Opinion

If you’re haggling over the price of goods at a market, there often comes a point when the buyer threatens to walk away. It’s up to the seller to decide whether or not that’s a bluff. That’s the right way to consider the news that Chinese state-owned agricultural companies have been ordered to pause purchases of US farm goods, including ...

From the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute (BFI) — named for Milton Friedman and Gary Becker, two of the university’s 30 Nobel laureates in economics — comes this warning: Recovery from the pandemic’s economic damage will be protracted and perhaps made more so by some of Congress’ intendedly ameliorative measures. In their report “Covid-19 Is Also a Reallocation Shock,” ...

Covid-19 became a pandemic because airplane passengers carried the new coronavirus with them around the world. As that became clear, airlines grounded nearly all of their fleets, governments issued travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines, and tourist attractions and conferences closed down. With no reason to fly, a quick recovery for air travel seemed unlikely. Warren Buffett dumped his airline stocks, ...

The story of Covid-19 has been pretty bleak, from the scale of the novel coronavirus’s death toll to the pain of draconian lockdowns imposed by, in many cases, unprepared and under-resourced governments. But several weeks after the tentative lifting of tough stay-at-home restrictions in several major European countries, there are reasons to be optimistic about the risk of a second ...

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has said Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from China after a monthslong crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. This has paved the way for the Trump administration to strip the territory of some of its privileged trade status. But alas, if Hong Kong would have been just another Chinese city. Hong Kong is defined by ...

From Harvard Law School comes the latest conservative flirtation with authoritarianism. Professor Adrian Vermeule, a 2016 Catholic convert, is an “integralist” who regrets his academic specialty, the Constitution, and rejects the separation of church and state. His much-discussed recent Atlantic essay advocating a government that judges “the quality and moral worth of public speech” is unimportant as a practical political ...

Like so many Americans, I didn’t get much sleep last week. I kept refreshing my Twitter feed, watching and re-watching the videos of the rioting that took place in cities nationwide in reaction to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week. I saw a New York police officer throwing a young protester to the ground, calling her a ...

There were many missteps in the US response to Covid-19, especially at the outset of the outbreak. One that stands out is the early choice to recommend against the widespread public use of masks by the Trump administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — and even Anthony Fauci. In hindsight and in light of current pro-mask guidelines, it’s ...

Hong Kong presents a unique contrast between historical richness and vivacious modernity, with its classic trams roaming the streets and noisy, bustling restaurants. It is a romantic fusion of the East and the West. To our regret, such romance is evaporating. In recent months, we have seen terrible scenes there. Mobs attacked the police with iron rods, and stockpiled bricks ...

Too bad I didn’t keep our plane tickets from 2012 as souvenirs. They showed us departing from Los Angeles (LAX) and arriving at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), which was just about to open. But the launch, already delayed the previous year, was again called off at the last minute. So we landed instead at the charming but small Tegel airport ...