12 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday28 January 2020
Letters
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to the FT Editorial Complaints Commissioner: [email protected]The timing could not be worse for Don-
ald Trump. In the middle of his law-
yers’Senate defence, he president’st
former national security adviser, John
Bolton, has shredded their case. Mr
Trump’s lawyers were arguing that
House Democrats had failed to pro-
duce direct witnesses to his linking of
military aid to Ukraine with their
announcement of an investigation into
former vice-president Joe Biden and
his son Hunter. Leaks from Mr Bolton’s
forthcoming bookassert hat Mrt
Trump stated that explicit quid pro
quotoseniorstaff.
Mr Bolton is available to testify
under sworn oath. There is no pretext
for not hearing him. The case against
Mr Trump is that he tried to extort a
foreign power to tilt the scales in the
upcoming US election. Republicans
have so far blocked any new witnesses
and documents. That stance was
already indefensible. Should Republi-
cans prevent Mr Bolton’s testimony,
history will find them guilty of the
gravestassaultonAmerica’sruleoflaw.
It is by no means clear whether that
will be motivation enough for Republi-
can senators do the right thing. The
Democrats need just four Republicans
to make a 51-vote majority tocall new
witnesses. The likeliest waverers are
Utah’s Mitt Romney, Tennessee’s
Lamar Alexander, Maine’s Susan Col-
lins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski. Of
these, Mr Romney sounds most likely
to switch his vote. If he does so, the oth-
ersmayfollow.
The personal risk is not trivial. Mr
Trump appears to equate disloyalty to
him with betrayal of the country. He
has issued dark threats to those who
cross him. He casually uses words such
as “traitor” and “betrayal”. Mr Trump
has also tweeted that Adam Schiff, the
leadDemocraticmanagerintheSenate
trial, “has not paid the price” for his
implied treason. Republican waverers
must nevertheless weigh the costs of
caving in to Mr Trump’s bullying.
Should they facilitate a sham acquittal,
they will have crossed a point of no
return.
Mr Trump’s defenders, led by Mitch
McConnell, the Senate majority leader,
have made no secret of the fact that
they are coordinating their tactics with
the White House. The contents of Mr
Bolton’s manuscript appear to have
caughtthembysurprise.Thisisinspite
of the fact that Mr Bolton had submit-
ted the book to the White House for
clearance almost a month ago. Mr
Trump’s team must have known of its
contents.
Mr McConnell’s likely fallback posi-
tion will be to offer a deal in which
Democrats are allowed to call wit-
nesses such as Mr Bolton, and Mick
Mulvaney, the White House budget
director,onconditionthatRepublicans
can put Joe and Hunter Biden on the
stand. This would make a travesty of
theprocess.
There is no evidence that as vice-
president Mr Biden broke any laws, or
attempted any quid pro quos with
Ukraine on behalf of his son. The Sen-
ate’s constitutional duty is to conduct a
fairtrialofanimpeachedUSpresident.
It must not betray its role by shifting
the focus on to the man who is Mr
Trump’slikeliestopponent.
Until now, the president’s defence
has been that the witnesses are “une-
lected bureaucrats” peddling “hear-
say”. Mr Bolton is neither of these
things.Heisalife-longRepublicanwho
was handpicked by Mr Trump to direct
his foreign policy. He is also a critical
witness to the case that Mr Trump
abused his powers of office and
obstructedCongress.
Mr Bolton should be allowed to tes-
tify without precondition. Anything
less would be a betrayal of America’s
constitution.Ex-national security adviser was witness to alleged quid pro quo
Bolton must be allowed
to testify in Trump trial
Seventy-fiveyearsafteritsliberationin
the closing months of the second world
war, a disturbing paradox surrounds
theNaziexterminationcampofAusch-
witz. The place which symbolises the
mass murder of European Jews in the
1940s,andwhichtestifiestomankind’s
enduring capacity for unfathomable
evil, today receives more visitors than
ever and exposes them to the terrible
lessonsofthepast.Yetanti-Semitismis
on the rise, not least in Europe, the his-
toricalheartlandofthescourge.
