California mounts an offensive in the bathroom wars

“WE’RE not going to be the first edge of social change,” concedes Jim Gray, mayor of Lexington, Kentucky’s second-biggest city. “But over time we adapt.” He illustrates that; Mr Gray, a successful businessman, who has won plaudits for his leadership of a rare liberal outpost in Kentucky, is the state’s first openly gay elected official. Yet a clanking new face-off in the culture wars, opened by California against Kentucky and another seven Republican states, suggests the smooth transition he describes is by no means assured.

On June 22nd California’s attorney-general, Xavier Becerra, announced he had added Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota and Texas to a blacklist of states he adjudged to have passed anti-gay legislation. Under a recently passed state law, California will not pay non-essential travel costs for government employees to any such proscribed states, which also include Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee. Most of them recently passed laws...Continue reading

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The origin of the specious

 

On the morning of July 2nd, Donald Trump tweeted a video showing himself wrestling a man with a CNN logo for a head to the ground and pummelling him. “#FraudNewsCNN #FNN,” added the president. Mr Trump, a septuagenarian not known for his technical skills, almost certainly did not make the video himself. A user on Reddit, a social-discussion website, going by the moniker of “HanAssholeSolo”, swiftly took credit. The Economist has downloaded and trudged through 1.5m posts made since January 1st 2016 on the forum Mr AssholeSolo frequented, which is a cesspit of bigotry and hatred (“500,000 dead Muslims is a good start”, he wrote in one post). The president, known to be fond of adulation, could find plenty of it here. Some users refer to him as “God emperor”, a phrase that appears more than 6,000 times in post titles.

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The decline of the American teenager's summer job

THE first time that Ronald Reagan appeared on a newspaper front page was as a teenage lifeguard, hailed for saving a drowning man from a fast-flowing river. The future president was not yet “Ronnie”, America’s reassuring, twinkling, optimist-in-chief. He was still “Dutch”, to use his childhood nickname: a slim, bespectacled youth, serious to the point of priggishness. A biographer, Garry Wills, unearthed a high school yearbook in which Reagan scolded swimmers he pulled from the cool, treacherous Rock River, near his boyhood home of Dixon, Illinois. “A big hippopotamus with a sandwich in each hand, and some firewater tanked away,” Reagan wrote of one. Each summer from 1927 to 1932 the teenager would rise early to collect a 300lb block of ice and hamburger supplies before driving in his employer’s van to the river, working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. The post offered responsibility, money for college and stability in a childhood blighted by frequent moves, brushes with...Continue reading

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The story of a shooting in Atlanta

Claud “Tex” McIver awaiting trial

THE last day of Diane McIver’s life began at the ranch she shared with her husband Claud “Tex” McIver near Eatonton, Georgia. It is a handsome property, with a large pond in front of the house, longhorn cattle, horses in a paddock, horse-head statuary at the gates. The McIvers, says Howard Sills, the local sheriff, were ornaments of the community: she was “the life of the party”, he “a gentleman” with “consummate manners”. On that Sunday—September 25th last year—they played golf on a pine-lined course beside Lake Oconee, a favourite playground of well-to-do Atlantans. Mrs McIver, a fine golfer, was on good form. They stopped at a steakhouse next to the highway for what would be her last meal, then headed into the city.

They were on the way to their condominium in a swanky tower in Buckhead, one of Atlanta’s fanciest neighbourhoods. Mrs McIver, who was 63 and president of a marketing firm, had come a...Continue reading

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The Republicans’ chances of replacing Obamacare are receding

Susan Collins in the spotlight

NO REPUBLICAN senator looms larger in the schemes of left-wing protesters than Susan Collins of Maine. One of the last New England moderates, a once-common Republican species, Ms Collins is considered the likeliest holdout against the draft Republican health-care reform that has overshadowed the week-long Independence Day recess. But on the evidence of her appearance at the Fourth of July parade held in Eastport, Maine, America’s easternmost city, liberals can relax.

