Opinion

The entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley are undoubtedly finding many ways to make the world a better place — with tunnels, flying cars, interplanetary travel. Yet I can’t help noticing a growing divide between the problems people have and the problems tech companies are willing or able to solve. This divide has two sources. The first is related to inequality: When …

Despite record highs in the markets, bad news about consumers has been relentless: malls are closing; consumers have accumulated too much debt; incomes are stagnant. None of this bodes well for future consumer spending and economic growth. This is the established narrative — fairly straightforward, based on well-understood data. I suspect it is also wrong. What if something else entirely …

When the next financial crisis hits — an event that may be years or decades away — we will learn whether this Congress and the president drew the right lessons from the 2008-09 financial crisis. Congress is arguing over whether government can avoid ‘bailouts’ of large financial institutions and still prevent a full-blown crisis. With all of President Trump’s trials …

Nyl Patangan, a nursing graduate from the Philippines, left his native land in search of a better life. Now working in a Chicago hospital after a stint in Dubai, he’s supporting his parents back home and is buying his mother a Toyota Vios. A recent study by the Asian Development Bank shows that the number of immigrants with university degrees …

Some government traditions with no legal basis — pardoning turkeys, for example — are silly but harmless. Others are not. Among them is an arcane, century-old practice known as “blue-slipping,” under which a single senator can block a president’s judicial nominee. The country would be better off without it. When the president sends a candidate for the federal bench to …

We’re past the point of shifting blame. We know who gave us the presidency of Donald Trump, and it wasn’t Hillary Clinton or Jill Stein or James Comey. The culprit was democracy. Even if you defend democracy on the grounds that Trump lost the popular vote, it’s still a lame argument. After all, what kind of sensible political system generates …

To critics of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, it may seem like presidential fiat is a very dysfunctional way to do foreign policy. How, exactly, is such overwhelming power consistent with checks and balances? How can one man, even if he is the president, single-handedly alter our international obligations? The short answer …

So far, it’s mostly been about Amazon. But Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has a new foe. And it’s one it has lost out to before in Europe. It mustn’t repeat the same mistakes in its homeland. The world’s biggest retailer has been investing heavily in e-commerce in an effort to catch up with Amazon.com Inc. And as my colleague Shelly Banjo …

As many as 115 states and 22 international organisations are going to take part in Kazakhstan EXPO 2017, the doors will be opened to the world on June 10. One of the largest international expos of the decade is held in Astana capital of Kazakhstan, which is the greatest achievement at the international level of Kazakhstan since its independence. EXPO …

When Russian officials and analysts here talk about the US investigation of their alleged hacking of the 2016 campaign, two themes predominate: They’re flattered that their country is seen as such a powerful threat, and also amazed that America is so preoccupied with the scandal. This is the official line, to be sure, but it was also expressed by several …