United States

You can also read the State of the Pandemic series’ take on the United States, Latin America, the Persian Gulf, East Asia, Europe, and the BRICS.  The [...]

This is the second in a series of newsletters addressing the state of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world. Other articles in the series cover Latin America, the Persian Gulf, East [...]

Coronavirus is primarily a respiratory ailment primarily spread by exhaled droplets from coughs or simple breathing, which is why masks are so effective at preventing an infected individual from [...]

Read Part 2 and Part 3 The past few weeks have been…eventful. I make my living anticipating and explaining and projecting change, with an unfortunate emphasis on destabilizing and disintegrative [...]

Yesterday’s newsletter traced some of the issues that erupt when global transport gets wrecked. Today we’re going to cross that same initial problem into the world of agriculture. It isn’t so [...]

The novel coronavirus has gutted humanity’s ability to engage in that most basic of social and economic activities: the ability to move. That simple fact has touched off a cascade of [...]

Let’s start with the headline good news. Since our last update on April 19, it appears the COVID-19 epidemic may have plateaued in the United States with direct COVID-caused deaths peaking on [...]

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Meatpacking is a messy business almost custom-designed to generate coronavirus outbreaks among the staff. When a cow or hog is brought into the [...]

West Texas Intermediate, the oil grade most associated with American production, plunged down to -$40 April 20. You read the right. For a while yesterday, sellers had to pay people forty bucks to [...]

Yowzas! That’s a lot of food! The United States is by far the world’s largest agricultural producer and exporter. For America’s food supply system to truly break down in the age of [...]