Global worries over trade wars, central bank rate hikes and geopolitical instability have hammered emerging-market debt in recent months. The fact is, over the past decade, many developing and low-income countries have simply borrowed too much. They borrowed from the markets, from banks and from other countries. In particular, they borrowed from China, which has averaged more than $100 billion in annual financing commitments since 2010. 　Those bills are now coming due. As one of the largest prov

Viewpoints July 9, 2018

The landslide victory of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico’s presidential elections comes two months after the startling return to power in Malaysia of Mahathir Mohamad and, on a smaller scale, a week after the wholly unexpected triumph in a New York Democratic primary of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old novice politician.　What’s strikingly common to the rise of Obrador, Mohamad, Ocasio-Cortez and many other disparate figures is their fervent support among young voters. Many youth tod

Viewpoints July 9, 2018

Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist and one of the pioneers of the World Wide Web, once declared: The spread of computers and the internet will put jobs in two categories. People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do. Andreessen has since repudiated this declaration, and taken a more optimistic stance. But economists, a more pessimistic bunch, are taking the possibility of this sort of bifurcated future more seriously. As machine-learning technology enjoy

Viewpoints July 9, 2018

As the trade war between the US and China escalates, with President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports, both sides are trying to portray themselves as victims of an unconstrained unilateralist rival. They’re both wrong: This dispute is about something much bigger.　For many years, American foreign policy adopted a fairly strong pro-China stance. The US was a major proponent of China’s accession to the World Trade Organization and took no direct policy actions in respo

Viewpoints July 8, 2018

The European Parliament’s rejection of new copyright rules shows how difficult it is for regulators to compel the tech industry to pay for content that it uses for free.　The parliament voted Thursday to send a draft Copyright Directive back to the drawing board; a new version will be debated in September. The decision is a disappointment for Paul McCartney, who had urged legislators to pass the measure. It also represents a missed opportunity for news organizations, which would have received a l

Viewpoints July 8, 2018

Americans’ growing preoccupation with the culture wars has meant a greater focus on the two branches of government where these often symbolic battles are most fought and noticed: the presidency and the Supreme Court. A byproduct is the relative neglect of the third branch, Congress.　This has led to poor governance. Not long ago, the Republicans passed a tax reform bill, in part because they thought voters would like it. Six months later, the bill is losing popularity. The benefits of the bill ar

Viewpoints July 5, 2018

A Wall Street Journal analysis recently concluded that “more than 40 percent of households headed by people aged 55 through 70 lack sufficient resources to maintain their living standard in retirement.”　It isn’t easy to solve the problem for those already at retirement age, but behavioral economists, working at the border of economics and psychology, have a magic bullet for getting younger people to save more: make enrollment in retirement savings plans automatic. In 2006, Congress blessed this

Viewpoints July 2, 2018

The Singapore meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un made for a great propaganda film for North Korean TV, with swelling music, a swooning commentator and swanky pageantry. The planned summit between Trump and President Vladimir Putin won’t even produce that; it will be a pure waste of time for everyone involved.　The meeting, confirmed by Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, would serve two purposes: The US president loves playing the international statesman and Putin

Viewpoints July 2, 2018

Last year, Corporate America was all about press releases announcing lofty US hiring plans. The new fad is to threaten the reverse.　 On Friday, General Motors joined Harley-Davidson and bourbon maker Brown-Forman in calling out the negative impact to their businesses from President Donald Trump’s effort to use national security as an excuse to slap tariffs on goods imported from US allies. GM said tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts could lead it to employ fewer US workers and have less

Viewpoints July 1, 2018