At this shank end of a summer that a calmer America someday will remember with embarrassment, you must remember this: In the population of 325 million, a small sliver crouches on the wilder shores of politics, another sliver lives in the dark forest of mental disorder, and there is a substantial overlap between these slivers. At most moments, 312 million …

Leaders from Washington to Brussels are increasingly troubled by the flood of Chinese money seeking acquisitions abroad, and asking themselves how best to respond. The answer is: more carefully. The US has a federal panel, created more than four decades ago, that scrutinizes foreign investments for national-security implications, but it isn’t adequate to the task. The European Union’s current arrangements …

The Federal Reserve is about to take another small step toward getting US monetary policy back to normal. The only catch is that, as with politics and the economy, no one really knows what “normal” means anymore. So far, investors have viewed this unusual situation calmly, and the Fed is hoping this doesn’t change. But calm can become complacency—and that’s …