In principle, the small tour compa-
niesinthenearbyPolishcityofKrakow
that arrange day excursions to Ausch-
witz, and the schools across Europe
that fly in pupils for educational visits,
are making a useful contribution.
Worldleadersrightlypaytheirrespects
at Auschwitz, as they did for yester-
day’s 75th anniversary commemora-
tions. All this is a far cry from the com-
munist era, when Auschwitz was a des-
olate,poorlymaintainedsitewhere,for
ideological reasons, the authorities
played down the camp’s central role in
thegenocideoftheJews.
Yet there remains something unsat-
isfactory about modern efforts to raise
public awareness of the Holocaust,
especially among generations born
long after the crimes were committed,
and to protect Jewish communities
against violence, hatred and prejudice.
Museums, films, school projects, civic
events and other public initiatives are
failing to curb the spread of vicious
anti-Semitic lies and misinformation
on the internet. Still less are they pre-
venting murderous attacks on Jews,
from the French city ofToulousein
2012 toPittsburgh n 2018 andi Hallein
easternGermanylastOctober.
According to a European Commis-
sionsurvey ublished one year ago, 50p
per cent of Europeans consider anti-
Semitism a problem in their country,
including majorities in Sweden,
France, Germany, the Netherlands, the
UK, Italy, Belgium and Austria. The
worst examples of anti-Semitism were
considered to be Holocaust denial,
anti-Jewish material on the internet,
graffiti, vandalism and hostility and
threats to Jews in public places. Among
Jews themselves, an overwhelming
majority feel that anti-Semitism has
risenstronglyinEuropesince2013.
As the last survivors of Auschwitz
and other death camps pass away,
thereisanobviousriskthatwewillfind
it harder to hold on to the feeling that
our times have a direct connection to
the era of the Nazi-led abominations.
More worrying still is the pernicious
misuse of the internet and social
media, including by politicians and
activists who should know better. This
has undermined respect for objective
truth and fact-based discussion, creat-
ing the swamp in which intolerance,
ignoranceandanti-Semitismbreed.
Overthepastdecadeorso,thesepes-
tilences have acquired an increasingly
political form as the western liberal
order has come under attack from
within by forces of the radical right and
radicalleft.Forsure,Islamistterrorism
has played a large part in making Jews
feelunderthreat.Atitsheart,however,
contemporary anti-Semitism is about
the retreat of liberalism in societies
polarisedbyeconomiccrises,wooedby
militant nationalists, disoriented by
conspiracy theories and falling back on
racial and religious stereotypes to
account for their ills. Such a climate is
dangerous for Muslims and other
minorities,too.
In his 1898 tract “J’accuse”, the
French author Emile Zola argued in
unforgettable prose that anti-Semitism
was not just an abomination in its own
right but a threat to democracy, liberty
and civilisation. Never since 1945 have
Zola’s words served as a more urgent
warningthantheydotoday.Violence and hatred grow as the world marks Auschwitz anniversary
The rising scourge of
modern anti-Semitism Lifestyle changes will
have to affect everyone
Philip Stephens is right to point to the
large swath of voters who can be
expected to oppose policies to curb
climate change that are imposed
without regard to distributional equity
(January 24).
People who enjoy cheap holiday
flights once or twice a year will not
willingly forgo those flights, or bear a
big increase in taxes on them, if
wealthy people can still jet around the
world in private planes. People who
enjoy steak and chips will not happily
allow such meals to become the
preserve of the rich. People in modest
homes will not willingly bear the cost
of scrapping gas boilers when they
already pay a big portion of their
incomes on fuel. People who rely on old
diesel or petrol-driven cars will not
trade them in while others hold on to
their gas-guzzling SUVs.
The only way people on modest
incomes will be prepared to give up
their modest pleasures like cheap
flights is if they see the world’s super-
rich giving up their luxuries such as
private yachts and planes which inflict
proportionately much greater damage.
As the wartime slogan had it — “fair
shares for all”. Changes in lifestyle to
protect the environment are going to
have to affect everyone if they are to
win the consent of everyone.
