Opinion

  As Russia’s war with Ukraine plods on, a pincer movement is advancing toward UK households this winter. The price of natural gas has doubled since April and is about seven times what it was a year ago. High gas prices boost electricity costs, which in turn push up the price for manufacturing inputs, food and pretty much everything else. ...

It’s la rentrée. Europe is getting back to business after its summer break — but this year feels like jumping into a cold shower. Just listen to Emmanuel Macron. The French President told his ministers during their first formal gathering last week that a new paradigm is on the horizon — it’s the end of abundance in a care-free world. ...

How is it that China’s power plants are running short of coal, a year into a national mobilization plan to ensure security of supply? Over the past five years, the country’s six major generators typically have had enough solid fuel in their yards to keep their turbines running for about three weeks. The figure has hardly ever dropped below about ...

  It’s tough being caught in the middle, especially when it comes to inflation. The pandemic caused a significant shift in demand toward goods and away from services and shattered the stable supply-demand balance that had spawned two decades of inflation averaging just above 2%. This abrupt change in demand patterns sparked pricing shocks that basically divided companies into winners, ...

  Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has finally delivered his message loud and clear: To get inflation under control, the central bank intends to push interest rates higher, and keep them there longer, than markets had expected. It’s a great first step. Now the Fed must follow through. In his speech at the annual Jackson Hole economics conference, Powell defined ...

Moderna Inc. dropped a lawsuit on Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, claiming the technology in their Covid-19 shots infringes on its messenger RNA patents. The legal battle will surely be protracted and expensive. What it won’t do is slow the pace of innovation in mRNA, if gene editing tool Crispr’s legal tangles are a guide. Vaccines and therapies that use ...

They’ve been a­round for thousands of years but they’re still tripping up foreign investors in China. Company chops are the carved seals that, when used with a red inkpad to stamp documents, confer legitimacy on corporate actions. Investors accustomed to the norms of Western business may think they control the company when they hold a majority of the shares. Nuh-uh. ...

  With a new school year getting underway, public-school districts in the US are sounding alarms about a looming shortage of teachers. In response, some states have loosened rules to bring more workers, including those who haven’t yet earned a college degree, into the profession. These efforts are worthwhile — but they’re only addressing half the problem. Although reports of ...

  President Joe Biden’s student-debt plan is bad policy in too many ways to count. But is it also bad politics? Apparently he and his advisers think not, given that he announced this initiative just before the midterm elections. No disrespect to their expertise, but I wonder if they have miscalculated. Consider the substance first. The exact cost of forgiving ...

China’s central bank protests too much. Beijing is wary of overdoing its efforts to shore up the troubled financial system and faltering economy, but continues to be pushed into rolling out new measures. Fresh steps are announced almost daily, though many are modest in scope. China faces at least another year of lackluster expansion, and global growth will endure significant ...