Opinion

  As companies worldwide work to rebuild their stockpiles of goods, they are sending a message about inflation. The trouble is that message is far more worrisome than many people have concluded, and it poses a bigger-than-expected problem for policy makers and the markets. Consider last week’s release of US gross domestic product numbers for the fourth quarter. Those who ...

  If Russia invades Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin will face an immediate and difficult choice: how far to go. Most analysts believe he will probably move forward with an invasion, but is likely to have his military stop within the pro-Russian enclaves of southeastern Ukraine. This would allow him to declare independence for the Donbas region and secure a “land ...

The cohort of listed electric-vehicle startups vying to become the next Tesla Inc. hasn’t produced many vehicles yet. But they’ve sure kept lawyers and forensic accountants busy. Last week two neophyte EV firms that went public via special purpose acquisition companies last year became the latest to overhaul top management after internal probes revealed potentially misleading statements and other questionable ...

  The pandemic hit the US economy unevenly, with some places hurting more than others and recovering at different speeds. As the Federal Reserve gets ready to start raising interest rates, we’re about to see that some places are better-positioned to withstand monetary tightening than others. With national unemployment falling below 4%, the Federal Reserve has indicated it’s time to ...

  It was not a good day for Meta Platforms Inc or its investors, but it was a good day for capitalism. After a quarterly earnings report revealed a decline in Facebook’s daily active users — a first for the company — Meta’s shares plunged by 26% on February 4, some $250 billion in market value was eroded, and analysts ...

  India’s federal budget, presented earlier this week, is both a presentation of the national accounts and the only statement of government policy that we get all year. This year, the accounts made for worrying reading. The government is short of money and the economy is short of momentum. As a statement of policy, however, the budget is far more ...

  Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. has suffered a string of public challenges in the past year as regulators intensified their scrutiny of the company and Apple rolled out a privacy feature that crimped a key source of user data. But as Meta’s wobbly revenue outlook made clear, the company is facing yet another threat to its business. The social ...

For the first time in a long while, there’s good news about Covid-19. The omicron wave is cresting in the US, and in many states is already receding. A respite from Sars-CoV-2 could well follow. And if new variants eventually emerge, it may be possible to live with them — that is, without shutting businesses, always wearing masks, and social ...

  Between Ukraine, Iran, Taiwan and Afghanistan, President Joe Biden has more than enough global problems to focus on. Unfortunately, he needs to add one more: North Korea. Dictator Kim Jong Un has ushered in the new year with a barrage of missile launches — 11 so far, including what now appears to have been the first test of an ...

  As vice president in January 2017, Joe Biden gave a speech endorsing the idea of a “world without nuclear weapons.” Last year, he took office pledging to reduce America’s reliance on those weapons — perhaps with a promise that Washington would never use nuclear weapons first in a conflict, or perhaps by cutting, even eliminating, the country’s intercontinental ballistic ...