Opinion

  SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a splash at the International Astronautical Conference in Mexico with his plans for an Interplanetary Transport System, along with a disturbingly inspirational ultimatum: “There are really two fundamental paths. One path is we stay on Earth forever and there will be some eventual extinction event… The alternative is to become a space-faring civilization and ...

  Watching Monday night’s presidential debate from a country that has been bankrupted by populist economic ideas was instructive: Argentina’s experience shows that good countries can make very bad political decisions that have lasting costs. Visiting here with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew was also a reminder of how intently the rest of the world is following this year’s U.S. election ...

  Why do so many Americans oppose immigration, and why has it become a central issue in the presidential campaign? A growing body of research suggests that the answer isn’t economic anxiety, or concerns about public spending, or even general nationalism. It is more specific — and more disturbing. The question of what drives anti-immigrant sentiment is put in sharp ...

In yet another stunning anti-democratic maneuver, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has managed to have any recall referendum effectively delayed until next year. In response, President Barack Obama needs to revisit U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere’s most dysfunctional nation. Until even a few years ago, some U.S. “strategic patience” toward Venezuela made sense. High oil prices cushioned the country with ...

  Fine particulate matter can get lodged in our lungs and trigger massive health impact. These also foul the environment. They extract economic toll too. When over 90% of the world’s people breathe contaminated poor quality air and fall sick, it’s obvious that the ripples will be felt on the economy as well. A recent report revealed that premature deaths ...

  I spent most of the last two days driving and walking along the border fence at Brownsville, Texas. It’s not the first barrier of this kind that I’ve seen. They’re going up everywhere — in more than 40 countries now: Donald Trump’s calls for a powerful border wall are part of a trend. Though their reasons for existence, styles ...

There has been a lot of heated debate in the news media and the election campaigns about international trade. In the first presidential debate, candidate Donald Trump relentlessly flogged the issue, declaring that trade had hollowed out American industry. On the left, antitrade sentiment continues to simmer, much of it focused on opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Meanwhile, the economics ...

  The latest food safety scandal in China might be its most damaging. Earlier this week, a former doctoral student at one of the country’s national testing centers for genetically modified organisms went public with allegations of scientific fraud, including claims that records were doctored extensively, that unqualified personnel were employed under illegal contracts and —most seriously — that authorities ...

  Among investors and economists who study China, few arguments are more contentious than growth — more specifically, how to measure it. Officially, China’s economy has been growing at an annualized rate of nearly 10 percent for the past three decades. But plenty of analysts will argue that those figures are highly optimistic. Why should this debate matter? After all, ...

  The entire 90-minute debate on Monday night was a demonstration that Donald Trump doesn’t have the temperament to be president. Hillary Clinton was prepared — she always is — and she baited Trump early and often. And Trump got caught each time. He also hooked himself, including in at least two exchanges with moderator Lester Holt (who did an ...