Opinion

As Google appeals the European Commission’s antitrust ruling that cost the search giant €2.42 billion ($2.82 billion) and pretends to provide a remedy, its biggest competitor in shopping search, Amazon, is offering better service to customers. Google needs to shift gears—and fast—by focusing on improving its product, not the legal confrontation. The European Union has published a summary of Google’s ...

President Xi Jinping’s command at this month’s Communist Party gathering was so complete that President Trump likened him to a ‘king.’ But some China analysts are wondering whether Xi has overreached. Xi dominated the stage, literally and figuratively, at the party’s 19th Congress, which ended this week in Beijing. He consolidation of power has nearly erased the collective leadership style ...

Financial regulators in the European Union are grappling on several fronts with problems in their banking system. They’ve made some progress, but there’s a pattern: The proposals fall short. Plans for EU-wide deposit insurance have been watered down. The system for resolving failing banks is underfunded. And now controversy has arisen over new rules for dealing with bad loans — ...

Having burned through almost 14,000 square miles of western forest, killed dozens of people, and cost federal agencies almost $3 billion, this year’s extensive wildfires have had one positive effect: They’ve gotten Democrats and Republicans in Congress finally to act. Senators from Washington, Oregon and Idaho have introduced legislation that would let timber companies clear brush and harvest trees from ...

It is surely a scandal, and not just in the political sense, when the former chairman of a presidential campaign is indicted for work related to a corrupt foreign government. At the same time, it’s important to remember that Paul Manafort’s indictment is not evidence that President Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. ...

Free college sounds like a great idea, when you first hear the words. That might be why Bernie Sanders was able to whip up so much enthusiasm around the idea in his 2016 presidential bid, and is still campaigning for it to this day. For anyone who has had to pay sky-high tuition at a big-name university, or dealt with ...

Oh no, Yes Bank. You don’t get to spin a yarn about the wonderful quarter you’ve had. You don’t get to fill page after page of your earnings presentation with arrows pointing up, up and up. The bragging about how you are the world’s second-most-social brand (whatever that means) can also wait. There’s only one question for you to answer. ...

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos may have surpassed Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates to be the richest person in the world, but there’s one title he isn’t likely to claim: world’s most generous. Even with more than $90 billion to his name, Bezos has yet to make a major philanthropic mark, but with the new mantle of the world’s richest, ...

China is witnessing something most of the world’s major economies haven’t seen in quite some time: rising prices. With growth strong but debt at perhaps 300 percent of gross domestic product, that’s a welcome sign. The danger is that China’s government now hopes inflation will solve its other problems. From 2013 until this year, the GDP deflator, a broad measure ...

Nomura Holdings Inc. may be ruing its international presence right now. It shouldn’t. Low volatility — the bane of global investment banks — caused a slump in fixed-income trading in the three months through September, driving Japan’s biggest brokerage to its first profit decline in five quarters. Net income slid 15 percent to 51.9 billion yen ($457 million), with huge ...