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| Thomas Friedman's estate |
Thomas Friedman writes:
But thanks to the merger of globalization and the I.T. revolution that has unfolded over the last two decades ... “the high-wage, medium-skilled job is over,” says Stefanie Sanford, the chief of global policy and advocacy for the College Board. The only high-wage jobs that will support the kind of middle-class lifestyle of old will be high-skilled ones, requiring a commitment to rigorous education, adaptability and innovation, she added. ...
To be in the middle class, you may need to consider not only high-skilled jobs, “but also more nontraditional forms of work,” explained Manyika. Work itself may have to be thought of as “a form of entrepreneurship” where you draw on all kinds of assets and skills to generate income.
This could mean leveraging your skills through Task Rabbit, or your car through Uber, or your spare bedroom through AirBnB to add up to a middle-class income.
A reader comments:
Menial work + part time driver + renting out your personal space = the bright future envisioned by Tom Friedman, NYT chief futurologist!
even that is too optimistic. in the not so distant future you won't even have any personal space to rent out.
ReplyDeleteThe Wallet Is Flat.
ReplyDelete"your spare bedroom through AirBnB to add up to a middle-class income. "
ReplyDeleteWho has a spare bedroom but not middle-class income?
But Steve, can't you see that he's predicting the inevitable and there's nothing we can do about it? Because the present is evil and must be destroyed to make way for the glorious progressive future!
ReplyDeleteThese "elites" are supposed to be great and smarter than everyone else. And yet the best ideas they can come up with for leading the country are telling people to eat beans, drive gypsy cabs, take in lodgers, and do menial work and odd jobs.
ReplyDeleteThey don't seem to get it. If these are the best ideas they can come up with, they're not "elite" anything and they're not going to be "elites" for long.
Love the photo of Friedmans ...err...his wife's place....think we can get it included on some agencies drone target list?
ReplyDeleteIntellectuals have never liked the middle class, so shut up and eat your beans.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.godvine.com/Police-Officer-s-Final-Act-of-Kindness-Caught-on-Tape-Before-Dying-1065.html
ReplyDeletehttp://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2012/06/more-on-racist-black-cop-killer-dejon.html
Incredible. Black thug kills white officer, and the news ignores all that and spins it into a story of how wonderful it is for a white guy to give out free money/cookies for black kids(who wanna grow up to be basketball players).
So, even when a white guy is killed by a black thug, his worth is judged by whether he did a favor for a negro kid or not.
Yay, Third World!
ReplyDeleteBut at least it'll be diverse. And that's the most important thing.
Shorter Friedman: "Let me show how you can make a living despite how badly my friends and I screwed up the nation!"
ReplyDeleteThe only high-wage jobs that will support the kind of middle-class lifestyle of old will be high-skilled ones, requiring a commitment to rigorous education, adaptability and innovation, she added.
ReplyDeleteNot to worry, Tom. I'm sure the clever clogs of the near future will figure out how to "commoditize" even those jobs, and make sure that the profits of all that rigorous education, adaptability, and innovation go to the right people, not the rigorously educated, adaptable, and innovative worker himself.
Hey, at least these guys are being honest now, and telling us that the future is going to be a dung heap for all but the favored few. Even as little as five years ago they were still promising us the pony in that sh*tpile! I guess they think they've got us all by the balls now, so they can safely realtalk.
ReplyDeleteIn a just world, looking up "gasbgag" in the dictionary, would bring you to Tom Friedman's picture.
But if you call it Uber and Airnbn, it sounds hip-like.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that will be the new fad.
Linguistic Stalinist were rather dull and boring in coming up with terms like 'vertically challenged'.
But with all these new jobs attached to cool sounding company names and logos, maybe it'll be hip to sweep doggy doo for a living.
'What do you do?'
'I work at Rove-R'.
We Americans are indeed exceptional!!
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/11/taking-exception-american-exceptionalism.html
"This could mean leveraging your skills through Task Rabbit, or your car through Uber, or your spare bedroom through AirBnB to add up to a middle-class income."
ReplyDeleteBecoming someone's personal gopher-- not full time mind you-- but at their beck and call. Now there's a sure fire path wealth if I've ever seen one!
This list might as well have included selling your body through Craigslist adds.
"In the end, this transition we’re going through could prove more exciting than people think"
"Exciting" huh, LOLOL.
This piece seems like an echo of Tyler Cowen's beans and rice article: your living standards and those of your children are going to drop markedly, but that's okay, because there's nothing America's policy makers can do about it!
Can I rent out a room at Friedman's mansion and then rent it to a bunch of illegal Mexicans?
ReplyDeleteMoney for nothing.