“Everyone wants to talk about health care—I’ve never known everyone wanting to discuss the same issue like this before,” said Ms Collins, seated in an office at the town’s harbour, after she had marched alongside the local pipe bands, beauty queens and veterans, and chatted with the crowds that lined the parade route. “Almost everyone says the same things: ‘Stay strong’, ‘We’re with you’, ‘Thank you for being opposed to the Senate bill’.”...Continue reading

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State governments are shutting down more frequently

IT WAS a holiday weekend of high political drama in Illinois as lawmakers scrambled to avert a humiliating downgrade to junk status of their state’s bonds by credit-rating agencies. “For me today, right here, right now, this is the sword that I am willing to die on,” proclaimed Michael Unes, one of the Republican state representatives who voted for the revenue and spending bills passed over the weekend by the Democratic-run House of Representatives. Several other Republican lawmakers broke into tears as they voted for tax increases they opposed ideologically but felt are needed to avoid a fall into the financial abyss. Fifteen Republican members of the house broke ranks with Bruce Rauner, the governor, who categorically refused to back the House bills.

Illinois was one of 11 states that failed to meet the deadline for passing a budget. Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin were all without budgets on July 1st. In Pennsylvania and...Continue reading

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New York’s subway is creaking

If you miss the A train

“WE ARE delayed because of train traffic ahead of us,” intoned the familiar automated message on a stalled subway train on June 27th. Earlier that morning a train had derailed, injuring 34 people. The derailment caused delays, re-routings and suspended trains across the century-old system. “The subway is worse now than in the 70s,” grumbled one experienced commuter. Back then the subway was plagued by crime, graffiti and delays galore. Today crime is low, graffiti gallery-worthy and rider numbers at levels not seen since the 1940s. Partly as a result of this popularity, delays have increased by more than 200% since 2012.

The problems have become so bad that Andrew Cuomo, New York’s governor, declared the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the state entity that runs the subway, bus lines and two regional commuter rails, to be in a state of emergency. Emergencies are usually called when a natural disaster strikes. The...Continue reading

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Who Dictates Global Bond Yields? Europe for Now

Bond investors, look to Europe. The delicate dance of expectations between the European Central Bank and government-bond markets is the biggest driver of yields right now.

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Markets worry about central banks

IN JANE AUSTEN’S novel, “Sense and Sensibility”, Henry Dashwood’s death plunges his wife and two daughters, Elinor and Marianne, into financial distress, because his heir grants them only a meagre allowance. Bond-market investors have started to worry that something similar is about to happen to them.

Since 2009 central banks have been incredibly supportive of the financial markets—keeping short-term interest rates at historic lows and buying trillions of dollars worth of bonds. But in recent weeks, several of them have been hinting at reducing their largesse.

The Federal Reserve has been slowly pushing up interest rates and has talked about reducing the size of its balance-sheet, by not reinvesting the proceeds of bonds when they mature. There have been suggestions that the Bank of Canada might push up rates when it meets on July 12th. Both Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England and Andrew Haldane, its chief economist, have hinted that a rate rise may be on...Continue reading

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Economists argue about minimum wages

JUST what is the point of a minimum wage? It seems a straightforward enough question to answer. Minimum wages are designed to protect vulnerable workers who might otherwise lack the bargaining power to command a decent pay package. They are a means to limit severe poverty among those in work.

Yet they also attract opposition from critics who see wage minimums as price controls that discourage firms from hiring as many workers as they otherwise might. For decades, feuding camps of dismal scientists have tussled over whether the good done by minimum wages outweighs the bad. A series of recent minimum-wage increases in America will shine a light on that question and others as well. Indeed, the time may have come for economists to broaden their view of just what a minimum wage is meant to accomplish.

As voter frustration at stagnant pay has grown, politicians on the American left have spotted an opportunity to court popularity by calling for higher minimum wages. Democrats are united behind a demand for a national minimum...Continue reading

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An American payments firm goes online and buys British

Purchasing power

A BIDDING war was briefly but eagerly anticipated. In the end, not a shot was fired. On July 4th the share price of Worldpay, a British payments processor, leapt by 28% after the company said it had received preliminary approaches from JPMorgan Chase, America’s biggest bank, and Vantiv, an American payments firm. The next day Worldpay said it had accepted a cash-and-shares bid from Vantiv, worth £7.7bn ($10bn), giving its shareholders 41% of the combined group. JPMorgan Chase, sniffily explaining that it had considered a bid after an “invitation” from Worldpay, which is a client, declined to proceed. Under Britain’s takeover code that refusal rules out a counter bid for six months. The shares slipped back by nearly 9%.

