Regimes, however intellectually disreputable, rarely are unable to attract intellectuals eager to rationalise the regimes’ behaviour. America’s current administration has “national conservatives.” They advocate unprecedented expansion of government in order to purge America of excessive respect for market forces, and to affirm robust confidence in government as a social engineer allocating wealth and opportunity. They call themselves conservatives, perhaps because ...

Nobody expected Ukraine’s economy to grow as fast as it did in the second quarter. Though the growth was driven, in large part, by a bumper wheat harvest, the optimistic numbers can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskiy promises a new kind of politics and investment-friendly change. Ukraine’s real gross domestic product increased by 4.6 percent ...

“Do you have Jakarta’s blessing?” That’s the first question Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. CEO Samuel Tsien will be asked by investors about his plan to buy Indonesia’s PT Bank Permata. OCBC is weighing a bid for Standard Chartered Plc’s Indonesian bank, Bloomberg News has reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Deliberations are still at an early stage and may ...