As we’ve slogged through Trump and carbon-loading and Covid, I’ve managed to remain more or less un-depressed and find enough gratifications in day-to-day life to keep the black dog of despair at a distance. But this morning I woke up early and, while the household slept, read most of the May 15th issue of The Economist. And folks, with a very few exceptions, it was pretty well all bad news. I feel an obligation to pass this summary along with a plea: As we relax slowly into post-Covid, maybe try to find a bit of extra energy and put it into politics or philanthropy or some other way to mitigate the awfulness. Our children deserve it.

I’ve highlighted the good news.

Lead articles · Vaccinating the World: The grim death estimates are undercounts. First doses into poorer arms should take priority but aren’t.

IsraPal: Bibi’s strategy of ignoring the Palestine issue can’t work.

Inflation: Might just be supply-chain constipation.

Corporate Tax Dodging: At unforgivable levels; there’s talk but no action.

USA · Next New York Mayor: The city’s started to shrink.

Cyberattacks; The bad guys are many and the defences are laughable.

Homelessness: Awful and growing.

Opioids: Awful — in places worse than Covid — and not getting better.

Evictions: A million per year, no consensus on how to address.

Republicans: Lying liars present a deadly threat to democracy.

The Americas · Post-Covid: Latin-American economy in really rough shape.

Brazil: Starvation setting in, government evil and incompetent.

Costa Rica: Good-ish! No working street-address system but they’re trying to fix it.

Asia · Covid in South-East Asia: Looks like the next India.

Indonesia: Privatizing the vaccination process isn’t working.

Taiwan: Its indigenous people are having a tough time.

India: Covid’s hitting the poorest hardest. Grisly stuff.

The Koreas: North-south dialog LOL ha ha.

Maldives: Nasty-Islamist alert.

China · Sports: Corruption and oppression are bad for sports, especially soccer.

Hockey: That too.

Jobs: Xenophobia and autocracy are bad for international business, so young Chinese head for the civil service.

Middle East & Africa · IsraPal: Israel started this round, nobody knows how to stop it.

Saudi: MBS tries playing nice but isn’t good at it.

Lake Victoria: Fishery in big trouble, brutal remedies probably won’t help.

Somali Camels: Good news! More market transparency and women are getting in.

Nigeria: Post-oil corruption, war, crime, and poverty.

Europe · France: FN fascists looking good in the next elections.

Bulgaria: Prime minister’s a crook and an asshole but apparently on the way out.

Sweden: Good news! They’re building a successful green steel business in the north, something that could really move the carbon needle.

Turkey: Tourism’s in the toilet.

The Welfare State: Not terrible: The Euros are good at this and trying to use EU machinery to make things better.

Economic recovery: Good news! Seems EU public finance is less austerity-crazed.

Britain · Boris: Overentitled asswipe trying to do some stuff, probably bad.

Elections: Tories introducing voter ID but it doesn’t look (unlike the USA) like it’ll help them steal elections.

Labour: In big trouble in its blue-collar heartland but making up some middle-class ground.

Belfast: Yes, the British army did casually gun down Catholics fifty years ago. No, amnesties are not in order.

Scotland: Nicola and Boris gonna play referendum chicken for the foreseeable future.

Wales: Anger over English buying second homes in pretty places.

Pubs: Having trouble hiring but claim they can’t pay more.

The Labour Party: It’s all fucked up.

International · Algeria: Truth and Reconciliation thing over the Algerian War (of independence against France) looking dubious.

Business · SpaceX: Doing OK.

Mothers’ work experience: Bad. Used to be worse.

Harley-Davidson: In bad shape.

Eurolobbyists: 25K of them in Brussels. What’s that smell?

Pharma patents: It’s about rent-seeking.

CEO Pay: They used Covid to shovel more money to themselves.

Finance & Economics · US inflation: Nobody knows what’s going on.

Britain: In decline.

China’s population: Has probably peaked; bad for the business model.

David Swenson died: Made rich universities richer.

Corporate tax: Biden wants to do something about global sleaze, probably won’t work.

Corporate tax again: Traditional Economist sophistry against it.

The rest · I’m skipping Science & Technology & Books & Arts, but there’s a nice piece about Stacey Abrams, who turns out to be an accomplished novelist.

Don’t give up! · On every one of these issues, there is a sane path forward if people are willing to bring ethical passion to the table.