Vantiv and Worldpay are “merchant acquirers”: companies that have contracts with sellers of goods and services, and licences from credit- and debit-card companies, to accept and process card payments. They also provide...Continue reading

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The EU proposes pan-European pension products

THE story of the European Union is in part that of the steady accretion of power by its central bodies. But until now the politically touchy business of running pensions has, like taxation, been zealously guarded by national governments. No longer: on June 29th the European Commission presented a long-awaited proposal for a pan-European personal-pension product, the snazzily named “Pepp”.

Any attempt to encourage Europeans to make adequate provision for their old age is welcome. The combination of ageing populations, falling birth rates and generous state pensions could leave future generations footing the bill, unless people work for longer. Especially in countries such as Italy and Greece, where the state is the main pension provider, encouraging people to make personal savings for their retirement would be sensible (see this week’s Continue reading

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The City of London prepares for Brexit

OVER a year has passed since Britons voted to leave the European Union. More than three months have gone by since Britain gave formal notice to quit. Less than 21 months remain until March 29th 2019, the scheduled date of Brexit. Yet banks, insurers, asset managers and other financial firms that use London as a base from which to serve the entire EU are little wiser than they were on referendum day about what Brexit will entail. They must plan for it nonetheless.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), Britain’s financial supervisor, wants to see their contingency plans by July 14th. The European Central Bank (ECB) has also asked the banks it watches to lay out their post-Brexit strategies. This is probably not demanding for big banks, which are in constant touch with their overseers and already operate both in London and elsewhere in the EU. But some smaller lenders, especially, have work to do. “I think it is fair to say that most banks are not where they should be,” said...Continue reading

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Wanna buy some cash? It will cost you

ALMOST anything can be bought and sold online. Even so, sales of ordinary banknotes at a big premium are puzzling. On a newish e-commerce site in Japan called Mercari, ¥10,000 ($90) notes were on sale earlier this year for as much as ¥13,000. So bizarre was the phenomenon that it created a furore, leading the firm to ban such deals in April. A rival site, Yahoo Auctions, soon followed suit. The buyers were not indulging a passion for rare banknotes. They simply wanted the money. In need of emergency finance, and having used up all their bank limits, they resorted to buying cash with their credit cards.

The ban has prompted some crafty work-arounds. “Valuable portraits” of Yukichi Fukuzawa, a thinker revered as a guiding light of Japan’s 19th-century modernisation, have been on sale for as much as ¥15,000. That is a hefty premium to the highest-denominated banknote, ¥10,000, which happens to be adorned with Fukuzawa’s likeness. Or take the bottles of water claiming...Continue reading

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How to teach civics in school

GOVERNMENT and civics classes have a reputation for being dry. This means that too many students forget what they have been taught. Two-thirds of Americans could not name all three branches of government, according to a survey published in 2015. Only one-third could name a single Supreme Court justice, or identify Joe Biden as the then-vice president.

Civics has been in decline in schools for decades, says Peter Levine of the Centre for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. It has been pushed aside by a focus on preparing workers for the marketplace with “core” subjects, especially science, technology, engineering and maths. But the idea that it was the responsibility of schools to teach students about politics and democracy flourished well into the second half of the 20th century. It was based on the belief, as promulgated by Horace Mann, who fought for universal education in the 19th century, that education is "our own political safety". Across the country, pupils took classes like...Continue reading

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Turkey’s embattled opposition is marching to Istanbul

THE worst that Kemal Kilicdaroglu has suffered so far, on the 450km (280 mile) protest march he is leading from Ankara to Istanbul, are blisters and broken toenails. In that sense, the 68-year-old leader of Turkey’s biggest opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is lucky. Other opposition politicians are in prison. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has jailed more than 50,000 people and sacked more than 110,000 in ever-wider purges following an attempted coup last July. Mr Erdogan and his Islamist AK party have muzzled the country’s media, stacked the schools, courts and army with loyalists and changed the constitution to grant the president untrammelled executive power.

