You may remember, early this year, a spate of gloomy reportage about the coming collapse of retail jobs due to automation and online shopping. This wasn’t just a dystopian forecast: Employment in the retail sector fell for seven straight months starting in January. A streak like that hadn’t happened outside of a recession since the early days of World War …

There’s a lot of discussion these days about the US bond market’s yield curve, or more specifically how it has shrunk to the narrowest levels since 2007 — a movement that has historically presaged an economic slowdown. What hasn’t been talked about as much is how Europe’s yield curve has failed to follow the same path. And while there are …

A year ago, I argued that lots of people don’t just want material goods — they crave the dignity that comes from working for a living. Even jobs that economists might deride as make-work can yield meaning, self-respect and social status. For this reason, I suggested that the government should establish a program to give work to everyone who wants …