Opinion

The work-from-home movement is gaining steam in Silicon Valley as a flurry of companies — big and small — are embracing remote-working policies beyond the pandemic. But even as some executives extol its virtues, other tech leaders aren’t so sure, opening a growing divide inside the industry over the future of work. It’s a worthy debate. Facebook Inc CEO Mark ...

Franco-German plan for a 500 billion-euro ($548 billion) “recovery fund” for the European Union has raised the hackles of a group of smaller countries, made up of Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. The so-called “frugal four” believe the EU should only loan the money to the countries most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, rather than giving it away in ...

This summer, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will launch a rover designed to collect samples of the Martian surface and store them until they can eventually be brought back to Earth. When they arrive, according to a former Nasa scientist, they’ll be “quarantined and treated as though they are the Ebola virus until proven safe.” His statement caused ...

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced a stimulus package for India, he said it was worth Rs 20 trillion — $265 billion, equivalent to about 10% of the country’s GDP. This seemed to fit in with the amounts being spent by some rich OECD economies to deal with the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. Equity markets exulted. In Modi’s ...

It’s no surprise to hear that retailers’ online sales are surging through the coronavirus pandemic. But would you guess that for some of the biggest winners, it’s their physical stores that gave those sales a boost? Even as consumers grapple with stay-at-home orders and their own fears of contagion, a surprisingly large number are willing to pick up their digital ...

Like all businesses upended by the pandemic lockdowns, banks were forced to reorganise with little time. They managed to shutter large parts of their branch networks and to send most of their employees to work remotely. So far, the experiment has been largely free of glitches — and instructive. By redeploying armies of staff, lenders were mostly able to adapt ...

Weak presidents are not safe for democracy. Bright Line Watch, a project of political scientists worried about the erosion of democratic institutions, has found increasing concern by experts about the state of US democracy since 2017. That’s despite the well-documented case that Donald Trump has been an unusually weak president. He often defers to Republican Party regulars on policy questions; ...

The economy isn’t going to bounce back quickly on its own from the coronavirus pandemic. State reopenings, premature or not, will restore a modicum of economic activity, but it won’t be enough to put many local businesses in the black. If the virus comes roaring back in states that reopen, it will cause a wave of fear that will depress ...

Walmart Inc, one of the few big winners during the coronavirus crisis, just had a blowout quarter. The knock-on positive effects may last beyond the pandemic. Bulk buying of toilet paper, bleach and hand sanitiser helped the world’s biggest retailer increase US same-store sales (excluding fuel) by a better-than-expected 10% in the three months ended on May 1. That marked ...

After the world has finally worked its way beyond the Covid-19 crisis, it may have to confront a danger that almost everybody has forgotten: higher inflation. At the moment, it’s the last thing investors and governments are worried about, which is exactly what makes the threat so plausible. It has been decades since governments have lost sleep over high inflation. ...