“We had to do this, because we ran out of options,” said Mr Kilicdaroglu, his face sunburnt from the day’s hike. Mr Kilicdaroglu and thousands of fellow marchers had just walked 22km along a highway through 34°C heat, pausing at rest stops to nap and recharge mobile phones. Now several hundred were camped out for the night in a...Continue reading

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Macron’s ambitions run into economic reality

EMMANUEL MACRON likes pomp. In a speech to MPs and senators on July 3rd in the gilded Palace of Versailles, he referred five times to the “grandeur” of France. His predecessors rarely made such addresses, but he will do so annually, state-of-the-union style. He has said France needs a “Jupiter-like” president: remote and dignified, like the Roman king of the gods. (This sounds less conceited in French than it does in English, but has still raised eyebrows.) Mr Macron’s supporters say he needs to invest his office with more authority to pass ambitious reforms.

For example, Mr Macron wants to change the constitution within a year, by referendum if need be. He wants to cut by one-third the number of parliamentarians, add an unspecified “dose” of proportional representation to the electoral system, slim government and make judges more independent. He reckons voters, who dumped once-dominant political parties in the election, are hungry for big...Continue reading

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As America quits, Europe tries to lead on climate change

CAN Europe carry the Paris agreement on climate change forward now that America has left? That was one of the big questions as leaders of the world’s largest economies gathered for the G20 meeting in Hamburg on July 7th and 8th. Donald Trump’s promise that America will pull out has weakened the deal. Many fear that other countries’ future pledges to cut greenhouse-gas emissions will be less ambitious without the world’s second-largest polluter (after China) doing its share.

Yet America’s departure has galvanised China, which promotes itself as a champion of the deal—and Europe, which thinks itself in the vanguard of greenery. If they remain staunch, reluctant converts such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey are more likely to stay the course. The G20 meeting was just beginning as The Economist went to press, but laying out the next steps for the agreement was on the agenda.

Europe has always played an outsized role in the climate-change debate. It was a...Continue reading

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Estonia is trying to convert the EU to its digital creed

ESTONIANS are among Europe’s least pious folk. Just 2% of the population attend services weekly in the medieval churches of Tallinn, or anywhere else. A growing number of the inhabitants of this forested, sparsely populated land subscribe to the nature-loving precepts of neo-paganism. But there is only one faith that truly unites Estonians. Broach the subject of digital technology, and you will be amazed by their fervour.

Estonia has carved out a niche as a startup hub and a friendly environment for foreign businesses. Its biggest innovation, however, lies in e-government. Citizens of this tiny Baltic nation can conduct almost every encounter with the state online. A digital-signature system makes official transactions a doddle. Armed with an ID card and a PIN, Estonians can vote, submit applications or sign contracts in seconds. Officials claim this lifts annual GDP by 2% while saving a mound of paperwork and creating opportunities for business. Estonians abroad lament the red tape...Continue reading

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BNP Paribas faces accusations over the Rwandan genocide

BNP PARIBAS, France’s biggest bank, pleaded guilty in America three years ago to assisting a monstrous regime in east Africa. In 2006 it had helped to finance Sudan’s government, which in turn supported militias that massacred tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur. The firm thus abetted genocide and circumvented American sanctions on Sudan. It agreed to pay a fine of $9bn for breaking that embargo, as well as ones on Cuba and Iran.

The bank, naturally, hopes to put that grim episode behind it. These days it makes much of its social-responsibility efforts. Its 2015 annual report, for example, trumpeted the financing of a big supermarket in Ivory Coast as typical of its contribution to African development. On July 3rd it named a new head of compliance plus a new “company engagement department”, responsible, among other things, for setting strategy on human rights.