"“the high-wage, medium-skilled job is over,” says Stefanie Sanford, the chief of global policy and advocacy for the College Board"
ReplyDeleteAs SNL Weekend Update might put it, "high-wage, medium-skilled job is over" says woman who vastly overestimates the level of "skill" involved in her job.
The only high-wage jobs that will support the kind of middle-class lifestyle of old will be high-skilled ones, requiring a commitment to rigorous education, adaptability and innovation, she added. ...
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how egalitarian ideology is the handmaiden of elitism.
If the Tom Friedman types entertained the notion that not everybody is fit for a "rigorous education," they might actually have to start asking how we as a country can best support the lower parts of the bell curve.
But as long as they insist that everybody can be a future rocket scientist, they can reconcile their let-them-eat-cake attitude with their professed liberalism. We'll all be elites once we fix the schools; problem solved!
I also like how these people refer to deliberate policy outcomes as if they were random weather events. Demographics, globalization...they just kind of happen, you know. Whatcha gonna do?
That's exactly it. Education is the fig leaf for increasing inequality and declining median incomes. That's why elite charity is so often focused on education.
Deletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=322214914585316&set=a.319342834872524.1073741827.319300124876795&type=1&theater
ReplyDeleteLooks like Canada reversed its policy. Now, it's the non-whites who are flooding in.
One thing I've noticed recently is that people like Friedman are no longer pretending that globalization helps the average Western worker. It used to be that rhetoric like this would be accompanied by talk of new and exciting jobs in wind energy or something like that. Not anymore.
ReplyDeleteThanks for gushing over globalisation all these years. Looks like its turning out to be such a great deal for most of us.
ReplyDeleteWalter Russell Mead blogs on something similar today.
ReplyDeleteI still hold out hope for the future in this country through technology. There are many industries that have closed but I think there are many untapped avenues through technology. For instance, in small scale manufacturing the ability to use CAD programs to build parts on a desktop and email to a small manufacturer. The little guy can design and develop a product and take it to market before a big company is even aware of the market. My company in 1988 had 6 production employees and three ladies in the office. Today, I handle the paperwork for 3 production employees with one person in the office at triple the margin. Things are better now at a smaller volume. I don't know how many fields this can be done with but I know it can be done. Trying to do what worked twenty years ago didn't work twenty years ago.
ReplyDeleteWow...just wow.
ReplyDeleteLet it burn.
Eat the rich
Oh snap
ReplyDeleteIt's not worth having a horrible life to be in the middle class.
ReplyDeleteI'd much rather:
1) Have a single 9-5 badly paying job, free time, and my own house. I don't care that much about being in the middle class.
OR
2) Be as I am -- a trust fund baby (thanks to prior generations that that never lived to behold the merger of globalization and the I.T. revolution) with a good career (thanks to my education, funded by those prior generations).
There are two Americas. One for...and the other for everyone else. You may not want the one you have, but you can't return it for a full refund and there's not much really that can be done. You're stuck with the America that you're in.
ReplyDeleteofftopic::
ReplyDeleteanti-gay Dave Wilson wins election by pretending to be black. Onion delivers in real life.
ReplyDeleteNice map here, Steve:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2013/11/09/washington-a-world-apart/
David Cameron: "Cheap mortgages are proving a great way to create homeowners."
ReplyDeleteAs Steve always says, "What could possibly go wrong?"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2498691/Help-To-Buy-creates-75-homeowners-day-Cheap-mortgage-scheme-success-says-Prime-Minister.html
is there any serious discussion in the literature about whether the middle class is actually an aberration, that never existed in the past, and will not exist in the future? 50 years from now we may look back and realize it was an artifact of unique circumstances that existed for only 100 years.
ReplyDeletethe way these mainstream economists talk, the average guy will have to accomplish the impossible feat of increasing his intelligence just to stay in place economically. they talk as if the typical man is capable of moving into some high skill job. "Oh, the middle class will just have to get masters degrees and work 10 hours a day. Not that difficult of a transition, really."
what's actually coming is a great unemployment wave that will start to swallow people below a certain IQ, then steadily chew it's way up the IQ ladder decade by decade.
people better make their fortunes now, and i mean, right now, during the early 21st century currency and real estate bubbles. if you can get to 2 million or 3 million in fairly liquid assets, then you'll never have to work again, nor will your descendants, at least the first generation. your giant pile of money will be able to do all the work for you.
everybody else without a giant pile of money, and with average intelligence, will be screwed by 2020. it's back to serfdom for them, as they'll be unable to accumulate enough wealth to escape the dual trap of declining hourly wages and inflation. in many cities they will not even be able to afford to own property.
