Opinion

Only a few months into the Covid-19 pandemic, its disruption of our lives might still seem to be no more than a giant pause — global in scale and unprecedented, yes, but nonetheless temporary. But what if, as some experts reckon, this pause lasts years? What if there’s no return to normality even when it’s over? Maybe this pandemic isn’t ...

No one was asking, but it turns out a global pandemic isn’t enough for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to take a break from fretting about purportedly “borrowing money from future generations.” Never mind that the three-month-old coronavirus crisis has led to more than $2.3 trillion in congressional appropriations, to say nothing of the $484 billion relief package that passed ...

Will fashionistas embrace ostentatious outfits and logo-heavy handbags with as much gusto as the coronavirus crisis unfolds? This is a question that all luxury groups must grapple with. But it’s an especially pertinent one for Gucci, the superstar brand owned by luxury behemoth Kering SA. Gucci has had nothing short of a miraculous turnaround under creative director Alessandro Michele, who ...

The European Central Bank’s (ECB) meeting on April 30 might be its most important as it tries to manage the devastating economic impact of the Covid-19 virus. While its reaction so far has worked, it will need much greater firepower in the future. It will also have to be much more flexible in how it applies its rules on asset ...

As the economic carnage from the coronavirus pandemic continues, a long-forbidden word is starting to creep onto people’s lips: “depression.” In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was no commonly accepted word for a slowdown in the economy. “Panic” was the term typically used for financial crises, while long slumps were commonly called depressions. Presidents such as James Monroe ...

T he Covid-19 pandemic is a bracing national security challenge — and how the country responds is doubly crucial, since biological history tells us that another, potentially more lethal, pathogen is inevitable. The US military can play a valuable role in helping to fight the next pandemic, if the lessons of this crisis are inculcated and implemented now. America’s armed ...

A large part of managing the economic disruption from the coronavirus crisis has been keeping businesses and individuals afloat amid the shutdown of large parts of the economy. Banks, landlords, the federal government, hospitals and workers have all chipped in to do their part. But one notable group of companies has been missing from this process — large technology companies ...

A Holy Grail of policymaking since the end of the 1970s high-inflation era has been to stop turning public debt into interest-free money. In emerging economies like India, where the idea made a late entry, this dogma is threatening to get in the way of mounting a robust response to the coronavirus. The reluctance to surrender hard-won victories is understandable. ...

On Thursday, the European Union’s leaders will gather to decide on a joint response to the economic crisis caused by Covid-19. The central question will be whether the euro zone is ready to issue some form of mutualised debt to relieve pressure on the bloc’s most fragile member states. The chances of anything resembling so-called “euro bonds” are extremely slim. ...

When naming his telecom foray in 2016, Mukesh Ambani chose the mirror image of OIL, the commodity that has made him India’s richest man. In hindsight, Jio was a good choice. The week that oil prices turned negative, the refining tycoon won a $5.7 billion investment from Facebook Inc for his digital assets, Jio Platforms Ltd. Like his wordplay, the ...