On Wednesday, Indonesia celebrated its Independence Day with a bang — blowing up several Chinese boats that had been caught fishing illegally in its waters and impounded. China doesn’t dispute Indonesia’s territorial claims, but Chinese fishermen have more pressing concerns. According to reports in Chinese state media this week, overfishing and pollution have so depleted China’s own fishery resources …

  How many times have you heard someone say that the Federal Reserve’s asset-purchase program known as quantitative easing was ineffective? At least, that’s what I keep hearing from the usual pundits arguing their case on television and in print. I have my own suspicions that monetary stimulus works well enough to thaw frozen credit markets, as it did amid …

  Nowadays, if you’re a smart college graduate, Silicon Valley and its tech-startup scene is the hot place to be. But 10 years ago, it seemed like everyone with a brain and big ambitions wanted to go to Wall Street. The worlds of investment banking and trading were a golden ladder to the good life. The numbers tell the tale. …