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

If a manufacturing trade deficit leads to deficits of skills, then that can be something truly serious.

Sir, Professor Robert H Wade when commenting on Martin Sandbu’s “Trump’s love of manufacturing is misguided” of February 15 writes: “manufacturing typically has strongly positive “externalities”, especially in innovation, and that the innovation intensity of manufacturing depends on close, physical links between production and innovation (“learning while doing”).” “Manufacturing has positive externalities” February 17.

Indeed, just think of where you, I and we all would have been, if America had not had that manufacturing capabilities and those skills that allowed it to build up what Franklin Roosevelt called “The Arsenal of Democracy”, and which allowed for the defeat of Germany’s impressive war machinery during World-War-II.

And currently, the possibility of some other nation ending up with 1st class robots, and your own with 2nd or even the 3rd class robots should clearly be a source of much concern to everyone.

My current pray is “God save my grandchildren from being surrounded by dumb artificial intelligence and 2nd class robots”. But that said perhaps intelligent artificial intelligence could be worse, since then we humans might turn into having to be its obedient servers. Who really knows?

​PS. Here is what I commented previously​ on Sandbu's article

PS. This is personal. Without “The Arsenal of Democracy” I would not be.

@PerKurowski

Any new social contract for America needs to rectify and use equal risk weights for Sovereign and We the People

Sir, Anne-Marie Slaughter writes: “Where Roosevelt echoed Alexander Hamilton, emphasising a contract between citizens and government, Mr Ryan puts “society, not government, at the centre of American life”. Government exists to support citizens in solving their own problems. They agree on the imperative of genuinely equal opportunity for all but disagree on the scale and scope of government action necessary to achieve it.” “The world awaits America’s new social contract” January 18.

Since 1988, with the Basel Accord, for the purpose of setting the capital requirements for banks, the risk weight for the Sovereign, meaning the State, was set (by obvious statists) to a mindboggling zero percent. While the risk weight for We the Not-rated People, was determined to be 100%.

That subsidizes government debt, which is paid by lesser access to bank credit for SMEs and alike.

That, since it implies that government bureaucrats know better what to do with bank credit, puts the government squarely at the centre of American life.

Worse yet, American bank regulators have also extended the courtesy of lower risk weights to many foreign sovereigns, and to the AAA-risktocracy, wherever it lives.

I would prefer for instance a 75% risk weight for We the People and one of 100% for the sovereign but, if that’s not possible, the least the Ryans in America should do, is to be sure the state and citizens are weighted equally.

Sir, when I write this, there’s only one day left before 100% risk weighted citizen borrower Trump passes, as President Trump, to head the zero risk weighted borrower.

@PerKurowski

But Roosevelt and Churchill would have saved us from the dumb bank regulators.

Sir, Edward Luce, in “The worst is still ahead for Obama’s chief firefighter” May 28 writes “If there’s just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy, that’s an easier negotiation” 

Absolutely! And this is what these two great gentlemen would say. 

“Franklin, why do we not get rid of this stupid bank regulations they sold us as being able to control for the risk of default, and which has only brought us obese bank exposures to what was officially perceived as absolutely not risky, generating so many losses in lousily awarded mortgages disguised as splendid triple-A’s, lousy loans to Icelandic banks, lousy bank loans by the Spanish banks to the real estate, lousy loans to a Greek government?” 

“Indeed dear Winston, and to top it up, as I believe you call it, they also hindered our banks to give loans to our “risky” small businesses and entrepreneurs, and which you and I know are the ones most likely to take our nations forwards”… and so… 

“We, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, in order to save the Western world, knowing that risk-taking is the oxygen of any development, hereby decree the closure of the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision and the expulsion, forever, of their silly wimpy nannies. We also declare substituting immediately a Financial Functionality Board for a purposeless Financial Stability Board”