World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Before thousands descended on St. Petersburg for Russia’s annual economic forum this month, the local governor boasted to radio listeners that no one had held a similar-scale event since the pandemic struck. A few days later, President Vladimir Putin told the audience that his country was in a…

A model of corporate finance that I like and find helpful goes like this: 1. A company is founded to do a thing. 2. It raises money from investors to do the thing. 3. It spends the money to do the thing. 4. It does the thing profitably, which generates money. 5. It gives some of the money…

With the Lebanese Saeed Akl and the Iraqi Saadi Youssef, as with the many other poets who passed away between the two’s passing, the same scenario is repeated: As soon as a poet, a novelist, or an artist leaves our world, we see the emergence of satire and eulogies that are, in most cases,…

Did George Bush commit a sin two decades ago similar to the one committed by Leonid Brezhnev four decades earlier when he sent his army to Afghanistan to wage an unwinnable war in a country that cannot be controlled? Was sending the American army to topple Saddam Hussein a similar sin that ended…

Of the natural gas burned in American homes, just 2.8% is used for cooking, according to a 2015 survey by the US Energy Information Administration. Residential natural-gas use in turn makes up just 15% of total US consumption, a percentage that has fallen over the past decade as (1) natural…

“Legacy” and “mature” are the words usually thrown at the semiconductors Tom Caulfield produces at factories in Singapore, the US and Germany. He doesn’t like that. Instead, the chief executive officer of GlobalFoundries wants people to refer to his chips as “feature-rich,” a term he feels…

Reportedly, there’s a deal on an infrastructure bill, which may or may not have the votes to defeat a filibuster in the Senate and may not even have enough votes to clear the House and at any rate will be vetoed by President Joe Biden unless a different bill including other portions of his…

The Supreme Court’s decision in the shareholders’ suit against Goldman Sachs over the bank’s transparency was extremely subtle, leaving enough room for both sides to say that they were happy with it. And it did very little, if anything, to make new law. So what were the justices doing, exactly?…

When the US Food and Drug Administration approved Biogen Inc.'s controversial Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm earlier this month without firm evidence that the drug helps patients, it created concern that other unproven treatments might follow. That scenario is already here. Eli Lilly & Co. announced…

After a scathing, tell-all report laid bare allegations of collusion with top government officials, Toshiba Corp.’s shareholders took the bold and unexpected step of removing the chairman of the board. They shouldn't stop there. On Friday, shareholders rejected Chairman Osamu Nagayama’s…

The US has traditionally been a nation of optimists about technology. But just when the world seems poised for a technologically-driven productivity boom, Americans have acquired a dour outlook about the march of progress. Growing fears that not everyone will share in the benefits is leading to…

You never know what will interest the readership. Summer is here, the markets appear already to be becalmed again after a brief spurt of excitement over the Federal Reserve, and the European soccer championships have finished their opening stage. And goalkeepers are in the news. Last week, I…