In her management of the Coronavirus crisis, Angela Merkel is making a big bet against the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his “Three Penny Opera.”

Angela Merkel is acting – though definitely not looking – like a flower power girl from California. Focused on consensus, not leadership, she believes in human goodness.

The coronavirus crisis has become the third great globalization shock of this still relatively new century — after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the fall of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Today’s U.S. Republicans are the equivalent of the Brezhnev crew in the late-stage Soviet Union. It, too, fought very hard to uphold political ideas decades after they had passed their sell by date.

The age structure of the U.S. political leadership cannot be described by any other word than as a gerontocracy. This conjures up images of the late-stage Soviet Union.