In the runup to China’s twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress, many analysts have turned bullish on the Chinese economy. Some of the optimism is based on an impressive recovery since the quasi-crisis of late 2015 and early 2016, some on hopes that a strengthened President Xi Jinping will emerge from the congress to restart far-reaching reforms. Whatever the cause, though, the giddiness is ill-founded.In our China Beige Book, we quiz over 3,300 firms across China about the performance of their

By swiftly replacing 11 of 85 regional governors in the past two weeks, President Vladimir Putin is previewing plans to run Russia as a corporation after his all-but-inevitable victory in next year’s presidential election.Long tired of politics, he needs to set up a formal system that doesn’t depend upon former bodyguards and other loyal retainers -- there aren’t enough of them anyway. Instead, he’s seeking to borrow selection techniques from large corporations, according to commentators close t

For anyone baffled by President Barack Obama’s humiliating outreach to Iran in his second term, President Donald Trump’s speech Friday was cathartic.He spoke plainly about Iran’s “rogue regime,” which seized power by revolution and “forced its people to submit to fanatical rule.” The nation’s Revolutionary Guard will be designated as supporting terrorism and sanctioned. Trump seeks to assure us that he will never allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. As I reported last week that he would, Trump st

President Donald Trump’s foreign policy often seems designed to spite his predecessor. Barack Obama’s administration helped negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump voided it. Obama urged countries to accept more Syrian refugees. Trump is accepting far fewer. Obama brought us the Iran nuclear deal. Trump says it’s an embarrassment. And yet on the thorny question of Turkey, Trump’s approach has been more “yes we can” than “make America great again.” Like Obama in his first term, Trump now s

The civilian prime-working-age population in the US has barely budged over the past decade.The Wall Street Journal‘s Lev Borodovsky, taking notice of this phenomenon Wednesday, said it is making it “increasingly challenging to boost the speed of economic expansion.” But “prime age” isn’t necessarily what it used to be in the workplace, and this nation certainly has no shortage of 55-plussers.People 55 and older are less likely to be in the labor force than those aged 25 through 54 -- that‘s why

Texas power generator Luminant announced Friday that it will close two coal-fired power plants in early 2018. Last week, it said it would close another coal plant that is more than 40 years old -- an announcement that came days before the clearly telegraphed effort to roll back the Clean Power Plan. The three plants join the ranks of more than 200 plants that have closed in the past decade due to age, a losing battle against low-cost natural gas and renewable energy, low or negative demand growt

Another big scandal is rocking corporate Japan. This time it’s Kobe Steel, a major producer, which has confessed to faking data on the quality of its materials. Everything from bullet trains to cars to US-made airliners could be affected. It’s doubtful that the scandal will wreak lasting damage on Japan’s reputation for top-notch manufacturing quality -- after all, every country’s industrial giants suffer this sort of debacle from time to time. But Kobe Steel does show that Japanese companies ne

On the evening of Oct. 10, Catalonia’s separatist president, Carles Puigdemont, stood before the regional parliament to deliver what was widely expected to be a unilateral declaration of independence. But he ended up offering a fudge. Despite asserting “the mandate that Catalonia become an independent state in the form of a republic,” he proposed “suspending the effects of the declaration of independence to undertake talks in the coming weeks.”The performance left more questions than answers, bu

If you thought internet ads were annoying, consider this: The websites you visit could now be harnessing your computer to do cryptocurrency mining.Digital currencies demand a lot of computing power. To complete each block of transactions, computer owners around the world must race to solve an extremely difficult cryptographic puzzle, with the winner getting paid in the relevant cryptocurrency. To increase their chances, such “miners” invest vast amounts in processing capacity -- building server

A few decades ago the choice for most people was pretty simple: either the city or the suburbs. The city was exciting but a little dangerous. The suburbs were comfortable but bland. These days our suburbs and cities are converging, which is narrowing our lifestyle choices.Consider the Washington area. The Rosslyn, Clarendon and Ballston parts of Arlington, Virginia -- which are right next to the District of Columbia -- used to be considered suburban, and are still formally classified as such. Ye

