If the recent selloff in markets proves anything, it’s that for too many years too many people were focussed solely on returns with zero consideration for risk or safety. The last time anyone really thought about safety in markets was during the financial crisis more than a decade ago, when investors couldn’t get enough government bonds or cash. But as ...

It doesn’t matter that the United States doubled China in reported Covid-19 cases because those numbers (164,610 and 82,198 respectively as of March 31) don’t tell us how many people actually became infected in either country. Nor do they tell us how fast the disease is spreading, since only a tiny portion of the population in the United States has ...

Authorities’ efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus have plunged the US economy into a sharp contraction, leading some to argue that the cure may be worse than the disease. This misguided thinking ignores a crucial consideration: As Congress and the Federal Reserve have demonstrated, we can improve the trade-off by lowering the cost of saving lives. No doubt, ...