The day after the US lifted its trade embargo on Burma in 2012, I spoke to an executive at Coca-Cola Co. He proudly announced that his company already had people on a plane headed to the country. It is Coca-Cola’s policy, he explained, to sell its beverages anywhere it’s allowed to do so. Coke was sold in Russia during the ...

  If you’re looking for a case-study in economic groupthink, try Googling the phrase “Fed behind the curve.” Informed opinion, it seems, has congealed behind a conventional wisdom that the US Federal Reserve has been too slow to restrain accelerating inflation. Such widespread confidence would seem to require unambiguous evidence. But where is it? At least one eminent economist thinks ...

  The oil market is desperately in need of demand destruction. Governments should either be encouraging behavioral changes such as using more public transportation or allowing expensive fuel to force consumers to change. Instead, industrialised countries are doing the opposite. Call it demand “construction.” From Germany to New Zealand, and from England to California, policymakers are either cutting taxes on ...