Wall Street isn’t always too fussed about whether a startup is profitable before listing on the stock exchange. A decent track record of sales growth is usually pretty essential, though. That quaint idea has been turned on its head this year by the fad for special purpose acquisition companies. Called SPACs for short, they raise cash from investors in an initial public offering and then go find a company to buy. By merging with one of these cash boxes, the target gets a dollop of capital

Viewpoints Sept. 21, 2020

With the US presidential campaign heading into the home stretch, President Donald Trump will surely try to tout his record on economic issues. But the numbers don’t speak well of his policies. Unfortunately, the approach of his rival, Joe Biden, threatens to make some of the same mistakes. Trump was elected in 2016 on a promise to restore American competitiveness, revitalize the flagging manufacturing sector, and reduce gaping trade deficits. But even before the pandemic, his trade war lo

Viewpoints Sept. 17, 2020

Japan’s likely next prime minister is a huge fan of Shinzo Abe. That doesn’t mean Yoshihide Suga is a carbon copy. Indeed, the shades of difference between the two men on some key issues are important, particularly when the economy in question is the world’s third-largest, a critical part of global manufacturing and trade, and a pioneer of ultra-low interest rates and quantitative easing. The first issue to consider is Japan’s consumption tax. Increases have been blamed

Viewpoints Sept. 16, 2020

Anyone observing President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the US would have good reason to wonder if his administration ever had much of a strategy for handling it. Last week the press accused one of his medical advisers, Scott Atlas, of promoting a “herd immunity strategy” amounting to letting COVID-19 run rampant. Atlas denies this, but a more important issue is what our strategy is, or should be, and what Joe Biden’s strategy would be if he&rsqu

Viewpoints Sept. 15, 2020

After years of slow deterioration, diplomatic relations between China and Australia have taken a sharp turn for the worse. The disputes range from pressure on journalists, to spying allegations, to an investigation of Australia’s wine exports. Beijing holds most of the cards, but Australia does have one doomsday weapon at its disposal. It’s better not used. The conflict echoes China’s widening disputes with other countries. Two journalists working for Australian Broadcasting C

Viewpoints Sept. 14, 2020

In politics, language is a reliable indicator of the direction of travel. Today, rhetoric from the Republican Party convention in the US to India, and from Poland to Brazil, points away from liberal democracy. The change has rarely been swifter than in Hong Kong. The markers of autocratic speech are globally apparent. There’s the divisive “us versus them” rhetoric, the ad hominem attacks, the inflammatory comments on dissenters and the fetishization of law and order, feeding o

Viewpoints Sept. 14, 2020

The European Central Bank’s governing council meets this week amid a less optimistic mood than before the summer break. The recovery in Europe is losing speed and there are early signs of divergence, with some euro-zone countries rebounding faster than others. ECB President Christine Lagarde still has several tricks up her sleeve to help the monetary union respond to the pandemic’s economic shock. But, unlike previous crises in Europe, governments will have to take the lead this tim

Viewpoints Sept. 10, 2020

President Donald Trump poses an unusual problem for his opposition. He’s “a target-rich environment,” said Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. “He has befuddled his opponents by giving them too much to react to. It keeps the Democrats from having a disciplined message about why Trump sucks.” Depending on the news cycle, the anti-Trump message may be that he is a tool of Russian President Vladimir Putin, or a racist, or a threa

Viewpoints Sept. 9, 2020

The US Government programs to blunt the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic will make the federal budget deficit much wider in 2020 than at any point in the last 75 years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s new forecasts, released this week, predict that the deficit will be over $3.3 trillion this year, or 16 percent of annual economic output. Measured as a share of GDP, the annual US budget deficit hasn’t hit double digits since 1945. The CBO forecasts that the 20

Viewpoints Sept. 8, 2020

A month before he ended his first stint as Japan’s prime minister in 2007, Shinzo Abe addressed the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. Quoting the Mughal scholar-prince Dara Shikoh, Abe spoke of the “confluence of the two seas” -- the Indian and Pacific Oceans -- that were undergoing a “dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and of prosperity.” India and Japan, said Abe, shared an interest in and responsibility for securing these seas “by joining forces with like-mi

Viewpoints Sept. 7, 2020

One of the most hotly debated questions among my friends and acquaintances lately is this: Is America headed for a future in which just about everyone has been canceled? Fortunately, while “cancel culture” and political correctness have become stronger and more influential over the last few years, these movements have built-in limitations. They will prove to be a durable element of American culture, but by no means a dominant one. How do I know? I don’t, of course, but consid

Viewpoints Sept. 4, 2020

Imagine a bidder wanting to buy KFC, but being told the deal might not include the Colonel’s 11 secret herbs and spices. That’s effectively what Beijing has told the list of US companies keen to purchase short-video app TikTok: The key ingredients may be out of reach. At first it looked like the Trump administration had it all figured out. ByteDance, it decided, was a risk to national security and the Chinese company’s main product for international markets had to be sold.

Viewpoints Sept. 2, 2020

The world’s largest dam is under pressure in the massive flooding that’s wiping away billions of dollars of value in China. The predicament symbolizes a looming crisis for Beijing. Climate change is bringing more frequent and intense deluges that threaten the economic heartland, and infrastructure defenses installed with the disasters of previous eras in mind can’t keep up. There’s very little time to prepare for what’s coming. The problem isn’t that Chi

Viewpoints Sept. 1, 2020

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, is resigning due to ulcerative colitis. He leaves behind a Japan that is both economically stronger and more socially liberal than the one he inherited. When Shinzo Abe took over Japan’s leadership in late 2012, I was extremely skeptical. After a short and unimpressive tenure in office in the mid-2000s, Abe seemed unlikely to rise to the challenge of Japan’s faltering economy and unequal society. And the fact he emerged from

Viewpoints Aug. 31, 2020

The Republican National Convention may be built around the cult of personality of Donald Trump, who is stronger, faster, smarter, richer, more magnanimous, truthful and handsome than any human in history, but even the unparalleled glories of Trumpism are, in the end, mere reflections of the party’s true obsessions: persecution and aggression. Those themes shape the rhetoric that conveys conservative values and inform the fantasies that occupy the party’s large and growing cohort of

Viewpoints Aug. 27, 2020