Michael Williams
Letchworth Garden City, Herts, UKWe understand that Steve Mnuchin,
the US Treasury secretary, would listen
to Greta Thunberg on the subject of
climate change should she have a
degree in economics (report, FT.com,
January 23). We will listen to Mr
Mnuchin on the same subject when he
has a degree in physics, and the
humility to recognise the scientific
limits of our understanding of climatic
phenomena and the influence of them
on our world.
Our lack of understanding has no
influence on physics of gravity, wind,
water, temperature, fire. But these
things have great influence on life on
earth.
Hermine Makman
Walnut Creek, CA, USTeach future workers how
to cope with tomorrow
Miranda Wolpert (“Stop throwing
money at mindfulness apps and yoga”,
January 24) rightly raises the issue of
workplace wellbeing initiatives and
their outcomes. But having
acknowledged the problem, she misses
the solution — education and training.
Factories and offices have long
understood the need for vocationalskills and qualifications to ensure the
right people are selected for the right
jobs. But why not for mental wellbeing?
Our corporate response today is
more like the 21st century equivalent
of installing coffee machines. It needn’t
be so. The UK government requires all
schools to teach physical and mental
health by the end of this year. We have
the opportunity now to introduce a
progressive and lasting curriculum that
can educate the workers of the future
to cope with tomorrow. Too often we
leave it to “drop-in” solutions, late-
stage counselling and flag-waving.
A qualified lawyer builds his or her
skills over time, through schooling and
higher education. We should treat
mental wellbeing in the same way and
start in the classroom rather than the
office. Perhaps Wellcome can help here
too?
Kevin Corrigan
iSpace Wellbeing,
Uckfield, E Sussex, UKGreater Manchester has
benefited from the BBC
It’s not for me to comment on the
current debate about levelling up the
UK economy and moving institutions
and jobs out of London, but I would
like to challenge the assertion the BBC’s
move to Salford had “little impact on
the region”. (“How to move the public
sector out of London”, editorial,
January 23).
This is something claimed in a Centre
for Citiesreport ublished in 2017. Atp
the time, that report from the London-
based think-tank was met by
astonishment from anyone based here
in the north-west of England. The
Mayor of Salford, the Greater
Manchester Combined Authority, and
countless academics, business figures
and industry experts queued up to
question it.
Every other independent assessmentof the move to Salford has recognised
the considerable benefits the BBC
brought not just to the city but to the
wider economy of Greater Manchester
and the north-west. The number of
BBC employees in Salford has now
grown to 4,000 and we’ve just
announced plans to expand our
presence further.
Our move was the catalyst for the
development of MediaCityUK, which
has provided thousands of jobs and
pumped millions of pounds into the
regional economy. We’re proud of our
successful site in Salford and the
significant benefits it has brought to
the region.
Helen Thomas
Director, BBC England,
Salford, UKMake internet end-users
pay the digital tax
The current discussion aboutdigital
taxation entres on the profits of techc
giants. While understandable, this will
lead to very little. Would it not be
better by far to tax internet usage by
end-users? This would create a more
level paying field for digital and non-
digital commercial activities (think
Amazon/Zalando versus bricks-and-
mortar retailers) and limit the social
cost of disruption.
It would also help to curb the
excessive internet usage that is a
major societal problem in itself.
Business models such as YouTube
might be in real trouble. Just imagine
how much less children and teenagers
would use such services if it was going
to cost them a meaningful amount of
money.
Anton Traxler
Zurich, SwitzerlandDon’t worry unduly about
debt being ‘shunned’
In your Big Read article “Meet the new
bond kings” (January 23) you note the
possibility that smaller companies
might see their debt shunned due its
being infrequently traded.
Prior to Big Bang, many jobbers on
the London Stock Exchange would deal
only in round numbers of equities.
Brokers with, say, 1,074 shares to sell
would dispose of 1,000 at the keenest
price and the remaining 74 with the
odd-lotters. These people would quote
a wider spread and presumably sold
them on at the keener price as and
when they accumulated round
numbers of shares.
