Japan’s next boom may be at hand, driven by the very thing that is supposed to be bad for its economy. Japan’s aging and shrinking population has been partly blamed for the on-again, off-again nature of growth and deflation the past three decades. Lately, it’s been driving a different and just as powerful idea: In the absence of large-scale immigration, the only viable solution for many domestic industries is to plow money into robots and information technology more generally.Humans will still b

Viewpoints Aug. 24, 2017

David Neumark, an economist at the University of California-Irvine, could safely be called a minimum-wage skeptic. Neumark has written a number of papers on the topic, all of which have found that minimum wages reduce employment by substantial amounts. This makes him a bit of an outlier in terms of the overall research consensus, which tends to find modest or no employment effects.But unlike many researchers, who maintain a laser-like focus on the question of whether minimum wage cuts jobs in th

Viewpoints Aug. 24, 2017

The circumstances of the crash of the USS John S. McCain near Singapore, which killed at least one US sailor and has left nine missing, remain unclear pending a Navy investigation. The bigger picture, however, is already in focus: Four major accidents this year involving ships of the 7th Fleet highlight a systemic problem that imperils American dominance on the high seas.At any given time, about 100 of the Navy’s roughly 275 ships are deployed. Yet the fleet is half the size it was 30 years ago,

Viewpoints Aug. 23, 2017

China is the largest market for General Motors, but there is no GM China. Instead, there is SAIC-GM, a joint venture between China’s largest state-owned auto company and GM.All auto companies operating in China have a similar partner, such as SAIC-Volkswagen, GAC-Toyota and Changan-Ford. And the partners are typically state-owned companies, and their names come first.Doing business in China requires such joint ventures in several other industries as well, including finance and telecommunications

Viewpoints Aug. 22, 2017

It’s time for Australian legislators and jurists to end a juvenile tussle about citizenship and who can serve in government. Their future depends on it.There is almost daily hysteria in Australia over a formerly obscure clause in the constitution that bars dual nationals from sitting in the federal parliament. The question is which legislators are now disqualified because they did (or didn‘t) know that their birth abroad -- or that of their parents -- sometimes brought with it eligibility for, o

Viewpoints Aug. 21, 2017

Australia’s parliament is in the grip of the world’s most ridiculous constitutional crisis. The situation threatens the country’s democratic process, which is reason enough for politicians and courts to work to unpick it. More importantly, though, it raises questions the rest of the world would do well to ponder.Over the past month, five members of Australia‘s 226-member parliament have admitted that they may have unwittingly held dual citizenship -- a condition that, under Australia’s 1900 cons

Viewpoints Aug. 20, 2017

In the wake of the events in Charlottesville and the president’s reaction, some activists, including conservatives, are renewing their focus on removing Steve Bannon from the White House. Their reasons are familiar by now: He represents the “nationalist” wing of the administration most closely tied to this weekend’s violence and once bragged that his Breitbart.com was the “platform for the alt-right.” It seems like an easy call, but Maggie Haberman at the New York Times is offering a note of cau

Viewpoints Aug. 18, 2017

Briefly, before he went wildly off-script on Tuesday at Trump Tower, we lived in a world where the 45th president of the United States had finally managed to condemn Nazis. And let’s ask ourselves: Did that make us feel any better? Did the sight of Donald J. Trump glumly reading off a teleprompter remarks obviously written by someone else convince anyone that he understood his earlier error? Did we all begin to feel that America and the world were in safe hands?Well, no, of course not.Nobody in

Viewpoints Aug. 17, 2017

Japan has served its time as a symbol of economic failure. Its latest growth surge puts it in a welcome new role.The country’s demographics, according to conventional wisdom, are supposed to be bad for the economy. Instead, Japan unexpectedly shot to the top of Group of Seven club, with its gross domestic product notching 4 percent annual growth last quarter. That easily outpaced the 2.6 percent recorded in the US during the same period.The biggest gains were in consumption and business spending

Viewpoints Aug. 16, 2017

Of all the global consequences of President Donald Trump’s first half-year, surely one of the most surprising is the rise in multilateral diplomacy.After all, this is the guy who came into office pledging to put “America First.” He downgraded the security guarantees of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to a definite maybe -- and only if its members ponied up more defense dollars. The Iran nuclear pact was “the worst deal ever,” and the Paris accord on climate change wasn’t much better. The

Viewpoints Aug. 15, 2017

Immediately after a notable diplomatic win -- unanimous backing at the United Nations for tougher sanctions against North Korea -- President Donald Trump undid much of the benefit by exchanging useless threats of nuclear annihilation with the rogue regime. Instead of playing North Korea’s game of reckless propaganda, Trump should be quietly piling on the pressure while showing more clearly that he’s willing to talk.The president’s threat to rain down “fire and fury” on the North doesn’t change t

Viewpoints Aug. 14, 2017

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief rival, Social Democrat Martin Schulz, slammed US President Donald Trump and said he still stands a chance to win the election despite polls showing him trailing six weeks ahead of the contest.Schulz said he wouldn’t criticize Merkel’s approach to a possible nuclear conflict over North Korea, saying German political parties should stand together. Instead, he turned his ire to Trump, saying the US leader was responsible for sowing chaos at home and abroad, r

World News Aug. 13, 2017