Make Sense of the world
Unique insight from 2,000+ contributors in 80+ Countries
It is terrible to be sick, and more terrible to be sick and alone. Ten years ago, my mother’s hospice unit was in quarantine for E. coli. In her last week of life, none of her friends were allowed to visit. Now everyone gets to taste that isolation in what may be the most widespread and...
US President Donald Trump will go down in history as the ultimate master of hyperreal politics. No matter how far he deviates from reality, the American public consistently expresses its approval. The further he wanders from rationality, even when the consequences are measurable in the number of...
The topic of nearly every conversation right now is centered around COVID-19, and rightfully so. The recently announced coronavirus pandemic is already changing life as we know it, and for many people, life will take an even stranger turn over the next few weeks, months and maybe even years....
A crisis, according to self-help and leadership books, reveals much about a person’s character. The same can be said of a nation’s character. Since the latest pandemic began to spread out of China in 2020, countries responded in very different ways to the challenge. There was ingenuity,...
I have just finished a couple of weeks on the road in Texas, during which time the coronavirus pandemic blew up across the American landscape. The best sign that something serious was happening while I was on the road was the number of guys in truck stop and convenience store restrooms...
Last week, I looked at some real economy and financial channels that the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted across the world. A global recession is now a foregone conclusion, and it will have emanated from the harsh impact on the economy. On the one hand is the supply side, with production...
It seems that on the highest levels, everything is going wrong. In the past few years, populism and authoritarianism have reared their ugly heads. The economy has just reached historic lows, and we are only beginning to reap the effects of a ruined environment. Suicide rates are climbing, refugee...
On March 9, I wrote that the British government is not just failing to safeguard its people, but is willing to trade lives for economic stability and an air of normality. Since then, the number of reported infections and deaths has risen to 5,863 and 289 respectively at the time of writing, and...
Long stretches of empty supermarket shelves and shortages of essential supplies are only the visible impacts to consumers of the global supply chain disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unseen are the production stoppages in locations across China and other countries and the shortages of...
His grammar leaves something to be desired, but the message is clear. US President Donald Trump has informed the nation and the world that he has now risen to the same significant height reached by his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. Explaining the measures he intends to take to...
The novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, continues to threaten the health and lives of large numbers of people throughout the world. It has also wrought havoc on social and economic activity, most notably in high-income countries in Asia and the West. It has also captured the attention of the...