The existence of the USSR was useful for the American middle class. The American elite needed to keep proving that the capitalism was better than communism, so they ensured the conditions for a prosperous, happy middle class.
ReplyDeleteBut with no USSR, why deal with unions as if they are serious negotiating partners? In fact, why not flood the job market with foreigners? Let's even let the inexpensive foreigners telecommute form India or wherever!
SPOTTED:
ReplyDeleteThomas Chatterton Williams on "How the Hipsters Ruined Paris" (in the NY Times, naturally).
He must be the most SWPL black man in the world...
It's not worth having a horrible life to be in the middle class.
ReplyDeleteI'd much rather:
1) Have a single 9-5 badly paying job, free time, and my own house. I don't care that much about being in the middle class.
Don't confuse wealth and income. You can have a badly paying job, but be wealthier by owning your house outright or having a lower mortgage than someone with a higher paying job but with a bigger mortgage and more debt.
whos up to build some section 8 housing next to friedmans estate? ill start a kickstarter. lets give the rich some of that diversity they love so much
ReplyDeletemaster class, statist class, servant class, welfare class.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he thought this up while taking a gypsy cab and couch surfing.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexus_and_the_Olive_Tree
"The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a 1999 book by Thomas L. Friedman that posits that the world is currently undergoing two struggles: the drive for prosperity and development, symbolized by the Lexus, and the desire to retain identity and traditions, symbolized by the olive tree. He says he came to this realization while eating a sushi box lunch on a Japanese bullet train after visiting a Lexus factory and reading an article about conflict in the Middle East."
I can see the writing on the wall. This low-skilled, decently-paid young white guy is saving every penny he can and building up his savings account quickly. At the very least, I can then quietly live out the latter part of my life with my paid-for house and beans in the Mountain West, rather than running the rat-race in some "vibrant" multi-culti shithole.
ReplyDeletepeople better make their fortunes now, and i mean, right now, during the early 21st century currency and real estate bubbles. if you can get to 2 million or 3 million in fairly liquid assets, then you'll never have to work again, nor will your descendants, at least the first generation. your giant pile of money will be able to do all the work for you.
ReplyDeleteeverybody else without a giant pile of money, and with average intelligence, will be screwed by 2020. it's back to serfdom for them, as they'll be unable to accumulate enough wealth to escape the dual trap of declining hourly wages and inflation. in many cities they will not even be able to afford to own property.
This is actually too optimistic. You're forgetting about war.
Jody: "people better make their fortunes now, and i mean, right now, during the early 21st century currency and real estate bubbles. if you can get to 2 million or 3 million in fairly liquid assets, then you'll never have to work again, nor will your descendants, at least the first generation."
ReplyDeleteI think that is an optimistic view. The Dems and RINOs will need your pile of money to prop up the house of cards. Expect huge federal inheritance taxes
in the future.
I can see the writing on the wall. This low-skilled, decently-paid young white guy is saving every penny he can and building up his savings account quickly. At the very least, I can then quietly live out the latter part of my life with my paid-for house and beans in the Mountain West, rather than running the rat-race in some "vibrant" multi-culti shithole.
ReplyDeleteWinner, winner, chicken dinner!
But the bad boss come up laughin' at John Henry
ReplyDeleteSaid, "You full of vinegar now, but you about through
We gonna get a steam drill to do your share of drivin'
Then what's all them muscles gonna do? Huh, John Henry?
Gonna take a little bit of vinegar out of you"
John Henry said, "I feed four little brothers
And baby sister's walkin' on her knees
Did the Lord say that machines oughtta take the place of livin'?
And what's a substitute for bread and beans? I ain't seen it
Do engines get rewarded for their steam?"
John Henry said to his captain," A man ain't nothin' but a man
But if you'll bring that steam drill round, I'll beat it fair and honest
I'll die with my hammer in my hand but I'll be laughin'
'Cuz you can't replace a steel drivin' man"
...
There was a big crowd of mourners at the church house
The section hands laid him in the sand
Trains go by on the rails John Henry laid
They slow down and take off their hats, the men do
When they come to the place where John Henry's layin'
Yonder lies a steel drivin' man, oh, Lord
Yonder lies a steel drivin' man
Yonder lies a steel drivin' man, oh, Lord
Yonder lies a steel drivin' man
Yonder lies a steel drivin' man, oh, Lord
Yonder lies a steel drivin' man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmrh8HhNgyI
Tom Friedman writes:
ReplyDeleteThe only high-wage jobs that will support the kind of middle-class lifestyle of old will be high-skilled ones, requiring a commitment to rigorous education, adaptability and innovation, she added.
