What Will Change?

Chancellor: Big is beautiful will also be ugly

4 May 2020

The clamour to save jobs and a prolonged shift to low interest rates will give big companies the upper hand in consolidating the small and the weak. This ever-greater concentration of industry and power will ultimately exacerbate the sorts of shortages now hurting big economies.

Offices will get roomier when the virus passes

4 May 2020

Conventional wisdom seems to be that after the pandemic commercial landlords will be crushed as staff stay home. But there’s a counterargument that cooped-up workers will crave interaction, employers will need to space them further apart and put an end to unhealthy hot-desking.

Restructuring gurus face embarrassment of riches

1 May 2020

While fees from advising on M&A are drying up, helping companies navigate cash crunches and bankruptcy will be a big pandemic money-spinner, probably larger than past crises. Experts like Lazard don’t break out how much they make from such activities. That’s probably wise.

Guest view: Climate change is the next Covid-19

30 Apr 2020

The failure to properly plan for the coronavirus outbreak has made dealing with it much harder. As former White House energy and climate adviser John E. Morton argues, the cost of addressing damaging global warming will be similarly increased unless governments show leadership.

Phones will restore freedom at the cost of privacy

30 Apr 2020

Contact-tracing apps like Apple-Google’s will allow more public mobility but only if related testing is quick and easy, and everybody plays ball. That means democracies will wave sticks, disguised as carrots, to encourage use. Good results would outweigh the Orwellian overtones.

U.S. moviegoers will never again fill theaters

29 Apr 2020

Attendance was already declining, and Covid-19 has completely shut down the likes of AMC. Netflix is ascendant, and Comcast's Universal managed a successful release of "Trolls" without cinemas. Add wariness of social contact, and the industry's bleak future may already be here.

Central bankers have more cards up their sleeves

29 Apr 2020

Fed Chair Jay Powell and his peers have fashioned new tools to fight the Covid-19 crisis. In future downturns, they could copy the BOJ’s stock buying and, in extremis, consider financing governments directly. Only surging inflation or overt political meddling will hold them back.

Big Tech will emerge from virus too big to fail

28 Apr 2020

Amazon is an essential service keeping families supplied in a pandemic. The Apple-Google alliance on contact tracing will aid efforts to reopen economies. Facebook’s reach has disrupted virus disinformation. Their size is an asset in a crisis, making it harder to break them up.

Dixon: Bailouts will store up lots more trouble

28 Apr 2020

Struggling individuals, businesses and countries deserve financial support during the pandemic. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves. Massive, taxpayer-funded rescues may encourage excessive risk-taking in the future and provoke new populist backlashes when the bills need to be paid.

Europe’s big banks can weather 2009 times three

27 Apr 2020

Shares in the region’s top lenders have plunged as investors fret about a surge in bad debts. Yet a Breakingviews calculator shows most capital buffers can absorb a spike three times as bad as the 2009 average. Taxpayer bailouts or widespread equity hikes are unnecessary for now.

Dollar-backed crypto shapes up as pandemic winner

22 Apr 2020

Cash is neither contactless nor clean, drawbacks that might have pushed money into big-name bitcoin. Instead, investors have focused on so-called stablecoins like Tether and USD Coin, linked to the U.S. currency. A revamped Libra even has a shot if Facebook gets out of the way.

Dixon: How will pandemic debts be paid for?

20 Apr 2020

The UK introduced income tax to fund the Napoleonic Wars. America imposed it to pay for the civil war. The coronavirus pandemic is not literally a war. But it will lead to massive borrowing. Higher taxes are a better way to repay it than austerity, default or inflation.

Cox: What will change after coronavirus passes?

1 Apr 2020

Much depends on the pandemic’s ultimate human cost and the duration of lockdowns. Early indicators point to stronger social safety nets, fatter corporate balance sheets, less travel, the demise of cash, warped social interactions and better hygiene. And that’s just the start.

Racial wealth gap weakens U.S. virus defenses

30 Mar 2020

Pandemics don’t discriminate over whom they infect, but the coronavirus will wreak its worst havoc on black Americans, who are overrepresented in the hardest-hit parts of society. The U.S. racial prosperity gap hasn’t narrowed in 50 years. Covid-19 is likely to drive it wider.

Cox: Virus-ebbed tide exposes the better leaders

26 Mar 2020

Politicians, central bankers and CEOs will soon be judged by their handling of the health crisis. Impressive new options who have shown courage, effectiveness and moral purpose have started to emerge. Preconceived choices – like Biden vs. Trump – are rapidly becoming passé.

Why 150% is the new 100% for public debt/GDP

26 Mar 2020

Governments are splurging to fight the economic havoc wrought by the coronavirus. For example, France’s debt will exceed its annual output by the end of 2020. Investors may not mind as much as before: Every country is affected, and central banks are the backstops.

China virus may fast-track drone flight

6 Feb 2020

Contagion fears and quarantines have made it costly and tricky for Alibaba and others in e-commerce and food delivery. Reducing human contact might help. Just as past Asian crises were catalysts for the likes of JD and Line, the new outbreak will give flying robots a push.