Opinion

  The plumber who’ll sort out India’s bad-loan mess is about to get powerful new tools, and an overflowing toilet will soon be clean. Or that’s how investors are reacting to weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings from the country’s largest private-sector bank by assets. How sentiment changes. At the end of 2015, when concerns over Indian lenders’ balance sheets reigned supreme, ICICI ...

  A hacker who has unsuccessfully tried to hold Netflix for ransom has achieved an unexpected result: His failure shows that subscription-based business models in content distribution is making piracy pointless. Intellectual property owners’ slowness in adopting these models is the only reason content is still being pirated. Someone calling himself (or herself, or themselves) TheDarkOverlord stole most of the ...

  Here’s a shocking statement: President Trump is basically right that the world is too dangerous and that the US should hold peace talks with, let’s see, Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin and any other autocrats who are making trouble. American values tell us to oppose the undemocratic policies of these ...

  Mortgages are perhaps the only specialist lending that will survive in India. Every other form of credit, especially subprime, is made so risky by the country’s fickle policies and populist politics that it must eventually lose its independence in the safety of a deposit-taking bank. Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd., India’s biggest micro-lender, is a good example. Bad loans at ...

  British Prime Minister Theresa May recently surprised the country — and most of her ministers — by calling an election for early next month. Up against self-imposed deadlines, and anxious to increase her majority in Parliament, she’s scrambling to devise a policy platform. With Brexit looming, this isn’t a normal election, and the usual litany of detailed proposals won’t ...

  First, the sandpaper-tongue US president called him a “smart cookie.” Then Trump says he is open to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if conditions allow. Although Trump has made many policy U-turns, this is a classic one and steeped into irony. “If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be ...

  Bret Stephens of the New York Times made a splash the other day with a column questioning the scientific consensus on climate change. Stephens didn’t cite any skeptical research papers or alternative theories — his doubt was based purely on distrust of those who make confident predictions. We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority ...

  Emmanuel Macron looks on course to become France’s new president, ending the threat of a euroskeptic at the Elysee. Even if Macron wins, though, it’ll be too soon to celebrate a new phase of stability in the euro zone. Across the Alps, an economic and political storm is brewing — and there’s no sign anyone can stop it. Italy’s ...

  The United States is a land of diminished economic prospects. Today the recession is over but the slowdown isn’t: The most recent projections by the Federal Reserve imply future growth in output per head of barely 1 percent a year. That matters for many reasons. For one thing, as Benjamin Friedman argued in “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth,” ...

  Leaked details of a dinner conversation between UK Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker suggest that the Brexit talks won’t just be contentious — they’ll be brutal. At this point, the perception helps May as much as it does the EU leaders. After the June election in the UK, however, May will be at a ...