Opinion

“The North American cavalry was competent,” Jair Bolsonaro, then a lawmaker, told the Brazilian legislature in 1998. “Having wiped out its Indians in the past, nowadays the country doesn’t have this problem.” Land, he added, should be allocated “in proportion to the population.” Nothing suggests his retrograde views on Brazil’s original inhabitants have changed since he became president nearly three ...

President Joe Biden’s handling of crisis in Afghanistan has few vocal defenders. What they lack in numbers, though, they make up for in unity of message: The press is being too hard on Biden. The president is a victim of “a press corps desperate to show they do not have a liberal bias.” It’s the “overt editorialising” from the press ...

Best Buy Co has deftly navigated its business through the pandemic. The hardest part may come now. The consumer-electronics retailer’s range of products put it in a good position to take advantage of the surge in demand for gadgets, PCs and other devices people could use at home during lockdowns. And by beefing up its online sales and curbside pickup ...

American shoppers are learning to live in a world where Covid-19 is ever-present. They may not like it, but they’re adjusting. It won’t be as easy for retailers such as Walmart Inc and Home Depot Inc to figure out, though. Walmart reported strong quarterly results, including an extra $4 billion of sales above what analysts had been projecting. Still, laced ...

At times, history has been made at Jackson Hole, as the world’s central bankers gaze at the snow-dusted Tetons, coffee cups in hand, to discuss the most pressing economic issues of the day. It’s where Alan Greenspan gave his famous speech explaining why monetary policy shouldn’t be used to prick stock market bubbles, and where, about a decade later, Ben ...

Whenever G7 leaders gather, the optics usually say more than the anodyne communiques issued afterwards. Fortunately for Joe Biden, there will be no group photo from Tuesday’s virtual summit to talk about Afghanistan. The withdrawal debacle has left the world’s preeminent power looking like the unreliable boyfriend (to borrow a charge once levied against the Bank of England). Frustration and ...

A rising tide lifts all boats — even the good ship M&S. British retailer Marks & Spencer Group Plc has been a perennial disappointment to investors. But the household name said its underlying pre-tax profit would be above the upper end of its previous range of 300 million to 350 million pounds ($478 million) this year. The shares rose as ...

Scarce supply and bidding wars have kept many entry level homebuyers out of the market for years. The government is trying to address this by ensuring a higher percentage of federal-backed mortgages go to low-income households, or for houses in communities with a large share of minorities. Expanding mortgage availability is a worthwhile goal, but in a housing market now ...

So far this year, the pandemic recovery limelight has been hogged by the US, and to some degree even the UK. But move over you two English-speaking economies! It might be time for the European tortoise to catch up with the hares. Purchasing managers surveys are probably the best real-time snapshots into to how an economy is faring. While reading ...

One of my great concerns about the pandemic was that it would hinder the global mobility of people and labour, perhaps permanently. Unfortunately, my worst fears are being realised: As Covid mutates, it is affecting not only tourism and business travel but migration more generally. Consider that after the end of the Vietnam War, the US took in more than ...