So, don’t worry too much about less
frequently traded debt being shunned.
As Yorkshiremen say, where there’s
muck, there’s brass.
Keith Billinghurst
London SE9, UKPhilip Stephens is right that the
economic burden of climate change
could, if not mitigated, land hardest on
those who can least afford it (“How
populism will heat up the climate
fight”, January 24). But he overlooks a
promising way to mitigate that burden:
imposing a tax on carbon and
returning the revenue directly to
taxpayers.
Economists largely agree that a
carbon tax would be the most efficient
way to reduce carbon emissions over
the next decade. Doing so will increasethe costs of fuel and everything that
depends on fuel, from heating homes
to moving groceries. Returning the
revenue to the end consumers
compensates them for higher prices,
while encouraging everyone to seek
out less carbon intensive (and thus,
less expensive) modes of travel and
living.
This approach is built into several
pieces of legislation already introduced
in the US Congress. One of these, the
Energy Innovation and Carbon
Dividend Act, would return all of thecollected revenue to households via a
monthly deposit — one full share for
every adult, half shares for children. As
the price on carbon grows annually, the
monthly deposit grows too. And since
the payment is the same for everyone,
whether billionaire or bankrupt, the
tax is progressive, compensating lower
income individuals and families
proportionally higher than wealthy
folk, who presumably consume more
carbon.
David Sims
Long Beach, CA, USCompensate consumers for the carbon tax
Correction
cMorganStanleyhas19percent
femalerepresentationonits16-strong
managementteam,not13percenton
its22-strongteamasincorrectlystated
inanarticleonJanuary24.Balls is just the man
to pull the UK into asingle interactive model
At last in black and white — or rather,
in black and pink!
John Thornhill’s column “Birth of
‘digital twins’ will transform our world”
(January 23) suggests to me that we
could put the whole of the UK economy
into a single interactive model,
managed by the government of the day
and accessible to all citizens.
To quote from Mr Thornhill’s
column: Microsoft chief Satya Nadella
“argues that increasingly sophisticated
digital representations of the world,
enhanced by mass computing power
and machine learning, would optimise
information flows and catalyse
economic growth”. Admittedly, Mr
Thornhill goes on to examine some of
the risks of digital twins. But we need
to make a start, especially as we
grapple with Brexit.
Imagine a means of exploring and
demonstrating, on a continuing and
common basis, which combinations of
measures would produce better
outcomes than currently seem likely
for the economic and social welfare of
the nation, region by region. We should
start with infrastructure and gradually
move to include all key policy decisions
and proposals, including health,
education and taxation. Who might
champion such an endeavour? I
suggest Ed Balls, a respected and
seasoned operator who could bring the
right people together.
A final thought: once entrenched
within our own system, this endeavour
could be taken up by other
democracies, thereby reinforcing
democratic tendencies worldwide
against the threat of hostile
autocracies.
Nick Towers
Hampton, Middx, UKLatin American insights
into the US position
Further to Edward Luce’s Global
Insight column “Senate trial exposes
Republican scorn of US founding
virtues” (January 24): understanding
the US’s current position on the
slippery slopes of Mount Populism-
Authoritarianism-Totalitarianism,
useful insights by two of Latin
American’s greatest novelists will
assist: Miguel Angel Asturias,El señor
president(1946), and Augusto Roa
Bastos,Yo, el Supremo(1974). Both are
available in many translated editions.
Their penetrating descriptions of
institutional manipulation, corruption
and narcissism, now taken for granted
by many in the US as enviable qualities
for their president, parallel parts ofIt
Can’t Happen Here(1935) by Sinclair
Lewis.
How many more Senate
impeachment proceedings without
witnesses or documents, federal
judicial appointments and executive
orders need occur before the horrors of
these their writers become daily
realities?
Peter T Johnson
Girona, SpainIn the heart of the retail hive of
Shibuya, Tokyo, wedged between the
Apple and Ray Ban stores, is a
shopfront proclaiming the birth of a
new industry. Even more excitingly, it
announces: “You are the STAR!!”