For all the mystery surrounding who will rise and fall at next week’s big leadership conclave in China, only one question really matters to investors: Will President Xi Jinping, having sidelined any obvious opposition, attack head-on the enormous imbalances and risks building inside the Chinese economy?Optimists argue that he will. The Economist Intelligence Unit recently wrote, “Xi will find his ability to implement policy substantially reinforced by newly strengthened majorities. After the Par

Nobody would ever accuse the International Monetary Fund of getting carried away.Just when we are getting used to the notion of a synchronized global expansion, the lender feels it has to pad its upgraded forecasts with some dampeners. It’s almost as though there is too much good news. That’s a pity.Muffling the good news under warnings and to-do lists risks contributing to the false notion that the modern economy is somehow broken. Growth is on a firmer and broader footing now than at any point

For 30 years China has recycled more cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and old computers than any other nation. By doing so, it’s saved millions of tons of resources and indirectly funded thousands of recycling programs and companies globally. But now it wants to stop. In July, China notified the World Trade Organization that it will soon prohibit the import of many types of recyclables. As a result, recycling programs and companies around the world are scrambling to find new destinations for the

When Tom Price was pushed out of his cabinet job last month for sticking taxpayers with $1 million worth of private jet travel, the White House explained that his behavior was unacceptable in an administration devoted to draining the Washington swamp.I wonder where the former health and human services secretary got the notion that it was OK to mix public service and personal privilege. The values of a presidential administration flow from the top. President Donald Trump has been signaling loudly

Back in the 1980s or 1990s, few would have predicted that Japan would become the standard-bearer of free trade. This is, after all, the country that once tried to ban foreign-made skis by claiming that Japanese snow was different from snow in other countries.How times have changed. As the US sinks into protectionism, the Land of the Rising Sun is one of the few countries still pushing for trade agreements. Japan recently made a free trade deal with the European Union and is trying to keep the Tr

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson insists that he’s staying at Foggy Bottom following reports that, after one humiliation on top of another from President Donald Trump, he threatened to quit. On PredictIt, a prediction market for politics, people who think Tillerson will be in his present job at year’s end could have put down 71 cents on Thursday morning for a chance to win a buck; a 30-cent wager could win the same dollar if they’re wrong.Go for the bigger payout.Despite Tillerson’s ineptitude a

North Korea now has two ways to get on the internet, thanks to a new connection from Russia, according to cybersecurity outfit FireEye Inc.Russian telecommunications company TransTeleCom opened a new link for users in North Korea, Bryce Boland, chief technology officer for the Asia-Pacific region at FireEye, said in an interview on Monday. Until now, state-owned China United Network Communications Ltd. was the country’s sole connection. Boland was confirming an earlier report by website 38 North

If Shinzo Abe wins the snap election he’s just called for next month, he could become Japan’s longest-serving postwar prime minister. A better legacy would be as the man who reshaped the world’s third-biggest economy.Abe came into office pledging first and foremost to transform the economy. He’s made some progress -- bringing more women into the Japanese workforce, improving corporate governance, negotiating (and now, keeping alive) the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and welcoming mor

When discussing Japan’s debt, most people get caught up in the issue of fiscal solvency. As everyone by now knows, Japan has a very high level of debt versus gross domestic product:This attention-grabbing number -- about twice the level of the US -- often gets people asking whether Japan will default. Some believe a default is likely when the country runs out of domestic buyers for government bonds, causing interest rates to rise. Others think the Bank of Japan can simply print money and buy gov

Fiat just ain’t what it used to be, and that’s been a boon for investors, who have made the former Italian industrial conglomerate the most valuable automotive group on Wall Street amid speculation that more wheeling and dealing awaits.“Old Fiat” now consists of three listed companies -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, Ferrari NV and CNH Industrial NV -- and their combined value rose over 70 percent this year to $63.7 billion. That’s more than 10 times the group’s worth in 2004, when Sergio Marchi