Opinion

The Pentagon created the Office of Net Assessment in 1973 to forecast America’s strengths and weaknesses relative to its main adversaries after a nuclear war. What would a similar “net assessment” tell us about how America and the world will look after the coronavirus pandemic? At the heart of such a post-pandemic assessment is the question of where America will ...

“What happened to the soap?” That’s what many Americans may be thinking as they wander forlornly through the aisles of local grocery stores (always careful, of course, to maintain a 6-foot distance from other customers). Fresh food may be abundant, but the necessities of a disease quarantine — hand soap, sanitiser, toilet paper and so on — are increasingly hard ...

Until last week, the UK government under Boris Johnson had been oddly relaxed in its response to the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike many other nations that had closed schools and restaurants and banned gatherings of even five people in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19, the UK had allowed life to continue much as normal, only testing patients entering ...

Banks are thankfully in much better shape to face the coronavirus pandemic than they were before the financial crisis. But as the economic challenge they face grows, regulatory measures to help them that looked overly forgiving just a few weeks ago may prove to be just the start. In 2008-2009, the financial sector’s woes dragged down the real economy. Now ...

Restaurants and shops are closed across the US to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The Federal government has started to address the resulting economic pain with an emergency declaration by President Donald Trump releasing $50 billion for public-health measures and congressional passage of a multi-billion dollar relief bill providing some paid sick leave and extended unemployment benefits, ...

Covid-19 and the Democratic presidential primaries, the two biggest stories of the year so far, reflect a common theme: the death of the progressive left. Looking back, historians may well see late 2019 and very early 2020 as a kind of high-water mark for American progressivism. It wasn’t so long ago that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were commanding most ...

Almost everyone these days carries a device that tracks their movements and shares that information with an array of companies. They may use it to offer everything from food deliveries and car rides to virtual monster hunts. It’s ironic, then, that we’re so reluctant to use the same capabilities to fight a pandemic that could kill millions. Thanks to the ...

By now, it must be obvious to almost everyone that we can’t — and won’t — escape another recession. The coronavirus pandemic is pushing just about every major segment of the US economy into serious decline. Frightened consumers are cutting their purchases. Businesses have already curbed investment spending and, facing new uncertainties, are likely to retrench further. Global trade has ...

They are the most numerous and lowest-paid US healthcare workers: the 4.5 million caregivers who assist elderly and disabled people with such daily activities as bathing, dressing, feeding and toileting. Compared to other medical workers, they have the most frequent and personal contact with the elderly. That puts them on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. Known in the ...

Although President Donald Trump has declared the coronavirus a national emergency and leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he would “call out the military now” to deal with it, Defense Department officials are unenthusiastic about the prospect. And well they should be. There are lots of practical reasons the military isn’t a substitute for the public health infrastructure needed ...