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June 06, 2026
 

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Allison Schrager
The concept of the working class is evolving as traditional manual labor declines, higher-paying union jobs blur old boundaries and new economic insecurity emerges across both blue- and white-collar lines.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2026
Nobody knows what ¡®working class¡¯ even means anymore
What makes someone working class was never really clear ¡ª it was something you knew when you saw it.
Artificial intelligence is likely to boost growth and productivity but will not remove the need to save for retirement despite Elon Musk¡¯s claims because economic uncertainty and real-world costs will still exist.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2026
Musk is wrong about AI and retirement: You still need to save.
There are certain things not even AI can do, and one of them is suspending the basic laws of economics.
A screen displays Japanese and U.S. 10-year government bonds outside a securities firm in Tokyo on Jan. 21.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 4, 2026
Japan¡¯s bond market has a warning for America
Reality, however, has a way of catching up with theory eventually, and now it has for Japan, whose long-term bond yields are rising as the yen is depreciating.
Wealth taxes are difficult to implement, risk reducing growth and capital and cannot solve the structural fiscal challenges facing aging societies and overpromising governments.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2026
Wealth taxes don¡¯t work no matter where they¡¯re imposed
Rich people, like all humans, respond to incentives ¡ª and there just aren¡¯t enough rich people to pay for everything.
U.S. economic growth in 2025 exceeded expectations, and tax cuts, corporate incentives, lower interest rates and clearer trade policy support cautious optimism for 2026.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2025
Five reasons the U.S. can be optimistic about the 2026 economy
In the lead-up to the end of the year, the market rose more than 15% and gross domestic product growth in the third quarter was an unexpectedly robust 4.3%.
The U.S. debt crisis can¡¯t be fixed without reforming entitlements, and that means Americans must retire later and pay more in taxes.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2025
To fix the U.S. debt problem, Americans must retire later
The House¡¯s proposed $3.7 trillion tax bill isn¡¯t what sparked that Moody¡¯s downgrade ¡ª?it was the runaway growth of entitlement spending.
America¡¯s economic exceptionalism has traditionally been driven by its deep capital markets, culture of risk-taking, history of innovation and the dollar¡¯s status as the world¡¯s primary reserve currency.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2025
Is this really how American exceptionalism ends?
Uncertainty around trade and the future strength of the dollar has led some big European investors to retreat from American stocks.
Former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi presents his report on the future of European competitiveness to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, in September.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2025
Europe¡¯s risk aversion comes with consequences
While Europe's culture is more risk-averse, deregulation could spur growth if it adapts to new technologies like AI, balancing risk and reward for a changing economy.
The advent of ¡°relationship bots¡± will change the world¡¯s oldest profession, but the need for human connection will persist.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2024
AI will transform sex work but not intimacy
There is already at least one relationship bot called Replika and more will surely follow. And they will only get better.
Workers picket outside the Boeing Co. manufacturing facility during a strike in Renton, Washington, on Oct. 3.
COMMENTARY
Oct 20, 2024
Time for unions to join the 21st-century economy
Automation stands to make U.S. ports and transportation of goods cheaper and more efficient. And it is easy to see why unions oppose it.
Diane Severin Nguyen¡¯s film, ¡°In Her Time (Iris¡¯s Version),¡± 2023-24, about a young actress struggling with her role in a (fictional) movie about the Nanjing Massacre, is on display at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Artificial intelligence and the "rhetoric around gender and authenticity¡± were themes in this year's show.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 2, 2024
The winner-take-all economy is ruining art, too
The value of art is not just a matter of taste. To appeal to collectors, artists require the approval of the establishment.
Coming out of the pandemic, job vacancies were historically high in the U.S. because firms needed workers and could not find them.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2024
