Upside to the Pandemic

Dr. Nomi Prins cites her time in China while researching her book, Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World. “I had to get from Beijing to Shanghai quickly,” she says, and the best way to do that was by train. But she didn’t board the kind of railbound-antique that we’re still using in the United States. It was a maglev train, which uses magnets to “float” above the track. “It was quiet….clean… and fast” she recounts — far faster than the Acela she’s taken on jaunts from New York to D.C. China’s maglev train isn’t unique, either. “There’s one in Japan,” Dr. Prins says. “South Korea has them,” too. But none in the United States — even though the technology was, by most accounts, first conceived in our country. “Don’t we want that?” Dr. Prins asks.