A Day to Bare Our Souls - and Find Ourselves

OH NO, NOT FRIEDMAN AGAIN!
We women have all been to those parties, right? Those social gatherings, usually at someone's home or backyard where the obligatory husband/boyfriend/flavor of the month that we all want to avoid comes. He knows you're into social issues or politics or whatever so you are too polite to just tell him he's a moron so you listen. You listen to him drone on and on. You nod while you look for a polite out. Usually grabbing your children, making for the powder room, anything to shake him off.

When you see him you or the female nearest you leans in and says "Oh no, there's Tom again! What does she see in him?" (knowing look) and then you look for the nearest way to distance yourself from the guy.

Considering Tom Friedman works for the antisemitic pooper-scooper, birdcage lining, "all the news that fits we print" New York Times I guess he's got the goods on someone there because he's such an idiot. He doesn't really know what he's talking about, he's unattractive, he's arrogant, he's delusional and he's so full of himself you wonder how he fits that massive ego of his through a door.

This author talks about Friedman spouting about reality. Sorry Mr. Tasini - I've been quietly watching Friedman drilling whatever little brain and intellect he had into the dirt for about 12 years now. He gets my self-hating Jew and wannabe pundit of all time award for stupidity.

So, here's my annual tribute to the idiocy that is Tom Friedman (trust me if he does more than one a year, I will blog about it.) While it isn't one of my pet subjects I couldn't resist jamming my huge foot on this guy's virtual gullet one more time.

Does Tom Friedman Have A Clue About China? No.
by Jonathan Tasini

Tom Friedman has written a lot of dumb things in the past. It's worth separating the dumb things that are just idle ruminations from the dumb things that are simply factually wrong. In yesterday's New York Times (apologies -- on-the-road travel delay), Friedman gave us another globalization whopper that shows that he hasn't a clue what is happening in China -- and his comment had a tinge or racism in it to boot.

In his column "The Green Road Less Traveled," Friedman writes:

What can many U.S. companies still manufacture? They can manufacture things that are smart -- that have a lot of knowledge content in them, like a congestion pricing network for a whole city. What do many Chinese companies manufacture? They manufacture things that can be made with a lot of cheap labor, like the rubber tires on your car. Which jobs are most easily outsourced? The ones vulnerable to cheap labor. Which jobs are hardest to outsource? Those that require a lot of knowledge.

So what does all this mean? It means that to the extent that we make "green" standards part of everything we design and manufacture, we create "green collar" jobs that are much more difficult to outsource. I.B.M. and other tech companies are discovering a mother lode of potential new business for their high-wage engineers and programmers thanks to the fact that mayors all over the world are thinking about going green through congestion pricing systems.

How to say this: that is complete nonsense. It is false to assert that China is simply manufacturing products that, as Friedman suggests, are simply lower-end products made with cheap labor. In his impressive book, The Chinese Century, Oded Shenkar writes:

China's goal, and that of its government is not merely to catch up with the major industrialized powers but to overpass them. No other developing country has sets its sights so high, and none ... has laid such a detailed road map to take it there.

Shenkar's book lays out in great detail how China is already overtaking the rest of the world in the higher-end, high-value, highly-skilled product lines. Since Shenkar's book was published in 2004, Friedman could easily have access to Shenkar's data. But, there is a hitch -- it contradicts Friedman's world view.

As I've pointed out a number of times (for example, here,), Friedman is one of the purveyors of the lie -- repeated by Republicans, too many Democrats, academics and political analysts -- that education is the salvation for workers trying to survive in Friedman's brave new global world. But, the truth is that that is a cruel hoax.

Friedman has it partly right when he talks about cheap labor -- but that cheap labor extends up and down the ladder at all levels of manufacturing. Yes, China is making your clothes -- but it is also designing jet engines, and investing heavily in bio-technology and computer research, to mention just a few areas.

Is Friedman a racist? Well, what I would suggest is this: people who believe that, if we simply educate Americans better, than this country will "win" out in economic global competition are mouthing a line that edges pretty close to: we're smarter and better than "the others."

The fact is the competition in the world is simply about who will do the work cheapest -- whether you are sewing on buttons or coming up with the newest "green" technology. When Friedman and his similarly-thinking brethren start dealing with the facts, not ideology, we can start having an intelligent and rationale conversation.

MORE FRIEDMAN FRIES:
HEY, TOM FRIEDMAN! HAND, FOREHEAD, STAPLE

AN OPEN LETTER TO TOM FRIEDMAN

MY APPEAL TO TOM FRIEDMAN: SOCIOPATHIC PUNDIT & HOW TO WRITE A TOM FRIEDMAN COLUMN


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