When Thomas Edison was asked about conducting thousands of experiments without results, he responded that he always got results: He knew “several thousand things that won’t work.” America’s states are, Louis Brandeis said, laboratories of democracy, and recently Wisconsin successfully demonstrated what does not work when holding elections during a pandemic. After insisting for weeks that the statutory election schedule ...

Apple and Google have generated much hope and controversy with their plan to create a Covid-19 tracking app. Too bad it won’t work. Public debate has focussed on how to balance the right to privacy with the potential to save lives. There’s ample reason for skepticism — for example, “anonymous” Bluetooth tracking can be deanonymised. But that’s not what I ...

Just how serious will the economic impact of the coronavirus be? Amid vast uncertainty, some very large numbers are flying around, and there’s a lot of confusion over what they mean. Peering through this fog, it’s worth noting: Authoritative official forecasters are far more pessimistic in the short term than most private-sector analysts. When Goldman Sachs, for instance, recently said ...

Doing “whatever it takes” to save the global economy from the coronavirus pandemic is going to cost a lot of money. The US government alone is spending a few trillion dollars, and the Federal Reserve is creating another few trillion dollars to keep the financial system from collapsing. A custom Bloomberg index measuring M2 figures for 12 major economies including ...

It’s still early days in this pandemic, but not too early to venture a prediction: Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel, will come out of it looking quite good. What’s more, she may look even better as the outbreak enters its second phase, in which lockdowns gradually yield to uneasy resumptions of social and economic life. That’s because this pandemic ...

There is a sad inevitability about US department store JC Penney potentially exploring bankruptcy protection. The 118-year-old retailer has enough cash to survive the coming months, but it is looking into a possible bankruptcy filing to restructure its finances, Reuters, citing people familiar with the talks. JC Penney said it wouldn’t make a $12 million interest payment due April 15, ...

For Asia’s most prosperous societies, Covid-19 has exposed a big vulnerability: People simply aren’t having enough babies to replenish their aging populations. It’s foreign workers that make these countries function. That’s why pulling up the drawbridge to halt further spread of the disease and protect domestic businesses would be perilous. Even Japan and South Korea, often seen as hostile to ...

Bloomberg European stocks rose alongside US equity futures on Thursday, trimming some losses from a day earlier as investors seeking to gauge the extent of damage caused by the coronavirus await the next set of corporate earnings and economic data. The dollar extended gains. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index opened higher with all sectors and major national gauges in the ...

Bloomberg Indian stocks rose in a volatile trading session, as investors mulled the outlook for company earnings after software services provider Wipro Ltd. declined to provide guidance for the first time since 2009. The S&P BSE Sensex advanced 0.8% to 30,618.57 as of 12:56 pm in Mumbai, after swinging between a loss of as much as 1.2% and a gain ...

Bloomberg Investors are pouring money into exchange-traded funds tracking gold amid expectations of a global recession and massive stimulus from central banks and governments. BlackRock’s iShares Gold Trust, ticker IAU, took in $486 million, its largest one-day inflow on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. At the same time, State Street’s SPDR Gold Shares, or GLD, has seen 10 ...