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April 30, 2024
 

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Clive Crook
For Clive Crook's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2014
Business Book of the Year is timely but way off target
The economics in Thomas Piketty's 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century,' chosen the Business Book of the Year by the Financial Times, leaves a lot to be desired. But its timing was fantastic.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2014
Union could unravel over devolution pressure
If the Scottish nationalists had won, they'd have started a risky, costly transition to independence, but the final destination would have been clear. The unionists' victory avoids that short-term pain but prolongs the constitutional uncertainty.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2014
Europe led by a country that doesn't want the job
Europe's stagnant economy and the crisis in Ukraine point to gross failures of leadership. Europe's de facto and reluctant leader — Germany — is especially to blame.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2014
U.K. should stay in EU until they beg it to leave
The European Union moves under a seemingly irresistible momentum to strengthen its institutions even as it fails to integrate in ways that a well-run single-currency area needs. The best course for Britain is to continue as an EU member for the economic benefits until other members beg it to leave.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2014
U.K. could learn from Canada about destiny
Depending on how it's done, leaving the EU spans a range of outcomes for the United Kingdom, running from 'terrible' all the way up to 'better than remaining a member.'
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2014
Is the U.K.-Europe marriage beyond salvation?
The nomination of a 'federalist' to head the European Commission shows that the EU is institutionally dedicated to the idea of ever closer union, regardless of what its citizens, especially Britons, actually want.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 20, 2014
Americans should be worried about polarization
Americans should worry about a new Pew report on political polarization not because there's too much genuine ideological competition, but because our most energetic citizens appear to be dividing every more coherently into factions that can't stand each other.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2014
Urge to declare a quick win threatens security
The American urge to declare victory when nobody has won, to divide factions into fast friends and evil enemies, to ground complex decisions into simple, overriding principles rather than complex trade-offs poses a security risk.
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2014
Northern Ireland can't have peace and justice
The bleak truth is that the closest Northern Ireland will get to reconciling irreconcilable principles left over from the Troubles will be to combine a policy of no prosecutions with a tribunal to uncover the truth — along the lines of South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2014
The world's poor have rights, too
A New York economics professor argues that the West's efforts to help the poor, or even to understand what holds them back, have been defeated by the failure to recognize them as individuals with rights.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2014
Cameron, Merkel have irreconcilable differences
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made it clear, in a friendly way, that she and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron have incompatible views about the future of the European Union.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2013
Angus Deaton's 'The Great Escape' fetes growth
Angus Deaton's 'The Great Escape' celebrates growth and looks more favorably on aid directed at improving health, because that can address specific failures of market provision.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2013
U.S. obsession with race doesn't help the poor
In 2013, the factors that deny opportunity in the U.S. to poor blacks affect all poor Americans. Race should be dethroned as the organizing principle for social reform.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2013
Science and politics make for a poisonous mix
Why would a psychology professor believe that science is under attack for its arrogance, vulgarity and narrow vision — from intellectuals and anti-intellectuals alike
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2013
Obsessing over inequality threatens capitalism
It's wrong to see income gains at the top as proof of U.S. capitalism's ingrained wickedness, or to forget that clumsy intervention might affect everybody else's income.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2013
Frantic rule-writing won't avert new bank crisis
Five years after the great financial meltdown, the U.S. and others haven't decided how to respond to the breakdown of short-term capital markets.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2013
Institutional incapacity weighs down recovery
What's holding back economic growth worldwide? Details vary from place to place, but a leading reason is a kind of self-willed institutional incapacity.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 25, 2013
Fed hedge on transparency
Investors will be be debating what the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman meant last week until his next speech. That in itself is a threshold — not a trigger.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2013
Is U.S. still the land of the free?
It is not the United Stasi of America. Nevertheless, one still ought to ask how far one can trust the security and law-enforcement complexes to police themselves.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2013
Lessons on moderation from an 18th-century British conservative aren't applied easily today
The political career of Edmund Burke was mediocre. Still, his 18th-century perspective offers a way to understand modern currents of ethnic/ideological alliances.
When will Japan intervene to support the yen?
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has reiterated the government's readiness to take an appropriate action as the yen continues to slide against the U.S. dollar.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
Yen rebounds strongly after first slide past ¥160 since 1990
The yen dropped to ¥160.245 per dollar on Monday before heading into the other direction to ¥155.01 amid speculation of an intervention by Japanese currency authorities.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

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