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The Crisis Whisperer How Adam Too's Make Sense of Our Bewildering Age by Robert P. Baird, read by James Sobel-Kelly.

In late January, 2025, 10 days after Donald Trump was sworn in for a second time as president of the United States, an economic conference in Brussels brought together several officials

from the recently deposed Biden administration

for a discussion about the global economy.

In Washington, Trump and his wrecking crew were already busy

raising every last brick of Joe Biden's legacy,

but in Brussels, the Democratic exiles put on a brave face.

They summoned the comforting ghosts of white papers past, intoning old spells like

worker-centered trade policy and middle-out, bottom-up economics.

They touted their late-term achievements. They even

quoted poetry. We did not go gently into that good night, Catherine Tai, who served as Biden's

U.S. trade representative, said from the stage, Ty proudly told the audience that before leaving office, she and her team had worked hard

to complete a set of supply chain resiliency papers, a set of model-negotiating texts,

and a shipbuilding investigation.

It was not until 70 minutes into the conversation that a discordant note was sounded when

Adam Tooze joined the panel remotely. Born in London, raised in West Germany, and living

now in New York, where he teaches at Columbia, Toos was, for many years, a successful but largely

unknown academic.

...