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Italy’s populist future comes fraught with perils

Two and a half months after an inconclusive general election, Italy looks as if it will soon have a government — a populist coalition between two anti-establishment parties, the Five Star Movement and the League. Having won a clear popular mandate, the two parties must be given a chance to govern. But the program they have in mind is extravagantly ...

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Don’t raise rates just to keep wages in check

Macroeconomics is getting interesting again. For the past five years, monetary policy was simple and boring — the economy was recovering steadily, but not yet at full employment, and inflation remained muted, so the Federal Reserve simply had to keep interest rates low and not interfere with a good thing. But now this happy era of tranquility may be ending. ...

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Carmakers’ captives show reasons to be fearful

Bets on the world’s biggest car companies look a bit less safe as the US market confronts slowing sales, an obsession with trucks and ballooning numbers of used cars. Bonds of captive auto-finance companies like Ford Motor Credit Co., Toyota Motor Credit Corp., General Motors Financial Co. and Daimler AG’s financing subsidiary have been trading more like their parents in ...

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