I respond:
So obviously, according to Friedman and many of his ilk, the solution is to swing the borders wide open to import millions of two digit IQ non-whites.
Oops, I forgot, Outcome-Based Education...er...No Child Left Behind...er...Commune Core....er...Waiting For Superman...will give them all grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat teachers and they'll be geniuses.
Thomas L. Friedman has been a gasbag for years. He gets paid to string together words into things that sometimes look like sentences and convey messages that at first seem like ideas. But if you think about what he actually says it's almost like he is some random concept generator: eat beans, drive gypsy cabs and turn your home into a boarding house. It's ridiculous!
ReplyDeleteWhen the mob is lashing Friedman to a stake I hope one of them has the grim wit to quote him at length until the flames start melting his Dolce & Gabanna trainers and the screams drown everything out. It was inevitable Tom.
ReplyDeleteWe all should be "committed to innovation" or accept servitude? Well, you should do a little cardio, just in case the last wheel comes off while you're still sucking your grossly unfair share of oxygen.
My God.
"Thomas L. Friedman has been a gasbag for years."
ReplyDeleteYes, but is his message all that different from that of Reagan and Thatcher in the 80s?
Factories and mines will close or be shut down, and we have to find new jobs in the SERVICE ECONOMY.
"So obviously, according to Friedman and many of his ilk, the solution is to swing the borders wide open to import millions of two digit IQ non-whites.
ReplyDeleteOops, I forgot, ..Waiting For Superman...will give them all grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat teachers and they'll be geniuses."
Please. Superman teachers are so passe. The new answer is the Ultimate Teacher:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqnXNpuUe1k
My company in 1988 had 6 production employees and three ladies in the office. Today, I handle the paperwork for 3 production employees with one person in the office at triple the margin. Things are better now at a smaller volume.
ReplyDeleteWell, bully for you Mr. Rockefeller. All I can see that you have accomplished since 1988 is to triple your margins by getting 3 production employees and two office ladies fired. Have a nice day.
And you have to worry about minorities who can't get jobs in Silicon Valley
ReplyDeletewhos up to build some section 8 housing next to friedmans estate? ill start a kickstarter. lets give the rich some of that diversity they love so much
ReplyDeleteIf, some day, Middle America ever secedes, the best part will be watching coastal elites like Friedman get saddled with an ever-swelling tide of Diversity. Let the progressive gasbags celebrate the Brazilianization of their own communities.
Being a butler or fancy maid isn't so bad. I thought while watching REMAINS OF THE DAY that the guy's life wasn't so bad. What did he do all day? Dust silverware. And he got to stay in a nice mansion.
ReplyDeleteBut how many such jobs can be available?
Maybe we are becoming more Anglo culturally. So class conscious.
Wait, is Friedman offering a job as butler, maid, gardener, or kitchen hep? I can make a killer bagel and cream cheese.
ReplyDeleteHow much is he offering?
I wonder how much demand there will be for drivers and domestic workers with 1 million annual legal immigrants and million of illegal aliens continuing to enter the U.S.?
ReplyDelete"Wait, is Friedman offering a job as butler, maid, gardener, or kitchen hep? I can make a killer bagel and cream cheese.
ReplyDeleteHow much is he offering? "
I hope you're a helpfully grinning deferential Hispanic. White servants are aesthetically unpleasant and black ones too politically incorrect.
Yes, but is his message all that different from that of Reagan and Thatcher in the 80s?
ReplyDeleteFactories and mines will close or be shut down, and we have to find new jobs in the SERVICE ECONOMY.
Reagan and Thatcher can at least claim they did not see the negative consequences of this back then. Remember the Cold War was still ongoing, and most free traders did not understand most of the factories would move to China. China was a ridiculous backwater then. Even Patrick Buchanan, who worked for Reagan, said he was a free trader, but after seeing the negative results, he changed his opinion.
The same could be said about immigration, the Great Society and a host of other issues. Being for something back then is different than being for it today, given the last two decades of negative results. If someone is still for something like that today, after all the evidence, then they should be subject to more ridicule.
TF is too optimistic with saying we can all be Uber, Lyft, or Sidecar drivers.
ReplyDeleteIn 20-30 years, humans will not be driving cars en masse.
Driving is precisely a occupation/task that will be devoured by technology.
And the masses will be too poor to own property to rent out via AirBnB.
What a clown TF is.
Of course, NYC has already waged wars on such major threats to civilization as subletting rooms in your apartment, supper clubs, etc. let alone catastrophic threats to the universe such as operating an "unlicensed" and "unregulated" cab...
