Martin Wolf, the western alliance is facing much more serious threats than Trump.

Sir, if an American citizen would I have voted for Donald Trump? NO! though not for Hillary Clinton either. That said each day I now wake up to see, which are the impeachable offenses or similar disasters Trump is being accused of during last 24 hours, or 24 minutes. Today it is Martin Wolf arguing he might be “disintegrating…The western alliance…the world’s biggest economic bloc and largest repository of scientific and business knowledge.”, “The rise and fall of American leadership”, May 31. Boy, as far as Trump misbehaving goes, that clearly beats any firing of the F.B.I. Director!

But NO! I can think of much larger threats.

Like having bank regulators willing to pay the price of distorting the allocation of bank credit, only to aspire having the banks standing there safe in shiny armors, at the burial of the real economy.

Like our societies not preparing in the least for how to manage all growing structural unemployment so that it does not detonate in social mayhem.

Like our societies allowing the profiteering that increases the costs of what needs to be done in order to contain the damages done to our pied-a-terre. If as Wolf opines “The Paris climate change agreement of December 2015 was not an answer to the challenge”, then perhaps good riddance.

Wolf holds Trump does not “seem committed to the mutual defence principles of Nato” which if true, I agree is very bad… though some thoughts on what “mutual” should mean in this context, would not be out of line.

Finally if Merkel because of Trump finds reason to state that the European Union would have to “take our destiny into our own hands”, then clearly he has done Europeans a great favor, reminding them that that is how it always should be.

Sir, this sure reads like that Wolf, as so many, is suffering from a severe bout of trumpitis. I sure hope he gets better because, if Trump really turns into a clear an immediate danger to our western world, then we all need to be much more clearheaded.

@PerKurowski

Trump might have done Europeans a huge favor by reminding them they have to fight for their own future themselves

Sir, today, May 29, is Memorial Day in the US. That is the day I walk down to the World War II Memorial in Washington, to try to thank those Americans who rescued my polish father from the concentration camp of Buchenwald more than 70 years ago. Had they not done that, I would not be, it is as simple as that.

But today I read Patrick McGee’s and George Parker’s “Europe can no longer rely on US partnership, warns Merkel” all the result of “a new transatlantic rift that has emerged after two days of international summits with President Donald Trump last week.” 

Is that true? No! Even when the partnership in World War II depended on very few, in my mind on Roosevelt and Churchill, any long-term partnership of this nature cannot really depend on what temporary leaders opine. If it did, it never existed.

There are of course general concerns. Like should I ask the Americans in the Mall to forgive Europeans for not showing the same interest in carrying their fair share of the defense load? Like, in these times of outsourcing, are the European and American manufacturing sectors able to respond somewhat similar than America did when it built up what Roosevelt called the Arsenal of Democracy, and that without it would have given the war a totally different outcome? Like, in these times of drones doing more and more of the fighting, are our soldiers capable to keep sufficiently of that fighting spirit that at the end of the day will be needed? And there is more… like the huge public debt loads and other minutia.

Sir, and if Chancellor Angela Merkel is sort of indirectly excluding the UK from the European defense, does that mean perhaps Britain should begin thinking about the need of promoting some English Language Empire as a substitute?

I do agree though 100% with Ms Merkel when she says: “We have to fight for our own future ourselves.” That is always the case, no matter what partnership or alliance you find yourself in. Merkel should reflect on the irony that Trump might have done her and all Europeans a great favor of reminding them of that simple fact of life.

@PerKurowski

Go for an oil consumers' co-operative group

Published in FT, April 26, 2006

Sir, James Pinkerton suggests that “The world should get ready for a Nato-style oil alliance” (April 20), and although he makes it implicit that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is the “enemy, he does not really explain what the alliance should be up to. Let me make three suggestions. First, forget about the NATO simile - too militaristic - and go for a simple Oil Consumer Co-operative. Second, the OCC should then start some serious introspection so as to realize that its biggest enemy, unchecked oil demand, is thriving behind their own lines. Finally it should look seriously into the alternative of offering the oil producing nations long-term supply and purchases agreements based on prices that are reasonable for both sides.

LEFT OUT:

For instance if the price offered on a 50 years arrangement was 40 dollars per barrel, with adjustment for inflation, plus or minus 50% of the difference with the spot market, this would provide the producers with a floor of 30 when the spot hits 10 dollars, and conversely “only” charge consumers 70 when the spot rises to 100 dollars. Such an arrangement would not only stimulate new oil investments but also keep the hawks (those who love the NATO part) from trying their solutions, as wars mostly tend to erupt while fighting over bargains, like oil priced at its marginal extraction cost.