Opinion

  In the days since the election, Republicans have realized that they are in a tight spot on Obamacare. They seem to be lurching toward a strategy that will make it tighter. Republicans have vowed over and over again to repeal and replace the health-care law, but they do not yet have a detailed plan or the votes to enact ...

     Rest in peace, VIX. You’re no longer the fear gauge for global markets. The Bank for International Settlements has found a better barometer to capture the nervousness that starts as a slight reduction in global banks’ leverage, is magnified by European lenders as a dollar squeeze in Asian supply chains, and reverberates around the world as a financial ...

  The work ethic is such a central part of the American character that it’s hard to imagine it fading. But that’s what seems to be happening in one important part of the labor force. Among men 25-to-54 — so-called prime-age male workers — about one in eight are dropouts. They don’t have a job and, unlike the officially unemployed, ...

  Few people took Donald Trump seriously when he said in March that he’d “get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China.” But his election appears to have caused a change of heart. Apple has reportedly asked the two Asian companies that assemble the bulk of its iPhones to assess whether they ...

  Smoking has dropped to historic lows nationwide, dramatically decreasing revenue from tobacco taxes. In search of funds, a growing number of states are taxing electronic cigarettes — a trend that is sparking a fierce public health debate over whether it will deter smokers from switching to a safer alternative. California became the seventh state to tax e-cigarettes with the ...

  The run-up to OPEC oil ministers’ meeting in Vienna on November 30 has been patchy. Last week’s talks of OPEC officials to resolve the issue of freezing production fell flat. On Saturday, Saudi Arabia abandoned the planned meeting with non-OPEC nations due to lack of agreement on how to share the burden of supply cuts. Despite the hiccups it ...

  For all of my adult life I have been hearing that Cuba will blossom economically when Fidel Castro passes away. Now that time has come, and it seems Cuba will continue to struggle. At a superficial glance, the case for Cuban optimism is obvious. So many Cuban-Americans have impressed the world with their business skills and entrepreneurial drive. If ...

  Fidel Castro’s passing removes what was long the single greatest psychological barrier to a warmer U.S.-Cuba relationship. But it also adds to the uncertainty ahead with the transition from an Obama to a Trump administration. “A brutal dictator” of a “totalitarian island,” declared President-elect Donald Trump, underscoring the historical trauma still separating the countries. A more restrained President Barack ...

  Noah Feldman In the free marketplace of ideas, true ideas are supposed to compete with false ones until the truth wins — at least according to a leading rationale for free speech. But what if the rise of fake news shows that, under current conditions, truth may not defeat falsehood in the market? That would start to make free ...

  Lowering the corporate tax rate appears to be all the rage. Donald Trump has promised a cut to 15 percent from 35 percent in the U.S., and British Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged to make the U.K.’s corporate tax the lowest in the G-20, which would mean taking it lower than Trump intends to. On the surface, it ...