Opinion

This is one of those weeks when, sitting here in Berlin, I feel much closer to my place of birth, New York. By one hour, to be precise. Most of the US switched to daylight savings time last weekend, whereas Germany — the first country to introduce “summertime” about a century ago — will spring forward next Sunday. As a ...

If India proceeds with a rumoured ban on cryptocurrency, it wouldn’t be the country’s first attempt to impose currency controls. This time, however, a ban is even less likely to succeed — and the consequences for India’s economy could be more dire. The country shouldn’t make the same mistake twice. In the 1970s and 80s, at the height of what ...

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Joe Biden denied that the perception that he is softer than his predecessor has contributed to a surge of migrants at the border with Mexico. A lot of people who are well disposed to the president — including Democratic Representative Don Beyer of Virginia and Juliette Kayyem, an official in ...

In the 1990s, a Republican explained to me why “the Democrat party” was his preferred term for the opposition: “They’re no more democratic than we are.” Nowadays that is very much a subject of dispute. In recent years, and especially in recent months, progressives have increasingly become convinced that the Republican Party is a threat to democracy; that hostility to ...

Economic recoveries are supposed to be a time of celebration for investors, and the recovery from Covid-19 now underway should be no different. The economy is growing again; business activity is picking up; deflation is a distant threat; cheap money is goosing the recovery; and stocks are surging on hopes of higher profits. And yet, rather than cheer their good ...

It’s a big week for central bank meetings, with the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday, the Bank of England Thursday and the Bank of Japan wrapping it up on Friday. My plea is that they keep it simple. Central bank messaging really doesn’t have to be as difficult as it has become lately — with a plethora of jargon-infected initiatives ...

Sir Robert Peel, the father of modern policing and London’s first proper police force, said that policing succeeds when it prevents crime while gaining the public’s trust and partnership. Last week, the Met Police, as London’s force is known, failed on both counts. As perhaps the world knows by now, Sarah Everard was abducted and killed in south London despite ...

With the Covid-19 relief bill behind us, attention is turning to infrastructure — a longstanding priority for President Joe Biden’s economic recovery program. A big infrastructure bill would achieve multiple goals at the same time: putting Americans to work, raising wages, strengthening the economy, improving industrial competitiveness and speeding the transition to green energy. Given the confluence of all of ...

As more Americans get vaccinated, there is increasing talk of “vaccine passports.” There are strong emotional reactions to this idea, positive and negative, but my attempt at a more analytical view leads me to a conclusion that is not entirely satisfying (even to me): America should work to develop vaccine passports but never actually require them. First, I am not ...

Cathie Wood is a superstar. In just one year, her ARK Investment Management took in nearly $40 billion of new money, behind only Vanguard Group and BlackRock Inc’s iShares, each of which has hundreds of funds. Last year, the performance of her flagship ARK Innovation ETF, which holds next-generation tech frontiers such as Tesla Inc and Square Inc, was nothing ...