Tom Ashbrook

With regard to the illegal war being waged by Russia against Ukraine, no one has any right to be surprised. For all the understandable and justifiable outrage over Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to abandon diplomacy and launch what appears to be an unprovoked act of aggression, a look at prior statements by Mr. Putin shows that, with the passage of time, patience and rationality gave way to irrationally, paranoia and ultimately the decision to launch an armed conflict.

I’ve never known a country where people are more wrapped up in the status conferred by their car than Germany. The puffed-up self-regard of a German ensconced in a posh Porsche — and there are a lot of them in Berlin these days— is a wonder and a danger to behold.They will run you down, or nearly. They blithely commandeer bus lanes on the Kurfürstendamm, flying by plebes stuck in traffic like medieval lords claiming droit de seigneur.

1 hr 8 min With many millions out of work and so much uncertainty around basic questions of health, housing, money for food, the future of businesses and jobs, we wanted to look straight at the US economy in the midst of pandemic and political instability. The great economic journalist and analyst David Wessel, long of the Wall Street Journal news pages, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, now at the Brookings Institution joins us.