ReplyDelete@ Pinsen
ReplyDelete>> That's why elite charity is so often focused on education.
Just in the news this week. Gore Vidal left his $37 million fortune to Harvard University. Wow, what a subversive iconoclast he turned out to be.
Another example: venture capitalist and early Twitter investor funding computer science classes in NYC public schools.
Delete"I hope you're a helpfully grinning deferential Hispanic."
ReplyDeleteSi, senor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzGM_N_6Q08
Did Harvard send him one of those computer-generated thank-you cards from Postable
ReplyDeleteNew job for the 21st century: inventing more charity awards for Hillary Clinton to receive
ReplyDeleteI do wonder sometimes if Downton Abbey is being developed and broadcast just to soften us up for our new jobs as valets and kitchen maids, and if its overwhelming popularity is a sign we're good and ready to get started . . . .
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I love that show, so now I'm seriously worried.
... and eat insects and jellyfish. John Brunner called it. Actually the future world closest to this (but a bit further along) is David Marusek's "Counting Heads". Not quite - the real jobs are held by clones bred to the purpose (nurses, teachers, security people, etc) and the free-range people live together precariously in state housing and pool their micro-cents from sharing their opinions about products, and whatever other odd bits of work they've managed to get that day.
ReplyDelete"I wonder how much demand there will be for drivers and domestic workers with 1 million annual legal immigrants and million of illegal aliens continuing to enter the U.S.?"
ReplyDeleteonce the robot vehicles are here, most of the truck driver jobs will go away, then the taxi jobs. huge robot dump trucks are already operating at some mines.
importing 1 million third worlders per year while at the same time eliminating half of all the low intelligence jobs from the economy. herp derp. this will work out well.
liberals better hope they never actually get their 15 dollar an hour minimum wage laws through the legislatures, or most of the fast food jobs in america will be gone in 5 years. who will employ all the high school dropout mexicans and africans then? the government can't absorb ALL of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z9P2v-O9TY
ReplyDeleteFeed the rich.
------
In a way, this is like the trolley question.
For some reason, the idea of playing the servant role to the rich seems demeaning.
Lots of men prefer to do something more 'dignified' like making stuff in factories or building stuff.
But if you think about it, they too are servants and hirelings of the rich who own the factories and have the money to buy the penthouses built by construction workers(who can't afford what they build). It's like the joke in Fellini's Amarcord:
My grandfather made bricks
My father made bricks
I make bricks, too,
but where’s my house?
A butler is a direct servant but a construction worker is an indirect servant. The Rich order them, 'build us our fancy high rise apartments'. And construction workers toil like ants.
The only way to not work for the rich is to work for the government that belongs to the people.
Best way would be robotize everything and go for universal aristocracy where we can all take it easy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnF_-vZJdKs
ReplyDeleteThere's even a youtube channel called COOKING FOR LEBRON.
In the future, everyone will have his 15 min of cooking for the rich.
If so hope Friedman's wife divorces him for her Thor-looking tennis teacher.
ReplyDeleteWalter Russell Mead blogs on something similar today.
ReplyDeleteWalter Russell Mead claims that turtles and bugs are milk and honey.
-meh
Speaking of Mead and jobs, he's hiring (no pay though!).
DeleteFriedman and fellow travelers are certainly within hailing distance of our old pal Mr Hubris. To what degree do they owe their current position and status to all this wonderful IQ and education and to what degree is it merely ethnic nepotism?
ReplyDeleteIts vital they emphasize the former, to make people think its 'fair'. Once people get the idea it might be the latter, stand back.
Anon said - It's funny how egalitarian ideology is the handmaiden of elitism.
ReplyDeleteIf the Tom Friedman types entertained the notion that not everybody is fit for a "rigorous education," they might actually have to start asking how we as a country can best support the lower parts of the bell curve.
But as long as they insist that everybody can be a future rocket scientist, they can reconcile their let-them-eat-cake attitude with their professed liberalism. We'll all be elites once we fix the schools; problem solved!
Thats brilliant, I dont think Ive seen stated more clearly.
"Thomas L. Friedman has been a gasbag for years. He gets paid to string together words into things that sometimes look like sentences and convey messages that at first seem like ideas."
ReplyDeleteLOL, this is spot on! Couldn't a computer do this more cheaply?
Anonymous wrote:
ReplyDeleteThe Dems and RINOs will need your pile of money to prop up the house of cards. Expect huge federal inheritance taxes
Here in France the government is seriously thinking of taxing our houses and flats. Their idea is that if you live in a house you own, and you're finished with your mortgage, you have an invisible income (revenu fictif) because you don't have to pay a rent. Therefore, it's as if you got each month the equivalent of a rent in money, right? And why shouldn't you pay taxes on that invisible income? Why should a home owner have more money left at the end of the month than a renter? There must be a tax to equalize home owners and renters!
