The global cost of the corona pandemic now approaches the $10 trillion mark. This is the price of the handouts, tax deferrals, and loan guarantees extended by governments trying to nurse their societies back to health. Only a fraction of that money may, in the fulness of time, be recouped....

In the good old days, the likes of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez entertained their people with seemingly unending ramblings about nearly every topic under the sun. Both rulers are now dead, but a few presidents still cling to notions of omniscience and feel the need to shine their light...

Just like a particle accelerator produces a string of strange phenomena, a pandemic-stressed economy churns out elements that do not comply to long-standing theories. Negative interest rates and like oil prices are but two of the curios that breeched the walls of convention. The former already existed in the pre-corona...

Most news cycles only last a few days. Major events may capture the readers’ attention for perhaps a week or two before they are demoted to the inside pages only to drop out altogether a few days later. The intensity of news coverage is also inversely proportional to the distance...

During the early 1980s, the architect of the Brazil’s ‘economic miracle’ was vilified almost unanimously after he sacrificed monetary stability on the altar of growth. Between 1979 and 1985 Delfim Netto, now 91, was in charge of economic planning under the country’s last military dictator, General João Figueiredo. However, after...