Opinion

With Russia and China both embracing the idea of sovereign cryptocurrencies, it’s time to ask a simple question: Why is a technology threatening to decentralize money so attractive to highly centralized, authoritarian regimes? Last weekend, Argumenti i Fakti, a pro-government newspaper, quoted Russian communication minister Nikolai Nikiforov as saying president Vladimir Putin had ordered the swift launching of a “crypto-ruble.” ...

As President Trump prepares to head to Asia next month for his most important overseas trip yet, foreign intelligence services are undoubtedly trying to assemble personality profiles to explain this unconventional, risk-taking, domineering president to the leaders he will meet. How will they describe Trump? Probably not with the same hyperbole we sometimes use in our daily news commentary. Foreign ...

Don’t celebrate too soon. That was the key message as policy makers and investors left Washington on Sunday after attending the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. For once the mood was upbeat. The IMF bumped up its forecast for global economic growth this year and next. Stocks are surging, credit spreads are tight and market ...

Just like in the summer of 2014, fighting in northern Iraq is sending ripples through the oil market. A lot has changed in the meantime. Back then, IS was sweeping all before it; now, the wannabe caliphate’s collapse is allowing old tensions between Baghdad and the region’s Kurds to resurface. A lot has changed in the oil market, too. Brent ...

President Donald Trump’s decertification of the Iranian nuclear deal is a mistake. Yes, its supporters have exaggerated the agreement’s benefits — but on balance, the world is better off with it than without it. In the near term, the decertification doesn’t really change much. The deal will remain in effect while Congress considers re-imposing sanctions on Iran, in effect killing ...

Five or six years ago, with the hangover from the Great Recession still dominating the national conversation, macroeconomic policy was all the rage. Now, it’s an afterthought, with issues like health care, trade and energy taking center stage. But behind the scenes, macroeconomists have been rethinking the basics of how they approach their discipline. The Peterson Institute for International Economics, ...

Could the end of the petrodollar be in sight? Moves by China to set up its own crude futures contract and invest in Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Saudi Aramco, are leading some to think so. Beijing will compel the Saudis to trade oil in yuan, CNBC quoted High Frequency Economics founder Carl Weinberg as saying last week. Crude contracts ...

Now that US politicians know that Facebook is unable to stop malicious actors from using it to influence public opinion, the social network is doing its best to avoid tougher regulatory treatment. It shouldn’t be able to get off so easily, though: It must admit it’s really a media company and accept legal liability for the material it publishes. As ...

In this week’s crisis over Kirkuk, Iraqi Kurds are experiencing a painful version of Newton’s Third Law: In Middle East politics, as in physics, every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. The initial action was Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani’s decision to push ahead last month with a controversial independence referendum, despite strong warnings from the United States, Turkey, Iran ...

People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Governor Zhou Xiaochuan made comments this week that suggest some imminent reform announcements are on the agenda. There are two potential policies to look for in the near term: the loosening of foreign investment restrictions and the launch of domestic oil futures. A new oil futures contract in the Shanghai free trade zone might sound trivial, ...