For all the mystery surrounding who will rise and fall at next week’s big leadership conclave in China, only one question really matters to investors: Will President Xi Jinping, having sidelined any obvious opposition, attack head-on the enormous imbalances and risks building inside the Chinese economy?Optimists argue that he will. The Economist Intelligence Unit recently wrote, “Xi will find his ability to implement policy substantially reinforced by newly strengthened majorities. After the Par

Viewpoints Oct. 11, 2017

Nobody would ever accuse the International Monetary Fund of getting carried away.Just when we are getting used to the notion of a synchronized global expansion, the lender feels it has to pad its upgraded forecasts with some dampeners. It’s almost as though there is too much good news. That’s a pity.Muffling the good news under warnings and to-do lists risks contributing to the false notion that the modern economy is somehow broken. Growth is on a firmer and broader footing now than at any point

Viewpoints Oct. 11, 2017

For 30 years China has recycled more cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and old computers than any other nation. By doing so, it’s saved millions of tons of resources and indirectly funded thousands of recycling programs and companies globally. But now it wants to stop. In July, China notified the World Trade Organization that it will soon prohibit the import of many types of recyclables. As a result, recycling programs and companies around the world are scrambling to find new destinations for the

Viewpoints Oct. 10, 2017

When Tom Price was pushed out of his cabinet job last month for sticking taxpayers with $1 million worth of private jet travel, the White House explained that his behavior was unacceptable in an administration devoted to draining the Washington swamp.I wonder where the former health and human services secretary got the notion that it was OK to mix public service and personal privilege. The values of a presidential administration flow from the top. President Donald Trump has been signaling loudly

Viewpoints Oct. 10, 2017

Back in the 1980s or 1990s, few would have predicted that Japan would become the standard-bearer of free trade. This is, after all, the country that once tried to ban foreign-made skis by claiming that Japanese snow was different from snow in other countries.How times have changed. As the US sinks into protectionism, the Land of the Rising Sun is one of the few countries still pushing for trade agreements. Japan recently made a free trade deal with the European Union and is trying to keep the Tr

Viewpoints Oct. 9, 2017

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson insists that he’s staying at Foggy Bottom following reports that, after one humiliation on top of another from President Donald Trump, he threatened to quit. On PredictIt, a prediction market for politics, people who think Tillerson will be in his present job at year’s end could have put down 71 cents on Thursday morning for a chance to win a buck; a 30-cent wager could win the same dollar if they’re wrong.Go for the bigger payout.Despite Tillerson’s ineptitude a

Viewpoints Oct. 8, 2017

If Shinzo Abe wins the snap election he’s just called for next month, he could become Japan’s longest-serving postwar prime minister. A better legacy would be as the man who reshaped the world’s third-biggest economy.Abe came into office pledging first and foremost to transform the economy. He’s made some progress -- bringing more women into the Japanese workforce, improving corporate governance, negotiating (and now, keeping alive) the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and welcoming mor

Viewpoints Oct. 1, 2017

When discussing Japan’s debt, most people get caught up in the issue of fiscal solvency. As everyone by now knows, Japan has a very high level of debt versus gross domestic product:This attention-grabbing number -- about twice the level of the US -- often gets people asking whether Japan will default. Some believe a default is likely when the country runs out of domestic buyers for government bonds, causing interest rates to rise. Others think the Bank of Japan can simply print money and buy gov

Viewpoints Sept. 29, 2017

Last week, the Commercial Aviation Corp. of China (Comac) announced that the C919, China’s first homemade large passenger jet, had chalked up its 730th preorder. Those numbers won’t necessarily make the Boeing or Airbus SE quake; Boeing estimates Chinese airlines alone will require 5,420 new single-aisle planes by 2036. Ultimately, though, they could herald the end of global aviation’s great duopoly.Most of the C919’s orders come from state-owned Chinese companies, some of whom probably wouldn’t

Viewpoints Sept. 28, 2017

As people in other wealthy countries fretted in the 1990s and 2000s over what falling birthrates would mean for economic growth and retirement-program finances, the US seemed to have far less to worry about. Fertility here remained at or near the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman over her lifetime, and the country’s long-honed ability to attract immigrants and quickly integrate them into the workforce provided a further economic boost.Times have changed. Immigration has been a contentious

Viewpoints Sept. 26, 2017

While much of the world’s attention is fixated on North Korea and its nuclear ambitions, something with the potential to be equally globe-rattling is taking place, generally unnoticed, in South Korea. There, new President Moon Jae-in is charting an entirely contrary course in economic policy than much of the rest of the developed world. If successful, the experiment could alter how governments tackle the most challenging problems of our day. Moon is embarking on a highly liberal economic program

Viewpoints Sept. 26, 2017