Opinion

  Mihir Sharma US President Barack Obama’s the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his signature trade pact, is very likely dead. President-elect Donald Trump swept to victory in part by railing against such massive trade deals. Today, few in Washington would dare to challenge the view that globalization has benefited cheaper foreign workers at the expense of hard-working Americans. But Washington’s politicians, Donald ...

  Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, weighed in last week on one of the pressing issues facing the Trump administration and the country — slow economic growth. Greenspan’s explanation is novel and is bound to be controversial. To preview: He blames the welfare state and overall uncertainty for the slowdown. Why should we listen to ...

  The U.S. immigration system needs reform, and President-elect Donald Trump might be just the man to do it. Although research shows that low-skilled immigration — agricultural laborers, janitors, construction workers and the like — isn’t that bad for working-class Americans, it’s now clear that very few Americans are going to listen to what the research says. Working-class people want ...

  When President-elect Donald Trump visited the White House last week, he was reportedly surprised to learn that he’ll need to replace nearly the entire staff. While Trump is said to have promised jobs to his small campaign team, research suggests that he should try a revolutionary approach to staffing his administration: replacing political appointees with civil servants. Today, an ...

  The UN meeting in Marrakesh boiled down to finance to combat climate change. Even as the conference addressed many crucial issues, the one to top it all was how to fund adaptation and mitigation against environmental dangers and meet costs of clean technologies. The developing countries insisted that the rich nations should keep their commitments to provide money to ...

  The Bank of England is advertising for a new deputy governor to start next year. As you’d expect, the job posting lists several desired features aspiring candidates should have. But let’s hope the winning applicant possesses some attributes not listed in the official job description; ones that would make the central bank’s monetary policy committee more representative of the ...

  Tom Berryman knows how to put young people in some pretty sweet blue-collar jobs. Graduates of the two-year auto-mechanics’ training courses he oversees at Lawson State Community College’s campus in Bessemer, Alabama, all get work at auto dealerships, most with starting salaries in the high-40s. If they’re lucky enough to end up at a Toyota dealership, they make over ...

  Matt Levine Don’t do this: In 2010, a senior JPMorgan APAC investment banker wrote to a colleague regarding a Referral Hire from a private sector client: “They are close to mandating banks for their IPO. We are a strong contender. Blink blink nod nod, can we find a place for his son (they have only approached us in this ...

  Seventeen days before President Donald Trump, his spoken oath of office still lingering in the wintry air, lifts his left hand from Scripture (a leather-bound edition of “The Art of the Deal”), the Republican-controlled Congress will begin working. Fittingly, on Jan. 3 the First Branch of government will go first, flexing its somewhat atrophied Article I muscles. When Trump ...

  If you’re willing to strap on a headset and headphones, virtual reality can immerse you in another world. This teleportation act is great for gaming, but it also got me thinking: Can the distraction-dimming effects of VR transport the typical office worker out of an open office and away from chatty co-workers, and perhaps help with focus and productivity ...