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[Brooke Sutherland] Ford to Trump: That’s not how it works

ViewpointsSept 12, 2018

How many company warnings will it take to convince President Donald Trump that his trade war is backfiring?　In the months since Trump ratcheted up trade tensions with both China and erstwhile US allies such as Canada and Europe, there’s been no stampede of manufacturers back to America’s shores. There has, however, been a growing chorus of complaints about the profit pinch wrought by US and retaliatory tariffs as well as some early warnings about price increases and job cuts. Ford Motor, Apple a
[Albert R. Hunt] It’s too late to stop a blue wave, but not for Trump to try

ViewpointsSept 11, 2018

A consensus is building in both US political parties that Democrats are heavily favored to take control of the House of Representatives on Nov. 6 and to pick up half a dozen governors’ offices, while Republicans hang on to their slim Senate majority. But there’s a caveat: Politics is unpredictable with President Donald Trump in the White House.　It would be foolish to rule out the possibility that the prospect of Republican losses in the midterm election will provoke Trump to take some kind of dr
[Michael Schuman] Trump’s trade war is just fine with Xi Jinping

ViewpointsSept 10, 2018

Anyone who expects China to concede defeat in its trade war with the US should read about Biobase Group.　The Chinese manufacturer of laboratory equipment once struggled to win orders even at home in an industry dominated by foreign products. But the company’s prospects have brightened as the trade war prompts customers to turn to domestic alternatives.　“The local market was heavily reliant on imports,” Biobase’s chairman was quoted as saying. “Now, it’s different. Opportunities beckon.”　The stor
[Nathaniel Bullard] Why power companies love drones

ViewpointsSept 9, 2018

There are already 170,000 small, unmanned aerial vehicles licensed in the US, and the Federal Aviation Administration predicts another half-million more of them to be airborne by 2022. Drones are everywhere, doing all sorts of things, including delivering hamburgers and beer to golfers. They’re taking group photos, scouting properties and being shot down by neighbors.　They’re also competing, and the competition is serious. Lockheed Martin Corp. has launched a $2 million competition pitting human
[Leonid Bershidsky] Germans should review the lessons of Weimar

ViewpointsSept 9, 2018

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas made an impassioned call to his compatriots to “show our faces” against a rise in right-wing extremism. The plea is a stark warning that Germany should guard against succumbing to the kind of boiled-frog effect that ended up killing the Weimar Republic in the 1930s. There is some justification for the alarmism.Maas, a member of the Social Democratic Party or SPD, became the German right’s favorite hate figure as justice minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s go
[Adam Minter] Secrecy fuels the stench of China’s diseased pigs

ViewpointsSept 9, 2018

An outbreak of African swine fever has China’s meat eaters, investors and bureaucrats in a panic. That should be no surprise: The country is the world’s biggest pork producer and consumer, and has a history of food-safety and health scandals that have fueled public distrust.　The government’s response, in culling 38,000 pigs, has been quick and efficient this time. But public suspicion, fanned by the handling of previous incidents, is running high. Authorities are seeking to censor social media p
[Daniel Moss] Skipping Asia summits, at least Trump will do no harm

ViewpointsSept 6, 2018

Donald Trump’s absence from Asia-Pacific summits will do little harm to America’s long-term standing in the region. It might even help.　The president’s decision to skip two international meetings in November was predictably seen as evidence of American neglect of a vital region, underscoring the unilateralist instincts of Trump. The complaints are fair.　But let’s not mistake pageantry for trends that have been building for years and look inevitable. American influence is waning in ways that a fe
[Shira Ovide] Amazon at $1 trillion is more dream than reality

ViewpointsSept 6, 2018

The stock market is a weighing machine of companies’ potential rather than their current circumstances. That is doubly true for Amazon.　Amazon on Tuesday briefly reached a stock market value of $1 trillion. It’s a meaningless (and unoriginal) milestone but a notable symbol for a company that until recently hardly looked like a world-shaking giant. Amazon’s market cap is six times what it was at this point in 2014, or a gain of $840 billion. It took Google 14 years to reach that stock market valu
[Alex Webb] Soccer fans, your team is coming after you

ViewpointsSept 5, 2018

It’s easy to think of sports teams as massive companies: They have huge global exposure, millions of fans, and athletes on eye-popping salaries.　In reality, though, even the biggest teams are little more than minnows. The world’s wealthiest soccer team, Manchester United, has a market value of just $4.1 billion -- less than, say, Fevertree Drinks, a maker of tonic water and mixers with just 51 employees.　While the biggest teams have millions, if not hundreds of millions, of fans, they have histo
[Satyajit Das] We may be facing textbook emerging market crisis

ViewpointsSept 5, 2018

Emerging-market stresses have been building since at least 2013. Investors may have forgotten the effect of the “taper tantrum” on the “Fragile Five” -- Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa -- a term coined by Morgan Stanley to describe their vulnerability to capital outflows. Monetary accommodation, lower current-account deficits and growth disguised the underlying challenges, attracting more capital to those markets.　The textbook recipe for an emerging-market crisis requires a lar
[Mac Margolis] Argentina’s Macri scores economic own goal

ViewpointsSept 5, 2018

From debt vultures and cooked books to fiscal time bombs, Argentine President Mauricio Macri inherited quite the mess. In his three years of office, he has handled most of these challenges remarkably well, drawing cheers from investors and his compatriots. Here was a decisive, business-friendly manager, talking transparency and free market initiatives to end what might have been “the largest populist experiment” in the world, in the words of Oxford Economics analyst Guillermo Tolosa.　Now the muc
[Noah Smith] Why the US economy is having a boom

ViewpointsSept 4, 2018

There’s no doubt that the US economy is in a boom. The Conference Board is reporting the highest levels of job satisfaction in more than a decade. This is probably because of a tight labor market -- the ratio between the unemployment level and the number of job vacancies is at its lowest level in a half-century.　A broader measure, the prime-age employment-to-population ratio, is back to 2006 levels. Meanwhile, real gross domestic product growth for the second quarter was just revised up to 4.2 p
[Eli Lake] Iran’s fake news is a fake threat

ViewpointsSept 3, 2018

As if the free world didn’t have enough to worry about with Russian fake news, now the world leader in state-sponsored terrorism is getting into the act: Iran is running a disinformation campaign on social media, and it is bigger than previously believed.　A closer look at this propaganda, however, reveals a paper tiger. Iran’s network of Twitter handles, websites and Facebook fakes are amateurish and clumsy. Anyone foolish enough to trust information from something called the “Liberty Front Pres
[Mac Margolis] Latin America’s left needs better heroes

ViewpointsSept 3, 2018

For a man behind bars, former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been on a tear. In recent weeks, his followers have taken to the streets in his name. Foreign celebrities and world leaders including a Nobel Peace Prize laureate have sung his praises. Even Pope Francis reportedly sent him blessings. No other candidate comes close in the polls for the Oct. 7 presidential elections.　That’s not half bad for the political leader whom two Brazilian courts found guilty of graft and money
[Nathaniel Bullard] Electric vehicles’ day will come, and it might come suddenly

ViewpointsSept 3, 2018

Last week, California’s state legislature approved a bill requiring the state to get 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. It’s a landmark for power sector decarbonization, and if Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill, it will require a transformation of the state’s energy system.　California already gets 29 percent of its electricity from zero-carbon wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy, and it has already reduced statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. As I