Opinion

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on statehood for Washington, DC They’re doing this, as is clearly allowed by the Constitution, as simple legislation: The bill would shrink the constitutionally mandated federal district to include just the federal government buildings and monuments, while putting all the district’s residents into the 51st state. It’s a good idea. While it ...

There’s a new bad idea doing the rounds in Europe. Many governments are convinced that a reduction in value-added tax will help relaunch their economies. Some, including Germany, have already wielded the ax. Others, such as Italy and the UK, are taking this option seriously. But the benefits of cutting VAT are limited, and the costs are large. As with ...

Is the global monetary order ready for another reboot? In the 1960s, Japan and Europe exported their way to post-World War II prosperity under the fixed exchange rates of the Bretton Woods agreement. The US went off the gold standard in 1971, but the established way of doing things didn’t collapse. Thirty years later, China essayed the role of being ...

Joe Biden’s growing lead in the presidential polls combined with recent stock-market turbulence has some Wall Street observers wondering if markets are getting nervous about the odds of Democratic victories in November. This anxiety among investors may very well be misplaced, reflecting old and off-base stereotypes of what the two political parties are trying to accomplish. Just as investors were ...

What could possibly attract Bain Capital about an airline that hardly ever generates cash? Loyalty is almost certain to be the answer. Administrators for Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd at Deloitte agreed to sell the second-ranked Australian airline to the private equity firm after it collapsed in April owing A$6.8 billion ($4.7 billion). In a sign of what a difficult path ...

Microsoft Corp was never going to rival Apple Inc in retail, or gain much from it. The coronavirus pandemic provided a good opportunity to face that fact and throw in the towel. The software giant announced it will permanently close all of its Microsoft Store brick-and-mortar locations. The company’s stores, which were primarily based inside malls, were temporarily shuttered in ...

The Covid-19 pandemic is intensifying the most destructive trends in global trade. Support for free trade has given way to talk of decoupling and de-globalisation. Tensions between the US and China are rising, as are calls for protectionism and re-shoring of far-flung supply chains. It is no longer seen as desirable, or even possible, to integrate countries that possess different ...

Medicalising unpleasant character traits or bad behaviors by blaming them on “addictions” worsens the modern tendency to minimise individual responsibility. However, about your sports addiction… Imagine your brain on sports. It is not a pretty picture. The most wondrous thing in the universe is the human brain, and for decades yours has devoted much (most, to be honest) of its ...

You might not have thought it three months ago, when the spread of Covid-19 forced Qantas Airways Ltd to halt international flights and drove its shares to their biggest percentage drop in eight years. But a global pandemic could wind up being good news for the company. Australia’s dominant airline is now something close to a monopoly player. Virgin Australia ...

European Union countries are experimenting with new ways of dealing with the coronavirus. Germany, Portugal and Italy have all enforced selective or “smart” lockdowns, shutting down smaller regions in response to new outbreaks as opposed to bringing their entire countries to a halt. This approach is the only hope of returning to a more normal life as we wait for ...