Opinion

The pandemic relief deal that Congress struck is long overdue. Unfortunately, the package includes a provision that threatens to make this and future crises worse — by limiting the emergency powers of the Federal Reserve. At issue is Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act, which grants the central bank broad powers to make loans and otherwise keep money flowing ...

Doctors, nurses and other essential workers are getting vaccinated against Covid-19 in the US and UK. Yet in Asia, where several countries led the way in reining in the viral outbreak, there are few signs that detailed distribution plans are ready to be implemented. Supplies are limited and unknowns plentiful. Governments need to jump-start the process to get shots into ...

When the world’s biggest health crisis in a century struck in February, central bankers and politicians rushed to protect their economies. The devastation of lockdown threatened even the soundest financial firms, whose collapse would have worsened the crisis. But the trillions of dollars plowed into companies and households, accompanied by the easing of regulatory demands on lenders, didn’t merely ensure ...

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed just how much governments matter — and that competent management can be the difference between life and death. Good leadership requires good information to support smart, timely decisions. Further, democracy itself relies on information that is understood and trusted by its citizens. High-quality accounting is a vital source of that information. In the fight against ...

The arrival of vaccines carries hope that an end to the pandemic may be in sight. But even after the health crisis is brought under control, governments will have to continue dealing with the economic consequences. Two primary concerns have emerged: The first is addressing the inequalities caused by lockdowns and other social-distancing measures. The pandemic has caused a deep ...

Amid the Covid-19 crisis, three out of four Indians are experiencing their first recession. As might be expected, women are bearing the brunt of the pain — and the consequences could be long-lasting. A tiny elite of urban, educated women has benefited from the shift to remote work under lockdown: A recent study released by LinkedIn, based on internal data ...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and members of his government risk significant political damage for their decision to introduce extremely tough restrictions on London and parts of the southeast England and withdraw a significant part of the social accommodations they had announced for Christmas gatherings. Yet as Johnson said in a widely watched briefing to the nation, “when the science ...

JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon made no secret that he wanted to buy back some of the bank’s stock before the roaring equity market rally took it too far. “I hope we can do it before it goes way up,” he said in July. Five months later, right in the heart of the holiday season, the Federal Reserve made ...

It’s easy to get caught up in oil’s recovery. After an exceptionally fraught year, hopes are high that putting 2020 soundly behind us can only mean better days. But there’s still a long way to go to get back to anything like normal. That hard reality didn’t stop crude prices from rising by $14 a barrel, or 37%, since the ...

It’s hard to believe, but one year ago, the big news story was President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Twelve months later, a viral pandemic is killing thousands of Americans every day and Republicans are still so loyal to Trump that it took until now for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to acknowledge that he’d lost the November election.So it seems worth ...