Yet the past is hard to banish. The bank faces scrutiny over an even uglier episode. On June...Continue reading

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Germany is not the new leader of the free world

IF HELMUT KOHL, the deceased chancellor whom Germany commemorated in a ceremony on July 1st, could have looked up from his coffin to assess his country’s global standing, it would have made him proud. European and Chinese leaders were passing through Berlin for preparatory talks ahead of the annual G20 summit of large economies, which this year takes place in Hamburg from July 7th. A week earlier Angela Merkel lambasted the isolationism and protectionism of Donald Trump’s America in a speech to the Bundestag. Once Mr Kohl’s protégée, the chancellor of his reunified Germany is sometimes dubbed the “leader of the free world” in the Anglo-Saxon media.

Yet such epithets get things wrong. To understand why, look at Germany’s relations with Africa, Poland and America.

The flummery is not all misplaced. Mrs Merkel is the most respected (see chart) and longest-serving of the main world leaders. Germany’s new economic pre-eminence has given it the leading role in...Continue reading

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A new trade deal between the EU and Japan

FREE-TRADE agreements have seemed out of fashion as President Donald Trump has set about scotching some of America’s. But on July 5th Cecilia Malmström, the EU trade commissioner, and Fumio Kishida, the Japanese foreign minister, announced they had achieved consensus on a Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (JEEPA). In front of the cameras, they swapped Japanese Daruma dolls, talismans of perseverance and good luck, and, they hope, of a win-win agreement.

The timing of JEEPA was just as carefully co-ordinated. When negotiations started in 2013, it was neither side’s main priority. But now both want to show that they can fill the vacuum left by America’s withdrawal under Mr Trump from its role as the world’s trade leader. To highlight its political importance, they note that this is the first trade agreement to mention the Paris climate accord, another deal Mr Trump has spurned. Haste is handy: the EU wanted success before Brexit negotiations and...Continue reading

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CEO-Worker Pay Ratio Generates Outrage---And Some Insight

A controversial new metric on executive pay is on Congress’s chopping block. Shareholders should want it to survive, even if it only provides a sliver of insight into the companies they own.

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Trump Is Right: China Could Press North Korea More on Trade

In addition to banning coal imports from North Korea, China could tighten the trade screws on its neighbor a lot more if it wanted to.

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Fed's Words Seem to Spell Worry

Is the drop in inflation starting to rattle Federal Reserve policy makers? Their words suggest as much.

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Reality Bites for Tesla Shares

Investors started to lose patience with Tesla this week after another unkept promise: the jolt from Volvo that all its cars would be electric or hybrid by 2019.

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Payments Business Gets a $10 Billion Jolt

Proposed major cross-border deal between U.S. and U.K. payments leaders propels industry into spotlight.

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Islamic State nears its end

THE fireworks have been ordered. Street parties are planned. The Iraqi government has prepared a week of festivities to mark the fall of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s self-proclaimed caliphate. Three years after seizing control of the great alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, Islamic State, which has claimed so many victims in north-western Iraq, Syria and beyond, is finally dying. American-led forces in Syria breached the old city walls of IS’s capital, Raqqa, on July 4th. In Mosul, in Iraq, all but the last alleyways of the Old City were back in government hands as The Economist went to press.

Finding a backdrop from which to celebrate the liberation of Mosul will be difficult, though. Between them, IS and the coalition have destroyed too many shrines and mosques to leave much of historic value, including the al-Nuri mosque dating back to Crusader times from where Mr Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph. Gone is the Jewish quarter, the markets with their...Continue reading

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Trump Meeting Putin Won't Make Russian Investments Great Again

As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin get set for their first face-to-face meeting, investors are left to ponder how little things change in Russia

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Activists May Spoil Clariant and Huntsman's Chemical Romance

Two New York investors have teamed up to overturn the “merger of equals” planned between chemical companies Huntsman and Clariant.

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How to Solve Problems of Misaligned Executive Pay

Investors should focus less on executive share awards and more on executive shareholdings

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Volvo and China Charge Up Electric-Car Drive

Recent policy moves suggest Beijing is looking for quality, as well as quantity, when it comes to green cars.

