[Ferdinando Giugliano] Italy’s economic horror show starts now

Italy’s horror show has just started -- and it’s bound to get worse.The country’s economy stagnated in the third quarter, according to figures released on Tuesday. The slowdown may be part of a wider trend: The eurozone economy expanded by a meager 0.2 percent in same three months. But it’s clear that the uncertainty which has accompanied the rise to power of Italy’s populist government has started to take its toll.The deceleration will throw a spanner in the plans of Finance Minister Giovanni T

Nov. 1, 2018

[Filipe Campante] Brazil’s new president faces few constraints

Now that voters have elected former army captain Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s new president, the country’s democracy will face a stern test. The most important question is: Can Brazilian institutions withstand the threat posed by the man’s well-documented authoritarian and illiberal streaks?Brazil transitioned to democracy more than 30 years ago, an evolution that seemed largely to have been consolidated -- witness Operation Carwash’s successful anti-corruption investigations of powerful politicia

Oct. 31, 2018

[Mihir Sharma] Sri Lanka’s not for sale

Most people in the island nation of Sri Lanka and its Asian neighbors were stunned last week when President Maithripala Sirisena dismissed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe -- and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, the populist strongman who had ruled Sri Lanka for a decade before the scrappy alliance between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe forced him out of power in 2015. It was a shock not just because the move was almost certainly unconstitutional -- in Sri Lanka, a prime minister can only be

Oct. 31, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Don’t write off Merkel just yet

I have warned repeatedly against writing off Chancellor Angela Merkel as she faced challenge after challenge in recent years. I’m going to issue another such warning now, even though it might seem counterintuitive given her announcement Monday that she’d give up the leadership of her Christian Democratic Union in December and not run for a parliament seat in 2021.Those decisions make Merkel a lame duck. They also make it more obvious than ever that she risks ending her final term as chancellor b

Oct. 31, 2018

[Robert Mahoney] Stop killing the messenger

What does it cost to silence a muckraking reporter? In the Philippines in 2011, officials needed just $250 to buy the services of a journalist-slaying gunman. In Slovakia, Jan Kuciak and his fiancee were killed in February for about $80,000.For corrupt politicians and crime bosses, neither sum is significant. The cost to democracy, however, is immeasurable.Every year, more journalists are murdered because of their reporting than die in war zones. Since 1992, when the Committee to Protect Journal

Oct. 30, 2018

[Justin Fox] If you ignore the news, America actually seems pretty nice

So I’ve been doing a lot of driving lately. First I drove from New York to the San Francisco suburb of Lafayette, California, via New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Then I drove back by way of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Got back home to Manhattan on Saturday night. And yes, taking the

Oct. 30, 2018

[Hal Brands] Trump’s tapped smartphone mirrors his entire foreign policy

Specific incidents can sometimes reveal much larger truths. This would seem to be the case regarding recent revelations that the Chinese have been eavesdropping on President Donald Trump’s less-than-secure phone calls and using the information gathered as part of an elaborate plot to influence the president. If true, this story -- which the president has denied -- is not only a testament to Trump’s attachment to his smartphones and his casual disregard for established security procedures. It als

Oct. 30, 2018

[Mary Schmich] In this time of immense fear, how to find your purpose

I was sitting in a coffeehouse with my laptop recently, diligently scrolling through the horrors of the world, wondering what useful thing there was to say about any of it, when a man I know stopped by my table.　I get testy when people interrupt my work -- really, scrolling through the horrors of the world, aka the news, is work -- but this man knows me well enough that he responded to my curtness by saying he’d be quick.　He said he just wanted to mention that he and his wife had been traveling

Oct. 29, 2018

[Michael Schuman] Trade deficit with China shows America’s strength

US President Donald Trump has made closing America’s trade deficit with China a top priority. The problem is, it’s growing instead. For Trump, that’s probably more proof that his tariff-heavy, get-tough approach to China is the correct strategy. For economists, it’s not such a big deal. The US economy is roaring, and roaring economies tend to import more.There’s another reason, too, that the trade balance is the wrong figure to focus on. It only captures one part of the greater economic relation

Oct. 29, 2018

[Robert Sands] James Church’s Inspector O series and negotiating with North Korea

Upon arrival at my hotel in Hong Kong after a few weeks in Shenzhen, China, I raced to a pub. While reading John le Carre’s “The Honourable Schoolboy” and waiting on some fish and chips, an Englishman politely took the seat beside me. After some halting pleasantries, I realized he worked for a company to which I had just caused considerable (though necessary) trouble in my role as a corporate lawyer. We laughed and, to his credit, he remained as polite after learning that fact as he was before i

Oct. 29, 2018

[Letter to the Editor] What’s behind the BTS syndrome

The definition of good music may differ from person to person, but it seems certain that good music soothes souls. It helps us vent emotional catharsis in its own way. There are two ways when it comes to how good music usually does it; it has beautifully resounding lyrics or its melodies and beat make our hearts beat faster.　BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, seem to manage both. They have swept across the world with their music, writing a new chapter in the history of K-pop. Their music seems

Oct. 28, 2018

[Daniel Moss] China discovers how to boost the economy without toppling it

Ice is thawing in China, and that’s a good thing.Fiscal and monetary measures should be deployed to give the economy a fillip when it’s most needed. The scope of tax cuts detailed over the weekend is a great first step: They boost consumers and might also, in the process, shore up Chinese demand for trade with the rest of Asia.Until now, policy seemed frozen in Beijing and hamstrung by competing goals. Choices are still constrained relative to past episodes of slackening economic life, but thank

Oct. 28, 2018