It isn't a joke, unfortunately. If you can read French:http://www.lefigaro.fr/immobilier/2013/09/12/05002-20130912ARTFIG00542-les-proprietaires-occupants-pourraient-payer-une-taxe.php
Back in 19994 Sir James Goldsmith warned America of the perils of globalization...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
Transcript of Goldsmith's U.S. Senate testimony...
http://tinyurl.com/nje87w
Is Downton Abbey the Future of the US Economy?
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/11/09/is-downton-abbey-the-future-of-the-us-economy/
Cabbies and Bartenders make good money in New York City, it depends upon your tips. Two college graduates in New York went to either driving a cab which paid over 50,000 and the other did bartender which made 80,000. The best paying jobs now are those where you get high tips or commission. In fact in California in La or Orange County Realtors make better money in the luxury housing market lately since the Chinese and other foreigners and east coast folks are purchasing money in cash or large down payments. All this bunch screams here that you have to be a machinists or engineers but in La less than 30 percent of machinists are white while high income real estate about 90 percent are white.
ReplyDeleteLOL, this is spot on! Couldn't a computer do this more cheaply?
ReplyDeleteA computer does do this more cheaply.
Behold, the Tom Friedman OpEd Generator.
I do wonder sometimes if Downton Abbey is being developed and broadcast just to soften us up for our new jobs as valets and kitchen maids, and if its overwhelming popularity is a sign we're good and ready to get started...
ReplyDeleteGlad then I've had the foresight to earn a master's degree in Decanting the Brandy for His Lordship.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeletewhos up to build some section 8 housing next to friedmans estate? ill start a kickstarter. lets give the rich some of that diversity they love so much
If, some day, Middle America ever secedes, the best part will be watching coastal elites like Friedman get saddled with an ever-swelling tide of Diversity. Let the progressive gasbags celebrate the Brazilianization of their own communities.
11/10/13, 8:22 PM"
The self-perpetuating elites won't let whitey go, so it ain't Brazil down the road, it's Bosnia.
An intelligent Indian in Calcutta could churn out one of Friedman's columns for $25, but some jobs are ringfenced ;-)
ReplyDeleteDisparate something or other strikes again.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chinasmack.com/2010/pictures/filthy-india-photos-chinese-netizen-reactions.html
ReplyDeleteJust bring them all to the West. They can work for Friedman.
Feudalism society last longer than any other forms of Govements. Most democracies are short lived in history (no more than 200 years).
ReplyDeleteEnglish servants or stewards are the best kind for the lords. Best jobs for whites.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/article-bd.cfm?piece=1496
ReplyDelete"Thomas L. Friedman has been a gasbag for years. He gets paid to string together words into things that sometimes look like sentences and convey messages that at first seem like ideas."
ReplyDeleteLOL, this is spot on! Couldn't a computer do this more cheaply?
It can! Courteosy of the Thomas Friedman Op-Ed Generator!
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/09/online-fisher-symposium-leave-civil-rights-and-college-admissions-to-the-pros-or-the-people/
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/@Richard_T_Ford
LOL, this is spot on! Couldn't a computer do this more cheaply?
ReplyDeleteIt already does. See the Thomas Friedman Op/Ed Generator:
http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/about.php
If I were a young working class white guy I would move to Boise and never look back. Idaho real estate is a buy.
ReplyDeleteThe only high-wage jobs that will support the kind of middle-class lifestyle of old will be high-skilled ones, requiring a commitment to rigorous education, adaptability and innovation
ReplyDeleteBut upper-class jobs will continue to pay incredibly well while requiring no particular skills or hard work. See Friedman himself for an example. Upper-class people will continue to to get paid an absurd amount of money simply for being upper-class.
Chutzpah, the gift that keeps on giving! In a nutshell, Friedman is basically saying: you´re screwed, proles!
ReplyDeleteGlobalization means caviar for the elites and shit sandwich for everybody else. Enjoy!
Apologies if this has already been posted:
ReplyDeletehttp://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/Why+Nations+Succeed+6ae96d
or let them make movies
ReplyDeletehttp://stephenfollows.com/how-many-film-students-are-there-in-the-uk/
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2013/11/beatles_vs_stones.php
ReplyDelete"LOL, this is spot on! Couldn't a computer do this more cheaply?"
ReplyDeletehehe
http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/about.php
He's Lib Jewish Dr. Phil with hair and Gladwellisms.
