You expect me to talk up Platonic idealism? "

 No, mister Bond.  I expect you to die 

Simon Ross mourners and 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,” Katherine Tai, who served as Biden’s US trade representative, said from the stage. Tai 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”.

The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age | Economics | The Guardian