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Trade chaos may be part of a game

You can get rich when stocks go up. You can get rich when stocks go down. When stocks go up, people who knew to buy them in advance may win big. If they go down, investors who had the wisdom to “go short” on them — that is, bet on their decline — can make a bundle. Clearly, anyone who can predict what stock prices would do can make magnificent profits. And who knew that Donald Trump was about to announce market-moving plans for bigger tariffs, then smaller tariffs, then sideways tariffs, then tariff delays? Trump knew. It happens that trading stocks or other investments ...

Reflecting on the pandemic

National Public Radio recently posted a questionnaire on its website asking readers to reflect on their experiences when the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down in 2020. For those who were able to quickly resume their usual routines after the World Health Organization announced an end to the pandemic in May 2023, the time probably passed quickly. For those who experienced grave losses, such as employment termination or the deaths of close relatives, the pandemic has had a severe lingering effect. Most of the questions on the NPR survey did not apply to me, such as “Did you meet ...

Obtuseness painfully obvious

It’s amazing how men who prided themselves on strength and toughness will submit to a gangster. In 2022, after Russian tanks rolled across an international border into Ukraine and missiles pierced the quiet of cities like Kharkiv and Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earned worldwide acclaim for his courage and heroism. No one was more pro-Ukrainian than Sen. Lindsey Graham, who exulted in an arrest warrant the Russians had issued against him: “I will wear the arrest warrant issued by Putin’s corrupt and immoral government as a Badge of Honor.” Last Friday, ...

Heed the warning of first U.S. death from measles in a decade

Bearing in mind that any child’s death is a tragedy, many American media consumers could nonetheless be forgiven for wondering about the proportionality of national news coverage regarding the death of a single Texas child from measles Wednesday. In fact, the outsized attention to the unvaccinated child’s death is merited by the context: It is the first U.S. fatality in 10 years from a disease that was declared effectively eradicated here as of 2020 — but has been making a comeback in the past few years here, tracking with increased and unmerited public distrust of ...

Trump takes transactional approach to diplomacy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump, the real estate developer turned commander in chief, is laying bare his style of diplomacy in the early weeks of his new term: It’s a whole lot like a high-stakes business deal, and his No. 1 goal is to come out of the transaction on top. The tactics are clear in his brewing trade war with Canada and Mexico, in his approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine and in his selection of the first country he will visit in his second term. “President Trump approaches diplomacy and engages in a very transactional manner, with economics as the foundation and ...

Israel cutting off power to Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel announced Sunday it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza. The full effects were not immediately clear, but the arid territory’s desalination plants receive power for producing drinking water. Hamas called it part of Israel’s “starvation policy.” Israel last week cut off supplies of goods to the territory of over 2 million Palestinians, an echo of the siege it imposed in the earliest days of its war with Hamas. It’s pressing the militant group to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire. That phase ended last weekend. Israel ...