A John le Carré Election? on July 31, 2016You haven’t seen Donald Trump’s tax returns, but you’ve seen the Democratic National Committee’s emails. There may be a connection: Mr. Trump is not as rich and independent as he says, and his business empire has partly been financed in recent decades by Russian interests that perhaps now favor his rise to the White House. […]
Climate denial finally pays off on July 4, 2016No contributor has written more frequently on the subject of climate change on these pages—45 times over the past 20 years according to the “study” behind a recent series of ads (at $27,309 a pop) assailing the Journal’s editorial page for its climate coverage. Yet how ploddingly conventional my views have been: I’ve written that […]
From the mouth of The Donald comes wisdom on Americas climate dissonance on June 3, 2016 Political markets are weird: They cry out for something and yet politicians, with their enslavement to conventional wisdom and careerist caution, are unwilling to supply it. Then along comes Donald Trump. Mr. Trump, in his set-piece energy speech on Thursday, did something that might outlast his presidential hopes. In his anti-intellectual way, he made […]
The cable bundle will be reborn on May 15, 2016A psychodrama has played out all year involving Disney chief Bob Iger and Wall Street analysts. It concerns the future of the cable bundle on which consumers shell out $80 or $100 every month. Mr. Iger says the bundle is not going away soon, and-anyway-Disney can always sell its hugely profitable ESPN directly to consumers […]
Big banks arent the problem on April 24, 2016Companies fret about “silos” in which employees obsess about the wrong thing and miss opportunities because they don’t see a bigger picture. Wonkery has its silos too, and one of them is too big to fail. The 2008 crisis did not begin in a handful of too-big-to-fail banks, but in incentives cast far and wide […]
History of a climate con on April 17, 2016How’s this for an irony? As state attorneys general gin up a fake securities-fraud case against oil companies over climate change, starting with Exxon Mobil Corp. , the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a real securities-fraud investigation of the nation’s biggest solar power company. SunEdison ‘s sin: allegedly exaggerating its amount of cash on […]
Can Trump start a trade war? on March 14, 2016 Donald Trump is a businessman who gets things done, he keeps telling us. His prowess as a negotiator is central to his pitch for granting him the powers of the presidency to “make America great again.” Not that he actually reminds us of any business great we’ve heard of— Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jack […]