Among the many political shortcomings that the pandemic has laid bare is that the US suffers from constitutional and statutory gaps that make its democracy, and even its basic governing ability, vulnerable in an emergency. The good news? The hard thinking about this problem has mostly already been done. The bad news? No one who can do anything about it ...

When a congressional back-bencher with fringe right-wing ideas took office last year, many Brazilians held their breath. Some hoped and prayed that Jair Bolsonaro might rise to the occasion, moderate his rhetoric and compensate for his lack of executive experience by delegating to a first-rate cabinet. Leave it to the adults in the room — Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, Vice ...

The economic contraction wrought by efforts to contain the coronavirus is shredding inflation. Now deflation, a prolonged period of falling prices, is stalking the globe. The collapsing oil market is both a symptom of weaker demand and cause for a deepening slump. Huge levels of stimulus are likely to be required long after the pandemic subsides. Yet concerns about prices ...

As the calendar turns to May, we’re likely to see a slow return of growth for some types of economic activity that were wiped out by the coronavirus shutdowns in March and April. That’s the good news. The bad news is, as we’ve seen in the oil industry, much of the economy remains tremendously oversupplied for likely levels of demand ...

The UK’s House of Commons, often called the “mother of parliaments” (although that’s not the original meaning of the term), took a flying leap into the Zoom era this week with its first virtual Prime Minister’s Questions meeting. It was a different look from the usually raucous, crowded chamber of standing speeches, jeers, interruptions, eye-rolls and the suspense-filled votes that ...

As governments in Europe and elsewhere start to look at reopening their economies after the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, mass antibody testing has come to the fore as a potential way of making sure the outbreak doesn’t surge again. These serological tests — which are being rolled out in Italy, Germany and the UK, as well as New ...

Covid-19 was only just arriving from Asia when the European Commission, with the technocratic equivalent of fanfare, announced a “Conference on the Future of Europe,” to be kicked off in May. Now, of course, the various seminars, committees and working groups are in lockdown limbo. And the conference title suddenly seems exceptionally ill-chosen. For it raises the question: Does the ...

Bloomberg Carl Icahn isn’t buying stocks right now. He’s hoarding cash, shorting commercial real estate and preparing for the coronavirus to wreak more havoc. This is a time to be “extremely careful,” Icahn said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. From his home on Miami’s Biscayne Bay, the billionaire investor has surveyed the damage to stock prices — and to ...

Bloomberg E-commerce companies have emerged as a favourite play on Wall Street during the coronavirus pandemic, amid a growing consensus that upcoming results will reveal a potentially permanent shift in consumer behaviour towards online shopping. While online sales have long been growing their market share as a percentage of overall retail spending, the trend has been accelerated as shutdowns force ...

Bloomberg Canadian stocks rose in Toronto, capping a fifth straight week of gains, the longest stretch in over a year. The S&P/TSX Composite index added 1.2%, with the health-care and technology sectors posting the biggest increases. Tech stocks have gained 25% this year, led by e-commerce company Shopify Inc.’s more than 75% surge. The e-commerce sector has been a favourite ...