Opinion

  For Federal Reserve officials who want to get inflation under control, the outlook has certainly improved in recent weeks. First, inflation has peaked. In particular, goods price inflation is falling as supply chain disruptions ease and demand shifts toward services and away from goods. And even though the labour market remains unusually tight, wage inflation has stabilised rather than ...

The UK government’s 25% windfall tax on oil and gas company profits, along with the accompanying investment allowance that will let them avoid most of it, will do little to address the country’s pressing energy needs. Speaking in parliament, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, didn’t dare utter the words “windfall tax” — something the opposition parties had been urging ...

  It feels like Singapore has only just switched from combating the pandemic, with some of the developed world’s strictest curbs, to plunging headlong into a fight against inflation. The central bank tightened policy three times since late last year. Now, the highly urbanised island that imports most of what it eats has a front-row seat to food nationalism. Neighbouring ...

  Japan has been a little bemused to find that a long-running family-favourite TV show, known here as Hajimete no Otsukai (My First Errand), has suddenly achieved international fame on Netflix as Old Enough. The program, which features preschoolers running errands by themselves, has triggered worldwide debate about parenting standards. One article in the UK blasted the reality TV show ...

  Moving the Champions League soccer final to Paris from the Gazprom Arena in St Petersburg was supposed to be a diplomatic poke in the eye for Vladimir Putin. It has instead turned into a post-pandemic stress test of the French capital’s ability to manage a major international sporting event — and all the visitors that go with it — ...

Sri Lanka has a habit of selling off its assets when times are tough. And it doesn’t get much tougher than this. The tiny island nation is in default and in desperate need of $4 billion to pay for food, fuel and fertiliser to stave off a deeper crisis. The newly appointed prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe — his sixth time ...

At first glance, the acute shortage of baby formula seems like an advertisement for breast-feeding. If only women did what came naturally, the thinking might go, maybe there wouldn’t be a problem at all. This argument would draw on evidence that multinational corporations like Nestle did much to persuade women to give up breast-feeding in favour of formula. Their 20th-century ...

  Cryptocurrencies are the exact opposite of a prudent investment: They’re volatile, have little practical use beyond speculation and crime, often get lost or stolen, and lack the real-world cash flows that underpin the values of stocks and bonds. It should thus go without saying that they have no place in a retirement savings plan. Unfortunately, it appears to require ...

  One of the ironies of Russia’s war against Ukraine — ostensibly fought to prevent that nation from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) — has been its impact on two of Europe’s traditionally neutral states, Finland and Sweden. On May 18, just 84 days after the invasion, Swedish and Finnish ambassadors handed over applications to join Nato in ...

President Joseph Biden couldn’t have beaten Donald Trump in 2020 without the support of Big Tech and Black voters. Donations from Silicon Valley employees and political action committees gave the former vice president a critical cash advantage in the final scramble to election day, while Black voter turnout tipped the balance in key states such as Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. ...