Americans’ desensitization to the pandemic’s skyrocketing death toll vindicates Joseph Stalin’s famous observation: “One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.” The danger of this approach, of course, is that it relieves government of its obligation to act – opening the way for far more COVID-19 deaths.

The stock market is soaring while small businesses are dying. It can’t go on this way. A K-shaped recovery is a disaster, and would undermine the 'United' part of our States.

There were no special effects, no crowds, no band, no balloons. But, none of this was needed. As Joe Biden looked at a blank camera, with a lined face worn by almost eight decades of triumph and tragedy, I saw a man speaking to a country that could now know it was understood.

The United States was to be a shining city on hill. A nation, rooted in exceptionalism, destined to transform the world for the positive.

Mental health is a huge problem in the United States. About one-fifth of all Americans grapple with psychological disorders, and only half of them get treatment.

The seeming confidence expressed by global equity markets in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic has surprised many – including many market participants. But a closer look reveals an unambiguous message: The global economy is facing a long, deep malaise, followed by a “new normal” of reduced earnings and profitability for all but a chosen few.

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed fundamental fault lines in the reigning business model of the past 40 years.

As in past global and national emergencies, the COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis that demands leadership from the highest levels.

The world economy is in the midst of a unique shock. It tests our ability to use conventional models and history to gain understanding.

Today, our species is in panic. COVID-19 is driving upheaval in every human realm. There can be no doubt that the primary mission is to slow the spread of the disease and develop a vaccine as soon as possible.

It is time to admit that the “American Dream” is dead. Its underlying conditions – strong, consistent economic growth and a meritocracy structured to keep the rich from gaming the system – no longer hold true.

In the game of chess, the queen is the most valuable piece on the board. Protecting her is paramount, but she can’t be out of action forever. The queen must be deployed at just the right time to defeat an opponent.

Few images better capture the Wild West’s by-gone era of adventure and lawlessness than ‘most wanted’ posters adorned with the grimacing miens of bank robbers like Butch Cassidy or Jessie James. Today’s residents of Wyoming might soon fear another ‘heist’, but this time the image may portray the smiling face of the tax collector.

In climbing, risk management is everything. Ask any mountaineer who has made it into his or her forties how they did it, and they will invariably say it was a mix of luck and knowing which dangers were the ones to heed. Good judgement in being able to properly assess weather patterns, snowpack, rock quality

Occasionally, the arrival of something unusual provides an opportunity to dispel lazy thinking about how things really work.

Yellowstone is America’s first national park. Today, after almost 150 years in existence, it is one of the largest nearly intact ecosystems on the planet.

Science fiction has a warning about developing mind-reading technology without any proper framework for how to control it. It should be heeded.