This year will mark the end of the post-pandemic economy
The trade-off between bringing down inflation and harming growth will come back with a vengeance in the post-pandemic economy.
Lowell House on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2024
What¡¯s bad for Harvard is good for the rest of us
The elite degree and the signal it sends is neither as accurate nor as valuable as the Ivy League would like you to think.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 20, 2023
CEOs should focus on profits, not politics
Target proves yet again that companies are better off avoiding the minefield of social activism.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2023
Don¡¯t make the same mistake as SVB with your 401(k)
Treasuries aren¡¯t always the safest asset in your portfolio. Your risk depends on the type of bond and what you need the money for.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2023
The one true secret to successful investing
After 2022¡¯s stomach-churning roller-coaster ride, we clearly need to be reminded of the most basic rule in finance that investors forget most often: the risk vs. return trade-off.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 18, 2023
We¡¯ll all pay for Uncle Sam¡¯s cheap debt fantasies
By financing ballooning spending with short-term debt, the government failed to lock in record-low interest rates while it could. Now the piper has come to call.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2023
It¡¯s now clear that quantitative easing was a colossal policy mistake
There's no convincing evidence that central banks' purchases of trillions of dollars of bonds and other financial assets helped any economy.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2022
Globalization is just getting started
Greater integration of the world's financial and political interests has improved our lives and will inevitably continue despite current discourse to the contrary.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2022
Men are getting left behind in the jobs boom
During each recession for the last 40 years, a sizable number of men ¡ª more than women ¡ª have left the labor force and not come back.
¡®AI simply can¡¯t replicate it¡¯: Japan embraces zine trend
A staff member taking a printed newspaper out of the machine at the Kyoto Shimbun factory in Kumiyama, Kyoto Prefecture.
Kyoto police search for missing American tourist
James "Weston" Higginbotham was last seen in Kyoto on May 29.
Japan should prepare for an intense typhoon season this year, experts say
Elevated water levels are seen along the Tama River in Kawasaki's Tama Ward as Tropical Storm Jangmi brought heavy rain and strong winds to the Kanto region Wednesday.
Man sues hospital after wife gives birth using someone else¡¯s sperm
The Kyoto District Court in the city of Kyoto heard a complaint Wednesday from a man who says his estranged wife presented someone else's sperm as his and was able to undergo successful fertility treatment using it without his awareness.
Consumption tax cut is quickly turning into a headache for Takaichi
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during a party leaders' debate at the Lower House of parliament in Tokyo on May 20. A pledge to cut the consumption tax on food products is quickly becoming a policy headache for the prime minister.
How Japan created its naphtha supply bottleneck
Japan received 93% of its oil via the Strait of Hormuz prior to the Feb. 28 start of the Iran war.
¡®Fujiko¡¯ transforms a mother¡¯s resilience into festival gold
¡°Fujiko¡± stars Yuki Katayama (left) as a scrappy single mother who fights for her autonomy in 1970s and ¡¯80s Japan.
Japan should prepare for an intense typhoon season this year, experts say
Elevated water levels are seen along the Tama River in Kawasaki's Tama Ward as Tropical Storm Jangmi brought heavy rain and strong winds to the Kanto region Wednesday.
The LDP wants another coalition partner. Will it happen?
Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the Democratic Party for the People (DPP), delivers a question during a House of Representatives plenary session on May 25. Making the DPP a coalition member would make it easier for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (above left) to drive forward her legislative agenda.
Japan¡¯s Cannes moment signals a new global push
Tao Okamoto (left) and Virginie Efira (right) shared the Cannes Film Festival¡¯s best actress honor for their roles in Ryusuke Hamaguchi¡¯s ¡°All of a Sudden,¡± a coproduction between Japan, France, Belgium and Germany.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo¡¯s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo¡¯s ¡®stadium of desire¡¯

Longform

Community programs and tracking systems are expanding across Japan as local governments search for ways to prevent dementia-related disappearances.
He told his wife he was ¡®coming home.¡¯ Then he disappeared.
By Alex K.T. Martin

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