Something was missing on a trip to East Asia a few weeks ago. And on separate visits to Mideast and India toward the end of last year. Took me a while to figure what it was. You know that feeling where you get that you left something behind, but you just can’t quite remember what? Ah, yes! Brexit! Britain’s decision ...

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” So wrote Milton Friedman, the great economist and Nobel laureate. Someone should tell today’s corporate leaders, who are responding to the age of Trump in part by spending energy on activities other than directly increasing profits. ...

For most of the past half century, the yen has either been severely undervalued or severely overvalued against the dollar, resulting in a highly destructive boom-bust supercycle in Japan’s economy. But now, the currency is finally showing signs of stabilizing at somewhere close to fair value as defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s measure of purchasing power ...