week, the bloc’s leaders are expected to formally declare that the Brexit talks can move forward. Not a moment too soon. Britain and the EU have spent 18 months since the UK’s decision to quit avoiding the main issues — namely, their future trading relationship and a plan for getting from here to there. ...

The question of nature versus nurture is an important one, but also an incredibly delicate one. How much of the disparities we see in society are fuelled by a lack of good education, social influences and role models, and how much are due to natural ability? Given that people in advanced countries spend multiple decades of their life in school, ...

If you can’t beat them, regulate them. That sounds like a pretty good mantra for governments the world over trying to wrap their heads around this tamagotchi of finance better known as bitcoin. South Korea is the latest to propose cryptocurrency measures after a surge in trading started to ring alarm bells. The fact that its citizens were paying close ...

Facebook is projected to boost sales by 46 percent and double net income, but make no mistake: It had a terrible year. Despite its financial performance, the social media giant is facing a reckoning in 2018 as regulators close in on several fronts. The main issue cuts to the core of the company itself: Rather than ‘building global community,’ as ...

Of all the follies of 2017, the most tawdry may be the GOP’s headlong rush to pass a tax bill that even its proponents don’t understand. What’s especially sad is that otherwise sensible Republicans seem to be capitulating to the tax-cut frenzy. Political desperation is the mother of this legislation. Despite Republican control of both houses of Congress, the Trump ...

The seminal financial event of this year, the current decade, and possibly our generation is here: Futures trading in bitcoin has begun. But the derivative that would really damp the current crypto frenzy and make digital tokens a speculator-friendly—if not investment-worthy—commodity, currency, tulip, or whatever, isn’t futures. It’s options. It’s hard to see how even existing futures trading rules can ...

The great clearance sale of Australia’s bancassurance industry is almost complete. With Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. offloading its life unit OnePath to Zurich Insurance Group AG for A$2.85 billion ($2.1 billion) on Tuesday, the country’s big banks have all but sold out of life insurance, an industry they dominated as recently as 2015. Only Westpac Banking Corp. ...

Puerto Rico’s post-hurricane plight has drawn attention to the Jones Act, the 1920 law that compels all maritime commerce between US ports to be carried on ships built, owned and crewed by Americans. The law is adding to the island’s problems, and should be set aside for that reason alone — but the Jones Act was, or should have been, ...

China is suffering from a frigid winter, but it can’t blame Mother Nature alone. Late last week, following a widespread uproar, officials reversed a policy banning some provinces from using coal for heat — which had the inadvertent but predictable effect of leaving large swathes of the country freezing cold. China’s government has been keen to reduce air-pollution levels, which ...