Contrary to what far-right leaders claim, Europe’s greatest challenge is not immigration or “wokeness,” but its own economic and technological backwardness. With productivity growth lagging and innovation increasingly taking place elsewhere, Europe must confront its structural weaknesses or risk falling further behind. Project Syndicate
With pressure mounting in some quarters for a return to “normal,” there can be no delay in planning for the post-pandemic future. Unless the world’s leading businesses commit to rebuilding on an entirely new foundation, another global crisis will be inevitable. Project Syndicate
Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever. To stop coronavirus we will need to radically change almost everything we do: how we work, exercise, socialize, shop, manage our health, educate our kids, take care of family members. MIT Technology Review
This once-in-a-century pandemic is hitting a world economy saddled with record levels of debt. New York Times
The COVID-19 outbreak seems to have raised the odds of a global recession dramatically. But even if no downturn materializes in the near term, the outbreak, together with US President Donald Trump’s trade policy, may herald the end of the era when steadily rising international trade buttressed global peace and prosperity. Project Syndicate
Republicans used the pretense that they cared about fiscal responsibility to engage in de facto economic sabotage as long as a Democrat was in the White House. Then they abandoned the pretense and opened up the spending taps as soon as one of their own was in power. And far from paying a price for their duplicity, they are being politically rewarded. New York Times
European Union’s political leadership cannot continue with a business-as-usual approach. Europe cannot continue to be a continent of peace and broadly shared prosperity without a renewal of the vision the EU’s founders had over 60 years ago. Europe needs new institutions and new rules, govern-ing both economy and polity, based on new ideas. Foundation for European Progressive Studies
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, said at the recent National Conservatism Conference, what he called the “the cosmopolitan economy” has encouraged multinational corporations to move jobs and profits overseas and then “rewarded these same corporations” for “investing their profits not in American workers, not in American development, but in financial instruments that benefit the cosmopolitan elite.” New York Times
Always volatile, oil prices have tumbled more than 20 percent since late April because of growing fears that demand is weaker than expected as the global economy slows. New York Times
President Trump’s latest swipe at Huawei could be the start of a deep transformation of the tech sector.Citing national security concerns, the Commerce Department said this month that American companies would need special permission to sell some products to Huawei and other Chinese companies. New York Times