Now that the government shutdown is over, perhaps it is appropriate to consider a delicate question: Is it still OK to tell people they need to save more money?It’s an issue that came to the fore during the last five weeks, when hundreds of thousands of federal government workers, and many contractors, didn’t get paid, leaving many of them illiquid. I sympathize with the frustrated, laid-off workers -- my wife was one of them -- and consider the government shutdown to have been flat-out stupid.

Viewpoints Jan. 29, 2019

In the past decade, China has relied primarily on credit growth to fund its economic ambitions. The country’s banks are now feeling the constraints of this lending binge and need to raise a lot of capital over the next couple of years.The way China handles this challenge will determine its economic health. With 267 trillion yuan ($39.4 trillion) of total assets, and home to the world’s four largest banks by this measure, the country’s financial system doesn’t operate in isolation. Whatever happe

Viewpoints Jan. 28, 2019

Give Donald Trump credit. On Wednesday the US president recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president. At least a dozen other countries in the Western Hemisphere have since followed suit.There were signs that such a move was in the works. Senior US officials had declared as illegitimate the 2018 election that gave President Nicolas Maduro a second term. On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence released a video pledging US support for popular protests against

Viewpoints Jan. 28, 2019

We are in the midst of a new Cold War, with the United States and China carving out separate economic and political orders. Let’s consider how it might look in a few years.There will be two separate internets, with the US and China as the two dominant players. American tech companies still will be kept out of China, and Chinese tech companies will find it hard to get Western contracts or sales, as Huawei is discovering with its plans to build 5G networks. National security and surveillance consi

Viewpoints Jan. 27, 2019

Who says the government can’t innovate? In one Chinese city, the local court system recently launched a smartphone-based map that displays the location and identity of anyone within 500 meters who’s landed on a government creditworthiness blacklist. Worried the person seated next to you at Starbucks might not have paid a court-approved fine? The Deadbeat Map, as it’s known, provides pinpoint confirmation, the ability to share that information via social media and -- if so inclined -- a reporting

Viewpoints Jan. 27, 2019

If Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime falls, Russian President Vladimir Putin will have to write off yet another costly geopolitical bet. Just don’t expect Moscow to stop taking such gambles as it tries to counter US influence across the globe.Russia is Venezuela’s most important foreign sponsor after China. China’s investment has been estimated to be as much as $70 billion, most of it to be paid back in oil. Russia and its state-owned companies have lent and injected more than $17 bil

Viewpoints Jan. 27, 2019

David Autor, a labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a record of attacking the biggest and most important issues. He has raised alarms about disappearing middle-skilled jobs, pointed to the downsides of trade with China, warned about increasing industrial concentration, and attacked the question of whether automation will kill jobs.　In a recent lecture at the American Economic Association meeting in Atlanta, Autor attempted to weave many of those threads together into

Viewpoints Jan. 24, 2019

For the past year, the US and China have been engaged in a wide-ranging trade war. Nominally, the dispute concerns intellectual property violations, forced technology transfers and other unfair practices. In reality, though, this clash is a symptom of a much larger strategic showdown -- one in which Chinese President Xi Jinping seeks “decisive victory.”Aided by technology, China is embarking on a new kind of geopolitical strategy. As the Chinese Academy of Sciences explained, the goal is to buil

Viewpoints Jan. 23, 2019

Ten years ago, the Davos conference asked the question: “What must industry do to prevent a broad social backlash?” The answer probably wasn’t “Double, triple or sextuple the wealth of the most prominent conference attendees, while letting median household incomes stagnate back home.” Yet that’s what happened. Make no mistake: The backlash is coming.　There has always been a whiff of hypocrisy at Davos, where elites expand their carbon footprint, eat $43 hot dogs and throw lavish parties in the n

Viewpoints Jan. 23, 2019

The “gig economy” has become the cause celebre for people who think labor needs help from government in its struggle with capital. Politicians from the radical left and anti-establishment parties say the rise of casual work is a sign that work relationships are sliding back in time and that the state must step in to address this decline in standards.　John McDonnell, the UK Labour Party’s economics spokesman, says “zero-hour contracts” and the gig economy have produced workplace “insecurity not s

Viewpoints Jan. 23, 2019

There has been an unexpected development in the US-China trade war. Chinese trade officials apparently offered a huge concession earlier this month: a promise to completely eliminate its trade surplus with the US by 2024. The offer was off the record, but it’s still a huge surprise, especially given the haphazard and clumsy way that President Donald Trump has chosen to fight his trade war.　Why is China making this proposal? One possibility is that the government is afraid that the trade war is h

Viewpoints Jan. 22, 2019

The US push to “decouple” its economy from China’s is causing ripples in Europe. The Federation of German Industries, the most influential industrial lobby group, has proposed a vision for keeping Europe’s important economic relationship with China alive and preventing the country’s state-owned and state-supported firms from competing unfairly.　As President Donald Trump has intensified his war against the established rules of global trade, the European Union has increasingly found itself on the

Viewpoints Jan. 22, 2019

On the morning of March 26, 2018, my colleague Yoolim Lee ordered a Grab ride in Singapore. Within hours, she was lying in hospital with a fractured vertebrae and a vertebral artery dissection.　Her story, published in the Jan. 19 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek, is the result of what happens when a deeply personal incident collides with journalistic curiosity. Lee’s tale also brings to the fore something about the ride-hailing industry that’s been sitting in the subconscious of many executives

Viewpoints Jan. 22, 2019