In the five years since the global shutdown that heralded the Covid-19 pandemic, the retail industry has weathered a once-in-a-generation evolutionary spasm which, like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, has forced brands and companies to adapt or die. As the industry grapples with a new challenge—the squabble over tariffs—it’s worth pausing a moment to reflect on what has changed, what hasn’t, and what we’ve learned. 1. E-commerce is dead as a discrete retail channel. Today it is just one of many elements called the omni-channel. And as a percentage of the consumer economy, it has peaked. Five years…

Imagine a reconstruction fund so tax-preferred it makes municipal bonds look like a comparative raw deal—that’s what the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund may have just created. The fund, formally established through an agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine in April, is structured as a limited partnership between two state-backed agencies: the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) and Ukraine’s Agency on Support Public-Private Partnership (PPP). The purported ambition is the reconstruction and rebuilding of Ukraine post-Russian invasion—with a strong preference towards a steady infusion of international capital. The fiscal kicker is that all income flowing into, within, and out…