America’s race to net zero
Does Joe Biden’s climate plan go far enough? On 22-23 April the Biden administration is hosting a global climate summit to mark Earth Day, named after the largest ever environmental demonstration, staged in the United States 51 years ago. As Joe Biden nears the end of his first 100 days in office, the summit celebrates the re-entry of the US into global climate politics and is a key test for a government that has defined the environmental crisis as central to its programme. It is also an important shift in focus. So far, the Biden administration’s agenda has been dominated by disaster management. Efforts have been devoted to rolling out the vaccine bequeathed by Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed and delivering a third, huge round of fiscal relief to American firms and households. Ahead of the climate talks, the president has to deliver something more
The Gatekeeper
Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics and the Fight for a Better Future by Paul Krugman. Norton, 444 pp., £13.99, February, 978 0 393 54132 8 Paul Krugman’s latest collection of essays, Arguing with Zombies, first appeared in January 2020. Not only was it quickly buried by Covid, but he missed out on a thing all too rare for a pundit: the opportunity to declare victory. A year later, in Joe Biden’s Washington, Krugmanism rules. The gigantic scale of the $1.9 trillion Biden rescue plan, and now the proposed $2 trillion infrastructure investment programme, are testament to a rearrangement of the relationship between economic expertise and politics in the Democratic Party, a rearrangement which Krugman anticipated and for which Arguing with Zombies makes a powerful case. In the 1990s the lines were clearly drawn. The Democrats were a party of fiscal rectitude and trade globalisation. They had the weight of academic economic
Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi Have One Last Job
The U.S. treasury secretary and the Italian prime minister have spent decades shaping this economy. But can they control what comes next? In recent years, the world has been regaled with stories about the crisis of expertise. The era of the liberal technocrat was over, we were told, killed off by the financial crisis and populism. But if democracies find it hard to live with expertise, it seems they can’t live without it either. At the start of 2021, two of the most contentious capitalist democracies in the world, Italy and the United States, turned to familiar experts to chart a way out of novel political situations. If there is such a thing as a technocrat, Janet Yellen, the new U.S. treasury secretary, and Mario Draghi, Italy’s new prime minister, are it. For the last 30 years, both Yellen and Draghi have held positions of
How Radical Is President Joe Biden On Climate? With Aaron Bastani on Downstream
For some Joe Biden has already exceeded expectations. For others his economic program is nowhere near enough to address the climate crisis and American decline. While his Covid relief package has seen billions dispensed immediately, the Jobs Plan proposes to invest $35 billion in green R&D over eight years –
Shades of Green with The Active Share podcast
Green can be a moral color, a political color, or an economic color. Join William Blair’s Hugo Scott-Gall for a conversation with Adam Tooze, history professor at Columbia University and author of “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World,” for a multidisciplinary discussion of how the decade
Transformation and Financial Crises with RECET
This lecture was presented in the framework of the RECET Opening Week on 22.04.2021 at the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) / University of Vienna, online via Zoom.
How the Pandemic Changed Europe
An interview with Isaac Chotiner on the the vaccine rollout and shifting politics in the E.U. Isaac Chotiner: Europe has faced a number of challenges in the last dozen or so years, from the financial crisis, to Brexit, to the rise of right-wing populism. Do you see the stumbles around
The Fragility of Europe’s China Strategy
In its dealings with Beijing, the United States has turned to classic grand strategy with the aim of safeguarding its primacy. In contrast, the EU has been pursuing a less consistent, but much more suitable multi-track approach. China’s latest actions may push the Europeans to full alignments with the US—which
Chartbook
Sign up below for Adam’s newsletter, which includes economic data, images, & stories that matter.
Look out for Adam’s next books, Shutdown: The Global Crises of 2020 coming to print in 2021, and Carbon, out in 2023.
Discussion with Wolfgang Schäuble
WEF 2020: Why Protests Are An Integral Part Of Democracy
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer – Is a 2nd Great Depression Coming?
Inflation: Sind die Sorgen berechtigt?
Crashed to Corona 7: Responding to the global epidemic
America’s race to net zero
Does Joe Biden’s climate plan go far enough? On 22-23 April the Biden administration is hosting a global climate summit to mark Earth Day, named
The Gatekeeper
Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics and the Fight for a Better Future by Paul Krugman. Norton, 444 pp., £13.99, February, 978 0 393 54132 8 Paul Krugman’s latest collection of essays,
Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi Have One Last Job
The U.S. treasury secretary and the Italian prime minister have spent decades shaping this economy. But can they control what comes next? In recent years,
How Radical Is President Joe Biden On Climate? With Aaron Bastani on Downstream
For some Joe Biden has already exceeded expectations. For others his economic program is nowhere
Shades of Green with The Active Share podcast
Green can be a moral color, a political color, or an economic color. Join William
Transformation and Financial Crises with RECET
This lecture was presented in the framework of the RECET Opening Week on 22.04.2021 at
Chartbook
Sign up below for Adam’s bi-weekly newsletter, which includes economic data, images, & stories that matter.
Look out for Adam’s next books, Shutdown: The Global Crises of 2020 coming to print in 2021, and Carbon, out in 2023.
Discussion with Wolfgang Schäuble
WEF 2020: Why Protests Are An Integral Part Of Democracy
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer – Is a 2nd Great Depression Coming?
Inflation: Sind die Sorgen berechtigt?
Crashed to Corona 7: Responding to the global epidemic
"a majestic narrative tracing the prehistory and destructive path of the crisis across the planet"
– Yanis Varoufakis, The Guardian
“The prose is clear. The scholarship remarkable.”
– Martin Wolf, Financial Times
“But whatever happens next, Crashed is likely to stand the test of time as the best history of 2008 written in the decade afterwards.”
– Duncan Weldon, Resolution Group