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Podcast: Vorsprung durch Angst

Germany is admired for a stable economy and holding on to blue-collar jobs but derided for its persistent trade surpluses. Our economics editor John O’Sullivan examines what Chancellor Merkel’s government might do next. Also, how “total immersion” could drive the masses to virtual reality. And why banks are de-risking to avoid penalties. Hosted by Simon Long.

 

Dollar Doom and Gloom Looks Overdone

Emerging-market currencies have benefited from positive economic surprises this year. Their luck may not have much room left to run.

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Why J.P. Morgan May Be Getting Its Deal Making Game On

A possible J.P. Morgan bid for U.K. firm Worldpay comes as the payments sector has been a hive of activity in recent years and is seen as ripe for consolidation.

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Adiós to Venezuelan democracy

Constitutions, like diamonds, are supposed to last. But that is not the view of Nicolás Maduro, a former bus driver chosen by a dying Chávez to replace him as president in 2013. He has ordered a new constituent assembly, to be chosen on July 30th. Everything about the process is different from 1999. In violation of Chávez’s constitution, it has been called by presidential decree rather than by referendum.

Mr Maduro says its purpose is to defeat the opposition’s “fascism”. Yet it will be chosen under a system that might have been devised by Mussolini. Each of the 340 municipalities will elect one assembly member, regardless of size (only state capitals will get two), meaning the opposition-supporting cities are under-represented. A further 181 members will be chosen from communal and occupational groups controlled by the regime.

Mr Maduro wants the assembly because he can no longer stay in power democratically. Low oil prices and mismanagement have exacted a heavy...Continue reading

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Canada’s indigenous people are still overlooked

IF LOCATION were all that mattered, the Rapid Lake First Nation reserve in Quebec would be a paradise. It sits in a wildlife area popular with hikers. The highway leading to it weaves through forests and lakes. But idyllic is not the word that comes to mind driving into the Algonquin community of about 350 people on a rainy day. The dirt roads are turning to mud. Some homes appear derelict. The only electricity comes from a diesel generator. At an office in a trailer Tony Wawatie, a community official, doesn’t mince words: “Some of our people live in third-world conditions.”

Rapid Lake is far from the worst First Nation reserve in Canada. Water does not have to be boiled before drinking, as in more than 130 other First Nation communities. It has not been devastated by youth suicide, like Wapekeka in northern Ontario where three 12-year-old girls have killed themselves this year. Health care beyond what the on-reserve clinic can provide is a drive, not a flight, away. Still, this...Continue reading

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Will oil corrupt a small Caribbean state?

Waiting for the wealth to trickle down

SOUTH AMERICA’S only English-speaking country is one of its poorest. But perhaps not for much longer: Guyana has struck black gold. By 2020 ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest private oil firm, expects to be pumping oil in Guyanese waters, with Hess and Nexen, its American and Chinese partner firms. In the past two years they have found reserves of around 2bn barrels. Five more promising prospects will be drilled by 2018, and then perhaps a dozen more. Guyana could be producing 120,000 barrels per day by 2020, and more than 400,000 by the mid-2020s.

Even with oil at under $50 a barrel, this is vast wealth for a nation of just 750,000. But the Guyanese seem strangely underwhelmed. “It will not trickle down,” a street trader shrugs. Little of the work will be done onshore. Guyana has few engineers and no heavy industry. A global glut of refining capacity means there is no point in Guyana building its own. Oil will be...Continue reading

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South African mining is in crisis

AT THE start of a 4am shift, gold miners scan their fingerprints and squeeze into tiny “mantrap” turnstiles, designed to prevent thieves from slipping through. Then they pile into cages and descend nearly three kilometres (2 miles) underground at Sibanye Gold’s Driefontein mine. A warren of increasingly narrow tunnels leads to the reef, where miners blast a rock face rich with gold. It is gruelling work. Deep in the bedrock, the air feels as hot and humid as a tropical jungle.

