Bloomberg Hydro One Ltd. fell the most in eight months after agreeing to buy US power supplier Avista Corp. in a $3.4 billion deal that analysts said is too costly and exposes the Canadian energy company to regulatory hassles. The merger will add Avista’s energy production and distribution operations in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska to Hydro One’s transmission network …

House Republicans, who are now deliberating the government’s 2018 budget, pledge to eliminate deficits within a decade. Well, good luck with that. It must be obvious that chronic deficits reflect a basic political impasse that can be broken only if majorities in Congress do things they’ve refused to do: trim Social Security benefits; raise taxes significantly; control health spending. There …

Don’t be surprised if in 20 years, Singapore’s wealth-management industry starts resembling a mini-United Nations, with bankers wearing their nationalities on their sleeves. Last week, Gadfly commented on one such act of flag-waving. PT Bank Mandiri, Indonesia’s largest lender by assets, plans to set up a private banking outfit in the city-state to target offshore Indonesian wealth. While that proposal …