Signing Off
This will be my last post in this space. More »
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Clive Crook is a senior editor of The Atlantic and a columnist for Bloomberg View. He was the Washington columnist for the Financial Times, and before that worked at The Economist for more than 20 years, including 11 years as deputy editor. Crook writes about the intersection of politics and economics. More
Crook writes about the intersection of politics and economics.
Obama compromised during the fiscal-cliff fight, and the GOP didn't -- and that's why he's emerged with the upper hand. More »
Washington wants Europe to come to grip with its problems, and to be less obsessed with its own internal wrangling and more outward-looking. Priceless. More »
I'm not sure who won the fiscal-cliff battle and don't much care--I suppose it was either the Democrats for raising taxes on the rich or the Republicans for entrenching the Bush tax cuts for everybody else. But it's easy to say who lost. That would be the country as a whole. Actually, it lost twice over. First, because of the uncertainty generated by the ongoing fiscal shambles. And second--a point that seems to have escaped the attention of Democrats who are… More »
Returning from more than two weeks in China, I find I haven't missed much in Washington. A lot of budget-crisis commentary has flowed under the bridge since my previous post on that dismal subject, but I can't see much need to update it. China's problems include political paralysis of a certain kind--but nothing to compare with Washington's perpetual-crisis machine. A few of the people I met in Shanghai and Beijing asked me to explain what was going on. I tried to,… More »
I'll be traveling in China for the next two weeks. See you when I get back. More »
Both sides should agree to cuts on those making more than $1 million, and Democrats should give ground on those making $250,00 to $1 million. More »
The big question of historical interpretation -- and I'm not sure of the answer -- is how much of a negative, if at all, the economy was for Obama. More »
Obama was exciting in 2008 because he promised to transcend the national divide. He's since given up, and Romney isn't even saying he'll try. It's a disturbing trajectory. More »
Will the cure actually exacerbate the disease in the economically reeling continent? More »
If the president loses this election, it won't be for what many will say are the obvious reasons. More »
If Obama had performed this well in the Denver debate this election would be as good as over. But he didn't. More »
In his latest column, Paul Krugman draws attention to a quarrel about the pace of the current recovery. We have Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff on one side and John Taylor and Michael Bordo on the other. It's pretty heated, given that it's about so little. Let's start with the points they agree on: Recessions associated with systemic financial crises tend to be unusually prolonged and severe. The US experience since 2008 is an instance of 1. Right now, the US… More »
Democrats apparently think Obama's position on the fiscal cliff is more appealing to centrist voters than Romney's. They're wrong. More »
I'd expect the debate to stall Romney's recent momentum. But I doubt he'll fall all the way back to where he was pre-Denver. More »
