A man who worked in a boxer’s corner in a 1962 match against Cassius Clay, as he still was known, explained why the referee stopped the fight in the fourth round: “Things just went sour gradually all at once.” It can be like that when government dabbles in protectionism. US industrial capacity has never been larger — it is 66% ...

“Only Facebook Ireland can respond to your concerns.” That is the response you are likely to get from Facebook Inc. if you accuse the world’s biggest social network of breaching Europe’s tough new laws on data privacy. The company’s European headquarters are in Ireland; data from its users in the region is officially controlled and processed there; and its lead ...

Breaking up an indebted German conglomerate was never going to be easy, but ThyssenKrupp AG boss Guido Kerkhoff probably hoped an enduring share price bounce would help smooth the process. Instead, ThyssenKrupp’s stock tumbled about 45 percent since he announced a plan to split the company’s steel and capital goods activities in September. The shares touched a 15-year low this ...