Seventy-five years ago, the prestige of the United States and the United Kingdom could not have been higher. They had defeated imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, and they did so in the name of freedom a ...More
EJ Insight2020-09-11
April marked the most dramatic and, some would say, dangerous phase of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States. Deaths were spiking, bodies were piling up in refrigerated trucks outside hospitals in ...More
EJ Insight2020-09-10
To escape the clutches of a pandemic, a country needs three things. First and foremost, it needs a sufficient understanding of the disease, including how transmission occurs. Second, it requires acces ...More
EJ Insight2020-09-03
The price of gold reached an all-time high of $2,000 per ounce in early August. And while mainstream economists have treated gold as a sideshow since the world abandoned the gold standard in 1971, thi ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-24
In the midst of the growing climate crisis, the world can no longer rely solely on old models of economic development. In this context, the concept of a bioeconomy – activities that produce relatively ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-24
On August 11, the OECD signaled that it would be revising its 2020 real (inflation-adjusted) GDP forecast for South Korea from -1.2% to -0.8%, adding to the confidence that the country is faring bette ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-19
In an April commentary about the wild gyrations in financial markets during the February-March phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, I noted that the behavior of equity markets had been as bewildering, comp ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-14
Americans heading into the fall and the new school year are grappling with interrelated upheavals in health, the economy, family life, and race relations. The COVID-19 crisis is falling hardest on the ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-13
As the COVID-19 crisis accelerates the long-term shift away from cash (at least in tax-compliant, legal transactions), official discussions about digital currencies are heating up. Between the impendi ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-07
Many white Christian evangelicals in the United States have long believed that America has a God-given mission to save the world. Under the influence of this crusading mentality, US foreign policy has ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-07
COVID-19 has become a severe stress test for countries around the world. From supply-chain management and health-care capacity to regulatory reform and economic stimulus, the pandemic has mercilessly ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-05
In a speech last month at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared politely that Nixon had been wrong about China. Opening up to the People’s Repub ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-05
To track the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, the United States is relying heavily on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) live virus testing at massive scale. In the most common ver ...More
EJ Insight2020-08-03
In February, I warned that any number of foreseeable crises – “white swans” – could trigger a massive global disturbance this year. I noted that: “… the US and Iran have already had a military confron ...More
EJ Insight2020-07-31
By disrupting the world’s interconnected economic, social, and geopolitical spheres, the COVID-19 crisis has exposed just how fragile and inequitable the institutions that govern them really are. It h ...More
EJ Insight2020-07-31
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened awareness of the significant flaws in our urban infrastructure, and highlighted our lack of attention to how human health, natural systems, and the built environme ...More
EJ Insight2020-07-30
On some issues, the majority of scientists agree, but large segments of the public are not convinced, resulting in consensus gaps. Unfortunately, many of the most important gaps today relate to sustai ...More
EJ Insight2020-07-24
Death tolls don’t lie. The most striking disparity in COVID-19 fatalities to date is between East Asian countries, where the total number of deaths per million inhabitants is consistently below ten, a ...More
EJ Insight2020-07-23
The COVID-19 crisis has caused scientists, governments, and public-health experts to scramble to understand the relationship between the transmission of zoonotic diseases (those that jump from animals ...More
EJ Insight2020-07-21
