Opinion

Despite losing an empire and the sterling as the world’s reserve currency, the UK managed for years to punch well above its weight on international economic and financial issues, often critically informing and influencing key decisions and policy pivots. The policy announcements by the Bank of England (BOE) and the UK Treasury suggest that this is still possible despite concerns ...

Boeing Co’s 737 Max crisis has entered a new phase. Last week brought the revelation that Air Canada is cutting its order for the grounded plane by 18%, marking a major cancellation by a large Western airline in the wake of two fatal crashes and a much-prolonged return to service. This likely won’t be the last: Airlines’ cancellation options increase ...

China advances its campaign for global influence stealthily, partly by winning control of little-known but influential UN agencies. The State Department decided last summer to push back hard — and just won a potentially important victory in protecting global technology rights. The US diplomatic success came recently, when the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) voted 55 to 28 to back ...

The last thing anyone needs in this coronavirus situation is more panic, but there’s a notable gap between the alarms emanating from the airline industry and the sanguine attitude among the companies that supply their spare parts and maintenance work. Last week brought a flood of fresh warnings from US carriers on cancelled flights, with Delta Air Lines Inc and ...

The economic threat from the coronavirus pandemic is profound. Stocks have plunged, oil prices have tumbled, the entire yield curve has fallen below 1% for the first time in history, and the country may already be in recession. Boosting the economy will be difficult, because macroeconomic theory and policy are not set up to deal with pandemics. The US economy ...

Treasury yields have plunged to record lows as investors brace for the impact of the worldwide spread of the coronavirus. With interest rates low or negative around the world, and with central banks struggling to hit their inflation targets even before this evolving public-health shock, it’s understandable that investors are ready for another prolonged bout of central-bank deflation fighting. But ...

Even with plenty of votes remaining to be counted in Michigan and returns from two other states not yet in, it’s clear that Joe Biden had another very good day on March 10. He’s essentially wrapped up the Democratic nomination. Yes, Bernie Sanders technically still could pull ahead, but realistically, the race is over. There are three stories — all ...

The stakes couldn’t be higher for Europe. With the US Federal Reserve aggressively cutting interest rates to buoy the US economy in the face of the Covid-19 crisis — and the Bank of England following suit — a “too little, too late” policy on the part of the European Central Bank risks sending the euro soaring to uncompetitive levels and ...

Governments’ economic policy response to the coronavirus has been a mess of one-off rate cuts, a little bit of liquidity provision and a bunch of disparate spending promises. A coordinated fiscal and monetary effort is sorely needed — if not at the supranational level (which would be ideal), then at least at the individual country level. More important still will ...

We are edging towards a soak-the-rich economy. To borrow from Winston Churchill: Rarely would so much be taken from so few. To be sure, the United States is undertaxed in the sense that people want more government spending than they are willing to pay for with higher taxes. Here are the numbers. In 2019, federal taxes equaled 16% of the ...