Opinion

Never again. That’s the mantra of Indonesia’s class of 1998 — the officials who were young adults when the country plunged into the Asian financial crisis that began two decades ago this month. The question now is whether their understandable caution could hold back Southeast Asia’s biggest — and at times, most frustrating — economy. Most retrospectives of the crisis ...

The aircraft arrayed around the spacious lawn of Maxwell Air Force Base, home of the Air University, mostly represent long-retired types. The largest, however, is a glistening B-52 bomber, which represents a still-employed component of the Air Force’s aging fleet: The youngest B-52 entered service in 1962. Sons have flown the same plane their fathers and grandfathers flew. But, then, ...

Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL’s) unexpected 1-for-1 bonus issue, which chairman Mukesh Ambani unveiled at the company’s 40th annual general meeting (AGM) on Friday, gave a further boost to shares that are already the second-best performing this year on India’s benchmark index. What’s interesting about the announcement, however, is the timing. The last time India’s most-valuable company gave one free share ...

Why is Chuck Schumer doing Donald Trump a favor? The Senate minority leader’s delaying tactics for the president’s nominees are not only uncalled for, but they also distract from the White House’s historic ineptitude at filling the senior ranks of government. So far, the Trump administration has made 163 fewer nominations than former President Barack Obama at the same point, ...

On the ground in Iraq and Syria, IS is on the brink of military defeat. Online, however, the group continues to incite its followers to violence, and victory there will take the same kind of sustained effort that anti-terrorist forces brought to the battlefield. The foremost challenge is to identify individuals susceptible to the terrorists’ messages and intervene before they’re ...

Donald Trump may not like it, but he can’t—so far— reverse two of Barack Obama’s signature accomplishments: the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Iran nuclear deal. In one emblematic, frustrating day, Trump both saw the failure of the Senate Bill to repeal and replace the ACA and was forced by his advisers to certify that Iran is in compliance ...

As local-currency bonds in Indonesia joined the recent global debt selloff, Aberdeen Asset Management Plc and Western Asset Management Co. had a simple strategy: buy more. The money managers see the nation’s securities, along with India’s, as the best bets to weather any selloff in emerging Asia as the European Central Bank prepares to join the Federal Reserve in paring ...

On the 48th anniversary of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon, an Illinois attorney hopes to pocket as much as $4 million at a Sotheby’s auction of a bag that Apollo 11 astronauts filled with rocks. The bag’s history is as interesting as its travels: the US government accidentally sold it in 2015, then fought the buyer, Nancy Lee ...

House Republicans, who are now deliberating the government’s 2018 budget, pledge to eliminate deficits within a decade. Well, good luck with that. It must be obvious that chronic deficits reflect a basic political impasse that can be broken only if majorities in Congress do things they’ve refused to do: trim Social Security benefits; raise taxes significantly; control health spending. There ...

Don’t be surprised if in 20 years, Singapore’s wealth-management industry starts resembling a mini-United Nations, with bankers wearing their nationalities on their sleeves. Last week, Gadfly commented on one such act of flag-waving. PT Bank Mandiri, Indonesia’s largest lender by assets, plans to set up a private banking outfit in the city-state to target offshore Indonesian wealth. While that proposal ...