Most of the world’s deepest (and historically richest) gold mines are clustered some 70km (40 miles) south-west of Johannesburg. The deeper they go, the more expensive and difficult the work of extracting the ore. Most mines are mature (Driefontein is 65 years old), and the cost of extracting the gold may soon exceed its value. Illegal miners known as “zama-zamas” (“taking chances”) are another problem, undeterred by the extreme depths and high-tech security. At Sibanye’s nearby...Continue reading

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North Korea’s long-range-missile test will alarm Washington

WHEN North Korea claimed it was in the final stages of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at the beginning of the year, Donald Trump scoffed: “It won’t happen.” So it was perhaps not a coincidence that North Korea chose America’s independence day to test a device that it claimed was indeed an ICBM. In fact, even if the claim is technically correct, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, will probably have to wait a few more years before he can brandish a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to Los Angeles or New York. But for America’s top brass, the speed at which North Korea’s missile programme is advancing will cast a pall over the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

The missile appears to have flown for 37 minutes before splashing down some 930km from its launch. According to David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists, it had a lofted (heightened) trajectory, reaching an altitude of 2,800km. On a more conventional trajectory,...Continue reading

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Behind Oil's Ups and Downs, Little Has Changed

Oil investors took an unwelcome rollercoaster ride in June—unfortunately optimism on slowing U.S. supply, which is now pushing prices back up, also looks overdone

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Why It's So Easy to Lose Money in Bonds

The tiny hints from central banks about policy normalization shook markets up last week. They were also a reminder of the highly abnormal situation bond markets find themselves in.

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Car Buying Stalls, Can Consumers Keep Spending?

Americans are buying fewer cars. Will they buy something else?

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How MetLife Spinoff Could Shine Bright

When MetLife spins off Brighthouse Financial, investors will get a leveraged play on higher interest rates.

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Super Mario's Maker Should Bow to Sony

Whether the Nintendo Switch or Sony’s PlayStation 4 is a better videogame console is a matter of debate. When it comes to their Japanese makers’ share prices, Sony is clearly the better bet.

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Poland’s illiberal Law and Justice party is still on top

ON JULY 1ST, about 1,000 dark-suited delegates squeezed into a school sports hall in Przysucha, a small town 100km south of Warsaw, for the national congress of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party. Since coming to power in 2015, the right-wing party and its leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have packed the constitutional tribunal with their own loyalists, transformed the public broadcaster into a propaganda mouthpiece for the government and clashed with the European Commission over migration policy and the rule of law. The country’s nativist lurch has outraged liberals and divided Polish society. The party congress’s slogan, “Poland is one”, seemed like an Orwellian attempt to deny the split, or perhaps to rub it in.

Mr Kaczynski, who turned 68 last month, was in high spirits. From the podium he enumerated PiS’s successes, such as reducing child poverty and improving tax collection. He listed the taming of the media and the judiciary as victories, too. When he cracked...Continue reading

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China's Bond Market Is Attractive---for the Wary

The world’s third-largest bond market offers some moneymaking opportunities, but the biggest risks are hard to price.

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Finally, Something Good From Yahoo

An investment in its offspring, Altaba, offers a high reward if management can reduce its tax liability, and it has limited downside.

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Xi Jinping talks tough to Hong Kong

“ACCORDING to China’s tradition, a man enters adulthood at the age of 20.” So Xi Jinping, China’s president, told grandees at a ceremony in Hong Kong marking the anniversary of the handover of the territory by Britain to China in 1997. In the past two decades, he said, Hong Kong had grown “exuberant like a bamboo or a pine tree”. Yet however much Hong Kong has matured under Chinese rule, it is clear that the motherland does not yet trust it to behave.

When China took over Hong Kong, it promised that the territory would enjoy a “high degree of autonomy” under the principle of “one country, two systems”. But in his speech Mr Xi made clear that China’s support for Hong Kong’s liberal way of life had limits. “Any attempt,” he warned, “to endanger China’s sovereignty and security, challenge the power of the central government…or use Hong Kong to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland is an act that crosses the red line,...Continue reading

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Inflation Amnesia Threatens the Fed

Inflation has been low for so long, Americans are getting used to it. For the Federal Reserve, that is a big problem.

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