Opinion

The pandemic has asked many difficult questions of Europe’s governments, from whether to close down schools to which companies to bail out. As economies continue to open up, politicians face a new daunting choice: Should they leave their employment furlough schemes in place? These support programs have kept workers in their jobs (artificially) at a vast cost to the public ...

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump issued several new executive orders aimed at extending the Covid-19 economic stimulus that has offered some financial relief to millions of Americans. But instead of bringing clarity, the orders have generated a raft of confusion. Are they even constitutional? Will they go into effect? For your convenience, here’s a simple rule of thumb for ...

Amazon.com Inc might soon be filling online orders from the kinds of shopping centers it has helped destroy. The e-commerce giant, according to the Wall Street Journal, is in talks with mall operator Simon Property Group Inc about setting up fulfillment centres in spaces currently or formerly occupied by JC Penney and Sears, two once-mighty department stores that have filed ...

Covid-19 may have left roads around the globe barren of cars, but it hasn’t stopped China from claiming leadership over the world of navigation and digital mapping. Watch out, GPS. Big plans are in the making. China has launched the final leg of its BeiDou Navigation Satellite system, or BDS, completing the build-out of a network that competes with America’s ...

Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation to extend the Federal Reserve’s mandate and require the central bank to address racial injustice. So long as Republicans have a Senate majority, the measure is unlikely to pass — but that arithmetic might change next year. Does it make sense to instruct the Fed to “exercise all duties and functions in a manner ...

Adm Michael M Gilday, the chief of naval operations, sent a bracing message to his admirals and chief petty officers in July after he toured the aftermath of the horrific fire aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego. “My gut tells me our Sailors met that challenge head on,” Gilday wrote to his senior staff. His advice: “Focus on ...

Prior to the pandemic, the wealthy never travelled so well. With the economy on solid ground and financial assets soaring to new highs, investment in the travel industry boomed. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, one in 10 workers worldwide, or 330 million in all, owed their jobs to the travel and tourism industry. In the five years ...

Investors who expected that the July jobs report would compel congressional officials to avoid a collapse in negotiations on a new coronavirus relief bill were met instead with data that seems likely to entrench Democrats and Republicans in their positions. Just consider the headline number: US payrolls increased by 1.76 million in July. On the one hand, that beat estimates ...

Like the rest of us, the world’s finance industry is still wrestling with the huge uncertainty of a pandemic that doesn’t yet have an end. The sector’s reputation took a battering after the financial crisis, and it’s too early to say how things will go this time. One area in the spotlight is insurance, with myriad claims being pursued by ...

We have been too gentle with reality. It must be clear to almost everyone by now that the sudden and sharp economic downturn that began in late March is something more than a severe recession. That label was, perhaps, justifiable for the 2007-2009 Great Recession, when unemployment reached a peak of 10%. It isn’t now. “This situation is so dire ...