The nation has been rocked by yet another mass killing — the shooting of eight people at massage parlors in Atlanta. But this one is even more ominous than usual, because six of the victims were Asian women at a time when hate crimes and attacks against Asian Americans have soared. It also comes…

Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill has passed the Senate, clearing the way for it to become law. Much of the legislation is dedicated to handing out cash to individual Americans. This is a sign post for a tectonic shift that’s underway in US policy thinking toward unconditional money…

Economists concerned about slowing productivity have spent the past decade hotly debating the value of free digital services such as Google’s web search and Amazon’s online store. But those online services have proven their worth during the pandemic. And Covid-19 may ultimately push our society to…

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently mentioned the idea of creating a so-called digital dollar — a new form of electronic currency that would make the payment system easier for Americans and presumably compete with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But there’s little rationale for a…

The US needs to rethink its currency strategy. Our leaders are grudgingly realizing that the strong-dollar policy no longer suits either national interests or current economic realities. But the dangers involved in altering the global monetary system mean that transitioning to something new is…

President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill is an ambitious piece of legislation. Not only would it mail out $1,400 checks to a large segment of the American populace and provide generous benefits to people who lost income during the pandemic, it would raise the minimum wage to $15 an…

Inflation is low. So are interest rates. More than $3 trillion of Covid-19 relief spending in 2020 apparently had no negative macroeconomic consequences. So why are a few top economists suddenly worried about the size of the federal budget deficit? Perhaps because they fear a policy regime change. …

The US needs a national population strategy. Falling immigration is combining with a decline in fertility to put us in danger of joining the club of Europe and East Asia, where people are wealthy on paper but still feel squeezed by the need to support an increasing number of elders. The idea of…

Americans are strongly in favor of a very large Covid-19 relief bill. It seems likely that this enthusiasm reflects more than just anxiety over the pandemic; many Americans are fed up with decades of a stingy welfare state, and in this crisis they finally see an opportunity to make back some lost…

The demise of the Keystone XL pipeline heralds the beginning of the end for the oil age in the US and Canada. This is a necessary evolution, but it raises many challenges. Workers displaced by the shift away from oil will need new jobs, and energy industry clusters like Houston and Alberta will…