Inside — clacking with activity — is a
small but perfectly-formed casino
comprising one each of roulette,
blackjack and baccarat tables. The
tableau is familiar: croupiers “croup”;
lady luck variously smiles and frowns;
chips and cards slide to and fro across
green felt. Everything looks normal,
but there is a twist: the biggest
gamblers here are the dealers, who are
paying thousands of dollars to be at
these tables as trainees.
Japan’s relationship with betting is a
volatile one. Even more so since the
December arrest of one of the key
ruling party politicians behind
liberalisation,Tsukasa Akimoto, on
suspicion that he took bribes from a
Chinese online sports lottery operator.
Japan allows various lotteries,
wagers can legally be made on horse,
bicycle and speedboat races, and the
vertical pinball gamepachinko nablese
de facto gaming on a legally vague and
historically huge scale. But for more
than a century, casinos have been
strictly outlawed. For the past five
years, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ash
moved Japan towards opening its first
“integrated resort” casinos — more, it
often seems, in a flexing of political
muscle than a genuine belief that the
country will be a big winner.
At no time in the process has a
majority of Japanese been in favour ofthe idea, and, since Mr Akimoto’s
arrest, support is tumbling fast. In
2016, Mr Abe rammed legislation
through parliament giving Japan the
go-ahead for casinos in principle and a
rough timeline for when the first one
will open — sometime, it seemed until
recently, around 2025.
The great and grizzly of the global
casino industry are ready to vie for the
three licences that will be up for grabs
— a competition rendered white-hot
by estimates that Japan’s casinos could
rapidly become $20bn-a-yeara
industry. On Wednesday, Yokohama
will host thecountry’s first integrated
resort trade show, here emissaries ofw
Las Vegas, Macau and other gaming
hubs will try to convince the Japanese
public that they are wrong to be so
stubbornly resistant to a proposition
where the house always wins.
There are a number of critical stages
to go before a single card is dealt: the
government must still decide on
certification standards and how
bidders will be accredited; a casino
management board is yet to be
established; the government has to
select which cities will begiven a
licence to even choose an operator.
But Mr Abe still seems keen, so the
assumption is that all this will happen.
This is where the grandly-named
Japan Casino Academy in Shibuya
comes in. It aims to teach wave after
wave of Japanese how to rise in a still
non-existent industry, at a cost of
Y1.5m ($14,000) for the premium
course. Despite the current lack of
casinos, the directors of the JCA havemade their calculations. Japan, they
reckon, will eventually require 10,
trained roupiers — a tall order in ac
country where the indigenous
population is shrinking at a rate of one
person per minute and where “staff
shortage” was one of 2019’s fastest-
rising causes of company failure.
But the potential pay-off for
hundreds of JCA graduatesis enticing.
A job in a convenience store or
restaurant pays Y1,000 per hour.
Casinos, says the school’s director
Masaki Shiraishi, will pay dealers
hourly rates of as much as Y3,000.
The course, which includes units on
management, will also help graduates
secure early promotion. The promise
has resonated. At the Shibuya school,
57 per cent of applicants are women;
at its sister branches elsewhere in
Japan the share is in the high 80s.
Until a few weeks ago, the fees
seemed hefty but nonetheless a good
investment: a bet, in effect, on Mr
Abe’s ability to smuggle an unpopular
idea past a disapproving public. utB
Mr Akimoto’s arrest has turned that
investment into a far less tempting
wager. In the past week,a succession
of polls ave shown plunging publich
support for casinos and demands for
the pending decisions to be delayed.
The most striking reversal has been
among natural supporters of the
prime minister. Japan’s casino roulette
table is covered in ready bets, but, for
now at least, the ball has rolled off
under the table.[email protected]Casino schools
are a gamble for
Japan’s would-be
croupiers
Tokyo
Notebook
by Leo Lewis
JANUARY 28 2020 Section:Features Time: 27/1/2020- 18:51 User:alistair.hayes Page Name:LEADER, Part,Page,Edition:LON, 12, 1