Opinion

Senator Joe Manchin carries a fateful burden. By quirk of gridlock, he is literally the swing vote between two warring visions for the vote itself. If he gives his decisive 50th vote in the Senate to pass S. 1 — the For the People Act — millions are sure to revolt against perceived tyranny from Democrats expanding the franchise with ...

In the wake of the pandemic, Americans are rediscovering the importance of the economy’s supply side. But this won’t be a rerun of the 1980 — we’re learning that there’s a lot more to bolstering supply than tax cuts and deregulation. Economists, as most people know, tend to think of the world in terms of supply and demand. The Great ...

Consumer prices paid by city dwellers in the US rose more than 7% last month and more than 9% in April on an annualised basis. If this keeps up the rest of the year, it will be the highest inflation rate the US has experienced since the 1980s. But fear not, say some investors and the Federal Reserve, the bond ...

Energy policy is often judged by three criteria: cost, reliability and effect on carbon emissions. That makes good sense. The energy sector is remarkably politicised. The current infrastructure could probably not be built under the regulatory regime, which may also hinder the development of tomorrow’s green-energy infrastructure. It is not easy to put wind turbines next to the homes of ...

Are Texas and California really so different? They certainly look different from the rest of the country in one respect. For all their contrasts, Texas and California are currently united in asking their respective populations to unplug appliances and forgo the air conditioning. Both have experienced blackouts of some form in the past year, and both have issued warnings about ...

Policy-making for the post-pandemic period has begun. Common sense made a welcome reappearance in the debate over the sudden jump in recovery-induced inflation when Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged that there are upside risks to the US central bank’s forecasts that aggressive price gains in some sectors will fade away. Though a lot of the recent surges may indeed ...

Thousands of miles from the corridors of the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, a struggle between competing views on inflation is unfolding. Two emerging-market icons are watching prices jump and steering very different courses: Brazil is cracking down, while India prefers to wait and hope the phenomenon flames out on its own. Which of the two approaches proves most ...

Venezuela’s strongman sounds desperate. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Nicolas Maduro pleads with US President Joe Biden to lift the crippling sanctions on his country imposed by former President Donald Trump. “If Venezuela can’t produce oil and sell it, can’t produce and sell its gold, can’t produce and sell its bauxite, can’t produce iron, etcetera, and can’t earn revenue ...

US regulators are toughening their stance on Chinese makers of surveillance cameras and other hardware. By turning to an old playbook, though, Washington is diverting focus from the future and diminishing America’s ability to remain a global technology leader. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed a ban on use of certain telecommunications products and other electronics made by Chinese companies, ...

Last week, the Senate passed a measure that would allot $10 billion over five years for Nasa to develop two new lunar landers. Buried in a nearly $250 billion bill intended to boost innovation, the measure was equal to about 43% of the space agency’s total budget. Why the extravagance? On one level, it surely makes sense to build a ...