Straussian populist.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437086/
ReplyDeletecameron doing anime-based movie
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704409004576146451881030710
ReplyDeleteSo much of today's social advice is like the banana hoax, and people keep falling for them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/the_great_banana_smoking_hoax_of_1967
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_yXe8wytus
Best way would be robotize everything and go for universal aristocracy where we can all take it easy.
ReplyDeleteIt won't work out that way. Some jobs will be automated before others, and those who still have jobs are likely to look down on the newly unemployed as undeserving, as is largely the case now. Add diversity to the mix, and the newly unemployed have potentially decades of poverty and danger to which to look forward until automation eats away at enough jobs that the number of people in the same boat can successfully demand redistribution of the products of automation from the owners of the robots.
Bloomberg is a good guy to have on your side.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/mike-bloomberg-wont-be-there-to-buy-everyone-off-in-de-blasi
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete"“the high-wage, medium-skilled job is over,” says Stefanie Sanford, the chief of global policy and advocacy for the College Board"
As SNL Weekend Update might put it, "high-wage, medium-skilled job is over" says woman who vastly overestimates the level of "skill" involved in her job."
Indeed. Here is a link to this parasite's bio:
College Board Leadership
She is a "policy expert" - meaning she has no discernible talent or skill at all. That probably goes for every member of that august body. Yammerers, who have never done anything useful. Leeches.
"Bert said...
ReplyDeleteOne thing I've noticed recently is that people like Friedman are no longer pretending that globalization helps the average Western worker. It used to be that rhetoric like this would be accompanied by talk of new and exciting jobs in wind energy or something like that. Not anymore."
The new mantra of globalist swine like Friedman is straight out of "Animal House":
You fucked up! You trusted us.
BULLETIN:
ReplyDeleteWhite Candidate wins election in Houston by pretending to be black
Yes, but is his message all that different from that of Reagan and Thatcher in the 80s?
ReplyDeleteThat's not fair to Reagan or Thatcher - in the 1980s, we had a massive surge in Western manufacturing and tangible technology output.
[And more than a little protectionism on the part of Reagan, especially as regarded the technologies necessary for winning the Cold War with the Soviets.]
It was Clinton and Blair who opened the floodgates and began the process of gutting the manufacturing capacities of their respective nations.
I guess the pertinent question would be whether GHWB-41 or John Major tried to stop Clinton & Blair, or whether they were merely the old-school elitist enablers who paved the way for Clinton & Blair.
We know now in restrospect how worthless the Bush family really is, and so there isn't any doubt that a second term for GHWB would have looked almost identical to the Clinton presidency, minus the Monicagate* fiasco, and the selling of vital USA defense technology to China by Loral**, and the Marc Rich*** pardon in exchange for the Denise Rich**** blowjobs, and the New Square***** pardons in exchange for the Hillary votes of the entire parish of New Square******, etc etc etc.
But I don't know enough about what John Major's policies were [or would have been] to understand his role in bringing about the existential treason to the British Isles which was committed by Blair.
*COUGH scots-irish COUGH
**COUGH scots-irish COUGH
***COUGH scots-irish COUGH
*****COUGH scots-irish COUGH
******COUGH scots-irish COUGH
*******COUGH scots-irish COUGH
A computer couldn't marry a Jewish heiress.
ReplyDeleteWALTER RUSSELL MEAD: "As manufacturing and clerical jobs decline, creating enough demand for service labor will push wages up to good levels."
ReplyDeleteUnless what, Mr Mead?
Unless, ahh, wait a second, hold on there, I know the answer, gimme a moment, okay, I got it, I remember the answer now, and, ah, ahh, ahhh, OH MY GOD HERE IT CUMS!!!!
Unless the SUPPLY of service-labor-seeking warm bodies were to INCREASE [rather than to remain the same or even to decrease].
And how might The Powers That Be go about increasing the supply of service-labor-seeking warm bodies, Mr Mead?
Gosh, I'll have to sneak back to my bunk and watch some Megan Fox videos under the covers and see whether I can receive another inspiration which helps me to cum to a resolution of that elitist quandary.
Friedman had a lot of help. Mainstream republican free traders were spouting the same mantra from the 1980's through the 2000's. Working class conservatives regularly called into Rush Limbaugh's show concerned about the diminishing number of good-paying jobs and the exporting of our manufacturing base to China.
ReplyDeleteRush reassured them that great paying service sector jobs were on the horizon, and how diligence and American ingenuity would create a new economy for the workers to enjoy a higher standard of living minus the drudgery of factory work. The Reagan-Bush Axis frequently spoke of the dangers of protectionism (mostly tariffs).
