Opinion

Last year was supposed to be an aberration for iron ore, an unexpected period of sky-high prices after a fatal dam collapse in Brazil and a tropical cyclone in Australia. Instead, it continues to defy gravity. Sheltered from the worst of the pandemic upheaval, Australian diggers like BHP Group, which reported stable output for the March quarter on Tuesday, can ...

Social media perked up over the past few days on the news that a number of biggish, publicly traded restaurant chains managed to snare millions in government aid for small businesses that more modestly sized restaurants and vendors missed out on. Public outrage about this dumpster fire is useful and welcome. It’s also occasionally been misplaced. But it’s founded on ...

Where is the demand to come from? That is the crucial economic question these days. If we can’t answer it (and for now, we can’t), then the outlook is bleak. It implies a weak recovery or — worse — a Depression-like stagnation with massive joblessness. Economists project the recovery to begin sometime in the summer. But who will do the ...

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is doubling down on its cloud strategy with a $28 billion increase in spending over the next three years. Ignore for a moment that huge number, and turn instead to what this says about the e-commerce company’s priorities. China’s largest technology company is essentially admitting that the consumer story may have run its course, and the ...

The coronavirus may have upended life as we know it, but one thing hasn’t changed: Companies looking to flout good governance practices will find a way. Now they have the perfect cover — and once again, China is leading the way. While online investor meetings are becoming standard, HNA Group Co took the practice to the extreme last week. Last ...

Since the Coronavirus outbreak began, the UK has seemed more united than at any point in the last few years. The political logjam over Brexit has given way to solidarity against a common, invisible enemy. But beneath the surface, the divisions that defined the past four years persist and may grow as Britain’s transition period runs out. Even amid the ...

France didn’t need a coronavirus to wake up to the benefits of big government. The nation of Jean-Baptiste Colbert — the 17th-century top-down economic planner who likened taxation to the art of plucking feathers from a goose — was already the top state spender and tax collector relative to economic output among its OECD peers before the epidemic struck. While ...

So long, activists. No one’s giving you any cash back, at least not anytime soon. Companies and investors alike are stashing money as Covid-19 throws an uncertain future across the global economy. Liquidity is front of mind. Automakers and retailers in the US have drawn down billions of dollars on their credit lines to deal with impending shortages. But Japan ...

It’s confusing, I get it. For the past four years, the message has been: “Don’t trust Big Tech with your data!” Now, Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google are offering a tool to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic that needs you to surrender more information to your smartphone. It’s sensitive information too. They want to know whether you’ve had the virus ...

Long before today’s coronavirus lockdown provided occasions for the vice that the phrase denotes, “binge watching” had entered Americans’ lexicon. Few, however, speak of binge reading. To understand why this is regrettable, mute Netflix long enough to read Adam Garfinkle’s “The Erosion of Deep Literacy” in National Affairs. He believes that because of the displacement of reading by digital, usually ...