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.
The report of the InterAcademy Council on the IPCC is a real step forward. The council, representing academies of science and equivalent bodies all over the world, assembled a review committee on the IPCC at the request of the UN and the IPCC itself. Its team was chaired by Princeton's Harold Shapiro. How refreshing that it surveyed opinion very widely, and has grappled intelligently with the most persuasive criticisms that the panel's adversaries have… More »
The US recovery is stalling. As a matter of economics the balance of risks strongly favors further fiscal and monetary stimulus. Politics appears to rule out the first, and a divided Federal Reserve is hesitating over the second. America's leaders are letting the country down. So I argue in my new column for the Financial Times.Actually, it's not too late--even taking the politics as fixed--for a further temporary stimulus based on temporary tax cuts. If Democrats… More »
His hyper-religious self-assurance can be off-putting, yet his rally was decidedly unsinister More »
The Fed chairman's eagerly awaited speech at Jackson Hole was, as Gavyn Davies says, no more than a holding operation. I would have been astonished if he had outright promised more QE or other steps: this was not the occasion. Even so, the neutral tone was a bit more neutral -- a bit less friendly to renewed action -- than I had expected. He said that the current risk of falling into deflation is not "significant", partly because the public trusts him and the Fed… More »
Libertarians should challenge both parties, not ally with either one More »
Obama could have used his New York mosque remarks to unify the country and raise its sights More »
From the left (broadly speaking) Obama is being criticized for spineless vacillation in walking back from his first statement on the mosque. From the right (broadly speaking) he is attacked for being out of touch with the American public. First he affirmed the centrality of religious freedom and the Constitution's protection of it -- which was widely assumed to mean he wanted the mosque to be built. Next day, he said he would offer no opinion on the wisdom, as… More »
They're merely attacking the president out of tough love, explains Robert Kuttner More »
Jeffrey Goldberg's article for The Atlantic, "The Point of No Return", takes an issue of enormous importance, which has been on people's minds for ages -- and makes everything that has been written on the subject up to now seem completely inadequate More »
I admire this level-headed piece by the IMF's Olivier Blanchard and Carlo Cottarelli. The debate on the need for further fiscal stimulus in the US and elsewhere has indeed, as they argue, become needlessly ideological and extreme. The choice is not about stimulus or austerity. It is about how far to front-load the fiscal adjustment, and how far to persist with it when circumstances permit. [S]ome clearly prefer more front-loaded consolidation, others less.… More »
Rep. Paul Ryan's Roadmap falters because it refuses to consider tax increases More »
My Monday column on taxes met, shall we say, with a certain amount of skepticism. I argued that Obama needs to break his promise on taxes, and raise them once the recovery is solid for middle-class Americans as well as for the rich. Many people have written comments or sent me emails that say, not always in polite terms, "What about spending?" Fair point. Preoccupied with the debate over extending the Bush tax cuts, and confined to 900 words, I neglected to mention… More »
Once the recovery is secure, the president will have no choice but to raise taxes on all Americans -- not just the rich More »
An Agnostic Manifesto. Ron Rosenbaum, Slate. An irreligious reply to the New Atheists. "At least we know what we don't know." (Missed this first time round. Thanks to A&L for the pointer.)Hysteresis makes a comeback. Tim Duy, Fed Watch. The danger that high unemployment is self-sustaining. See also Fed urged to adopt aggressive easing by Robin Harding in the FT.Where we stand on Basel III. Douglas Elliott, Brookings. (Read alongside his primer on the Basel… More »
The startling volume of material released by Julian Assange's organization makes it hard to believe much care was taken to protect soldiers and allies More »
Atul Gawande's best piece yet centers on the pressure every doctor feels to mislead dying patients about their prospects, keeping hope alive where there is no hope More »
Republicans, Democrats, climate scientists, and the White House are all implicated More »
Here is an interesting and dare I say important article about the media's role in the Sherrod scandal by John Harris and Jim VandeHei at Politico. Race was a factor in what happened, self-evidently: in this case, specifically, sensitivity to the charge of racism. (See Jonathan Chait on the White House's terror of being accused of favoring blacks over whites.) Polarization was part of it too-- but, say Harris and VandeHei, multiplied by a new force. What is… More »
