Opinion

As Europe’s politicians digest the lessons from Italy’s recent 17 billion euro ($19.34 billion) bailout of two Venetian banks, two schools of opinion have emerged. The majority view is that the bailout, while less than ideal, at least brought greater financial stability to Italy. Italians themselves seem pleased with the outcome. So far there has been no great taxpayer outcry, …

Do you remember the NeXT computer, the one Steve Jobs began building in 1985, after he was booted from Apple by then-chief executive John Sculley and the board? It was supposed to be a machine built for academia, the ultimate learning tool priced so that universities would be able to buy them in bulk. But Jobs being Jobs, he had …

Some American history museums belabor visitors with this message: You shall know the truth and it shall make you feel ashamed of, but oh-so-superior to, your wretched ancestors. The new Museum of the American Revolution is better than that. Located near Independence Hall, it celebrates the luminous ideas affirmed there 241 Julys ago, but it does not flinch from this …

Nationalism minus chauvinism. That’s how Indonesia wants to deal with FANG. Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google—the four horsemen of the digital economy—will get to play freely in the archipelago’s 260-million-strong consumer market, according to communications and information technology minister Rudiantara. The minister, who uses only one name, has no airy-fairy notions about national digital champions who’ll help keep Indonesian money …

Britain’s government isn’t due to announce a new budget until the autumn, but debate is already raging over public-sector pay. With Brexit bearing down, the embattled prime minister, Theresa May, will have to choose between making another embarrassing U-turn and defending a policy that is both unpopular and unnecessary. Sadly for May, the U-turn makes better sense. For years it …

Summer makes it easier for migrants to cross the Mediterranean, so Italy is struggling to cope with another influx of refugees. And like before, its European partners are doing too little to help. The Italian government is asking for a new approach, and it’s right: The EU should see this as a pan-European issue, requiring a pan-European response. More than …

Checking out of a hotel in Kerala this week took so long that I almost missed my flight. It wasn’t the hotel staff’s fault; their work, temporarily, had been doubled. As a polite note in my room reminded me when I checked in, they would have to present two invoices to me when I left—one for the days prior to …

The global bond and stock selloff has revived unhappy memories of the 2013 taper tantrum, when the Federal Reserve’s rumblings about removing stimulus shaved 17 percent off the value of emerging market stocks in less than two months. For the current difficulties you can partly blame risk-parity funds, which buy benchmark government bonds to hedge against stock portfolios. When bond …

We sometimes take for granted that which is right before our collective noses. Creative destruction caused by technology is so rampant that it is practically a cliche. It is easy to ignore not only the speed at which disruption caused by technology is affecting society, but the acceleration in the pace of change. This acceleration and its effect on markets, …

Donald Trump’s foreign policy, such as it is, rests on a massive and apparently indestructible contradiction. Trump wants the United States to remain the ‘essential’ nation, the best embodiment of Western ideals of freedom and democracy, while at the same time deliberately alienating many of our traditional ‘allies,’ whose support the United States desperately needs. American leadership becomes difficult, if …