May 31, 2017

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