From debt vultures and cooked books to fiscal time bombs, Argentine President Mauricio Macri inherited quite the mess. In his three years of office, he has handled most of these challenges remarkably well, drawing cheers from investors and his compatriots. Here was a decisive, business-friendly manager, talking transparency and free market initiatives to end what might have been “the largest populist experiment” in the world, in the words of Oxford Economics analyst Guillermo Tolosa.　Now the muc

There’s no doubt that the US economy is in a boom. The Conference Board is reporting the highest levels of job satisfaction in more than a decade. This is probably because of a tight labor market -- the ratio between the unemployment level and the number of job vacancies is at its lowest level in a half-century.　A broader measure, the prime-age employment-to-population ratio, is back to 2006 levels. Meanwhile, real gross domestic product growth for the second quarter was just revised up to 4.2 p

As if the free world didn’t have enough to worry about with Russian fake news, now the world leader in state-sponsored terrorism is getting into the act: Iran is running a disinformation campaign on social media, and it is bigger than previously believed.　A closer look at this propaganda, however, reveals a paper tiger. Iran’s network of Twitter handles, websites and Facebook fakes are amateurish and clumsy. Anyone foolish enough to trust information from something called the “Liberty Front Pres

For a man behind bars, former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been on a tear. In recent weeks, his followers have taken to the streets in his name. Foreign celebrities and world leaders including a Nobel Peace Prize laureate have sung his praises. Even Pope Francis reportedly sent him blessings. No other candidate comes close in the polls for the Oct. 7 presidential elections.　That’s not half bad for the political leader whom two Brazilian courts found guilty of graft and money

Last week, California’s state legislature approved a bill requiring the state to get 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. It’s a landmark for power sector decarbonization, and if Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill, it will require a transformation of the state’s energy system.　California already gets 29 percent of its electricity from zero-carbon wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy, and it has already reduced statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. As I

I first visited Taiwan in the 1970s as a young officer serving in an American destroyer assigned to the Pacific Fleet. A small, dynamic nation at the northern edge of the strategically crucial South China Sea, the Republic of China (as Taiwan prefers to be known) was locked in a Cold War duel of geopolitics with its vastly larger cousin across the Taiwan Strait, the People’s Republic of China.　I returned to Taiwan last week for meetings with senior officials -- President Tsai Ing-wen, Foreign Mi

US Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bill -- the Accountable Capitalism Act -- that would require large companies to create corporate charters that take account of the interests of workers, customers and communities in addition to shareholders. To enforce this dictum, it would give each company’s employees the power to elect 40 percent of the corporate directors.　Right now, US corporations are set up to maximize the value of their shareholders. According to classic free-market theory, this wi

When President Donald Trump announced a trade pact with Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, attention immediately turned to Canada. But it’s in China -- which wasn’t mentioned -- that the greatest impact could be felt.　In abandoning Nafta, the US appears to be moving toward a single trade bloc that might also embrace Canada. The Mexico accord tightens rules of origin on automobiles, so that 40 percent to 45 percent of their content must be made by domestic companies whose

An agreement between Serbia and Kosovo to settle a long-standing dispute over their mutual border is becoming more than an abstract idea. The countries’ leaders have held initial talks on a so-called border correction, a process that could offer a way to ease their accession to the European Union. The conversation went well enough for Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo President Hashim Thaci to appear together over the weekend at a news conference in the Austrian town of Alpbach.　The

Build, baby, build. Infrastructure spending in China is heating up again. But this time, the government wants help. Beijing entered the year with a tough stance on debt, tightening its purse strings to head off the risk of a Minsky moment. The Ministry of Finance lowered its fiscal deficit target to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product, the first cut since 2013, and went so far as to halt all government-funded work in Xinjiang, an area bigger than France. As a result, infrastructure growth grou

Last week, the hunger strike by Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov in a Russian prison crossed the 100-day mark. That exceeds the 66-day protest that caused the death of Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands in 1981, and is close to the length of the 1986 fast by Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko, who stopped at 117 days, but died 10 days later.　Sentsov’s decision to refuse food until Russia frees all of its Ukrainian political prisoners (various lists contain between 64 and 71 names) has

Global warming is getting a little scary, as its consequences emerge more quickly than most scientists had expected in soaring global temperatures, unprecedented wildfires and many other effects. This year is on target to be the fourth hottest ever, only just behind the three previous years. Meanwhile, humanity has made very little progress in taking action, with CO2 emissions higher now than ever before, having actually increased 60 percent over the past 25 years -- all while we’ve been fully a

For anyone longing for the clarity of the Cold War, Cuba has been an enduring inspiration. Forget the gringo-sponsored Washington Consensus, messy electoral democracy or wishy-washy pink tide. The Caribbean island has remained a single-family regime serving straight-up 20th century communism.　Yet to gauge by the commotion among the leadership in Havana, those comforting assurances are gone. The Castros are out, private property is in, and the United States is no longer the enemy -- just a necess

Microsoft’s announcement that it has taken down a number of fake domains set up by the same cyberespionage group that allegedly hacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016 shows Russia’s interest in US politics isn’t ebbing. More importantly, it highlights that the methods these malicious actors have been using since well before the 2016 US election can still be effective.　In a blog post signed by Microsoft President Brad Smith, the company said it had obtained a court order to take over si

The economic collapse in Venezuela continues to be spectacular and horrifying. Thanks to hyperinflation, the stack of cash it takes to purchase vegetables is often larger than the vegetables themselves. Tens of millions of Venezuelans are going hungry, and dangerous weight loss is rampant, indicating that outright famine may be close. The country’s health system is in crisis. And all this is despite oil prices having doubled from their 2016 lows; if prices crash, expect the situation to worsen f

At the Sephora beauty store in Shanghai’s Super Brand mall, face masks are such a big thing they have their own section. There are rows and rows of them, ranging from special concoctions for the eye area to products that reduce the appearance of fine lines.　The face mask frenzy isn’t confined to the high-end market occupied by this division of luxury group LVMH. It’s the same at a Primark discount emporium near the British seaside town of Margate, and a Walmart big-box store in Washington, DC, w

With the latest round of trade talks between the US and China ending in a predictable stalemate, one thing has become clear: The Trump administration’s approach to these negotiations has made it all but impossible for Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a deal. Until that changes, there’s no end in sight for the tariff-for-tariff tussle between the two countries, and little chance of achieving Donald Trump’s stated goals.　The White House seems to misunderstand a crucial fact about modern China.

China’s urbanization push helped modernize its economy and has been a key component of its boom during the past two decades. But although the migration of hundreds of millions of workers from rural China to skyscrapers in the country’s cities has been good for economic growth, it may turn out to be a weakness for the country in the future. What China needs now, given its looming demographic crisis, is more babies, and a country built around workers crammed together in dense cities isn’t the best

News that China and the US will resume trade talks this week swiftly lifted markets. This follows the first meetings at the annual summer retreat of the Chinese Communist Party leadership at the beachside resort of Beidaihe. As might be expected, the main topic this summer has been the US-China trade war, where it might lead and what could conceivably be done to avert it without an unacceptable loss of political face.　While we won’t have any real indication as to the tenor of the Chinese discuss

Doors are slamming shut in the developed world not just to Chinese investment in technology, but potentially to a wave of acquisitions with a tech element as diverse as smart heaters and robotic lawnmowers.　President Donald Trump last week signed an update to legislation for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US that broadened the interagency vetting committee group’s scope to encompass even minority and passive investments in three areas: Critical technology, infrastructure and business