Opinion

The first sticking point in Brexit negotiations is the size of the UK’s final bill with the European Union. It’s a silly dispute that both sides need to get past as quickly as possible so they can move on to more consequential matters. This needn’t be difficult. All it requires is a willingness to compromise — something neither party, as ...

Many Americans still regard Britain as the US’s political and cultural parent. Despite the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, the US and the UK eventually developed a special relationship that endured throughout the 20th century. Together, the two defeated the Axis and communism, and established a global order based on free trade and (eventually) universal human rights. But ...

If there’s a lesson that China’s private firms should take away from the crackdown on Dalian Wanda Group Co. and its freewheeling cohorts, it’s that there’s no better time to get into bed with state-owned enterprises. That’s even the case if the partner up for grabs is China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd., the weakest of the country’s big three telecom ...

Germans can be relentless at beating themselves up. When it comes to their auto industry, this tendency may be getting out of hand. The latest scandal for German automakers started with a cover story in the respected newsweekly Der Spiegel, which suggested that Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW have operated as a cartel since the 1990s. It described how the companies ...

If we learned anything from the bitter debate over the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) – which seems doubtful – it is that we cannot discuss health care in a way that is at once compassionate and rational. This is a significant failure, because providing and financing health care has become, over the past half-century, the principal activity of the federal ...

No matter how well-regarded a particular airport happens to be, the slog from curb to cabin is pretty much the same wherever you go. A decades-old paradigm of queues, security screens, snack vendors, and gate-waiting prevails—the only difference is the level of stress. The sky portal of the 2040s, however, is likely to be free of such delights. Many of ...

Washington began taking the threat of gun violence more seriously. The gun dealers in the state will be required to notify law enforcement when someone who is not legally allowed to buy a firearm tries to do so. There were more than 3,000 such people in Washington in 2015. They went to a licensed gun dealer and filled out a ...

Congressional Republicans and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are clashing over a question that has implications far beyond the world of finance: How far can companies go to protect themselves from customer lawsuits? Neither side has got the answer quite right. If you’ve ever signed up for a credit card, you’ve most likely skipped through the boilerplate contracts at the ...

The Brexit talks have started, and there’s little sign yet of an intelligible UK strategy. All is disarray. The shambles makes two bad possible outcomes more likely. One is that the UK will crash out of the European Union in 2019 with no agreement in place. This would cause enormous economic disruption — damage that would take years to repair. ...

Greece has decided to brave the waters with a new five-year benchmark bond, the first fresh deal for nearly three years. Fortune favors the brave — but not the greedy. For now, a successful return to the fixed income markets matters more than securing the very best terms or the most money. Greek bonds have been the stand-out performer in ...