Here’s today’s quiz: What poses the greatest threat to America’s economy? (a) federal budget deficits; (b) China; (c) trade deficits; (d) ineffective schools; (e) the internet; (f) none of the above. The correct answer is (e), the internet — the technological wonder of the age. True, all the other threats are real. Runaway budget deficits could raise interest rates. China ...

Uber Technologies Inc. flushed $4.5 billion down the drain last year as it spent heavily on expansion and battled the missteps of founder Travis Kalanick. Oddly, a British plumbing firm may give it a sense of whether it can plug some unwanted future outflows. Pimlico Plumbers Ltd., whose vans are ubiquitous in west London, is a fellow traveller of Uber ...

What’s long been one of the most attractive markets for insurers in Asia is turning ugly. Malaysia will require overseas insurance firms to jettison at least 30 percent of their domestic businesses via strategic stake sales or local initial public offerings by the end of June in order to comply with new foreign ownership rules. Companies from AIA Group Ltd. ...

Once upon a time, President Donald Trump vowed to “do a very major haircut” on the Dodd-Frank Act. After a lengthy review, his officials have apparently concluded that the 2010 law’s approach to the failures of large banks was about right. In some ways, this reversal is a pity. The 2008 crisis showed how dangerous it can be to let ...

Moviegoers have been going crazy over Black Panther, the new Marvel comic book superhero film. In addition to being a fun romp, the movie holds special emotional significance for many—not just because of its mostly black cast, but because of its setting, Wakanda. A fictional country located somewhere in Africa, Wakanda avoided colonization by foreign powers, and is now wealthy ...

Could the problem of global warming become so desperate that humans would be willing to take the vast risk of re-engineering our environment? It’s far from a desirable or lasting solution. Yet some scientists have thought deeply about it and concluded that’s what we’ll probably do. The human response to global warming has been so slow that it may be ...

If you lived in one of India’s largest cities, a startling sight would’ve greeted you when you picked up your morning newspaper last Monday: Whole front pages had been replaced by an artists’ impression of a skyscraper. There was to be a Trump tower in your town, the ads declared—something you might have already gleaned from the photograph of Donald ...

Bloomberg European authorities moved to liquidate Latvia’s ABLV Bank AS after clients pulled assets from the lender following US accusations that it laundered money. The European Central Bank, which had already placed a freeze on payments by the lender, said that ABLV was failing or likely to fail, handing it over to Europe’s Single Resolution Board. That authority said a ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc., one of the world’s largest credit-card issuers, said it will refund $335 million to US customers whose annual percentage rate should have been lower. The lender determined that a method it was using to calculate APRs didn’t properly reflect the full benefit customers should have received for good behaviour, such as paying on time, the New York-based ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. said that its female employees earn 99 percent of what male employees make globally, making it the fifth large US bank to disclose an adjusted gender pay gap of around one percent. People of color employed by the bank earned more than 99 percent of what white workers made, according to an internal note sent ...