The New Left finally jumped on board two decades after Nixon's Detente by moving forward on NAFTA, GATT, Kyoto accords and entry into the WTO. Democratic legislators continued the increased regulations, taxes and supported the unsustainable demands of organized labor. The US consumer learned the cost of everything and the value of nothing while enjoying the savings and selection at big box stores.
The long real estate/credit boom from the mid-90s to the collapse 5 years ago papered over the loss of manufacturing jobs in a couple of ways: via a surge in constitution and other real estate related jobs, and via consumer spending fueled by mortgage equity withdrawals. This this article includes a chart which shows what our economic growth would have been per year with those mortgage equity withdrawals stripped out. Clinton's second term wouldn't have been as sunny, but things would have been a lot grimmer under Bush.
DeleteI worked on B2B innovation training videos. The content was all about crowdsourcing and open innovation and the various industry paradigms (industrial, experience, knowledge, transformation) etc. It seemed kinda faddish to me, but there sure are a lot of people using those buzzwords. ("Leading edge" is my favorite.) Like Caplan's debate partner, Wadhwa--he was spewing that stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe attitude among that crowd is all about driving profit and outcompeting, and stuff like national sovereignty, affordable family formation, and fellow citizens aren't even in their vocabulary. I can attest, they're very out of touch.
There is a lot of confusion about coding these days and especially about web site coding.
ReplyDeleteLet me provide a moment of clarity.
Approximately 100% of all conservatives refer to the Obamacare glitch as a 'website problem.' The ironic thing is that over at the National Review Online website they have had a real website screw-up for months. The NRO website improperly formats the text for the section 'The Corner'. On my very standard IE browser the text is presented not in paragraphs but in a singe vertical line. Also the cartoons and Photoshop features have navigation problems.
These are good example of true website problems. They are problems of formatting and presentation. They are not too serious but they are annoying. I can get around the site and I can read the commentary but only with difficulty.
These are what are usually called HTML errors although most websites are made nowadays with programs that generate the final HTML. Most websites are not created these days with just a plain text editor as they once were.
The Obamacare website may or may not have these kind of problems but it probably has much more serious and deeper problems. I don't know because I have a good HMO program for myself and have no reason to be interested in Obamacare and secondly I don't do systems diagnoses for free.
But my guess is that the real problem is not in the presentation layer (HTML and graphics) but in the database level or the program logic level. I have never heard a media report on what kind of database Obamacare uses. Most likely its is DB2 (the IBM product) or Oracle. But plenty of medical systems still use ancient hierarchical systems like IDMS or IMS.
What kind of OS does Obamacare use? You'll never hear that reported on Fox News or come up as a question in the congressional grillings. Again it is probably built on some UNIX variant but it might be based on older IBM OSs like MVS if the hardware is mainframe.
What difference does all this make? Plenty. Over at NRO they could fix their website in an afternoon if they would just pay attention. But if the Obamacare website misbehaves because of a DBMS problem then it might takes years or decades to set right.
I recently drove across the Bay on the new bridge. No one is surprised that it didn't fall down. But there was a time when bridge engineering was considered tricky and bridges often fell down. Information systems are today still tricky. Lots of big multi million dollar IT systems never work properly. Many are never even implemented. This is true in private industry as well as government. The only difference is that the government systems - like the Air Force ERP system - cost billions not millions.
Albertosaurus
Even bulldozer drives may be endangered so I learned this week. GPS and computers making them close to redundant.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gpsandmachinecontrol.com/gpsdozer.php
"The only high-wage jobs that will support the kind of middle-class lifestyle of old will be high-skilled ones, requiring a commitment to rigorous education, adaptability and innovation, she added. ...
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how egalitarian ideology is the handmaiden of elitism.
If the Tom Friedman types entertained the notion that not everybody is fit for a "rigorous education," they might actually have to start asking how we as a country can best support the lower parts of the bell curve.
But as long as they insist that everybody can be a future rocket scientist, they can reconcile their let-them-eat-cake attitude with their professed liberalism. We'll all be elites once we fix the schools; problem solved!
I also like how these people refer to deliberate policy outcomes as if they were random weather events. Demographics, globalization...they just kind of happen, you know. Whatcha gonna do?" - The important thing to note about all of this is that he, and anyone promulgating such ideas, is a flat out liar. Mass low skilled immigration will utterly destroy demand for labor saving capital, innovation, and the highly skilled workers,engineers, and researchers who make that possible.
No they are trying to run cover for the so called elite, and claim that it is their productivity that entitles them to so much. And everyone else vanishingly little.
"Menial work + part time driver + renting out your personal space =…" welcome to Mexico Norte
ReplyDeleteIf the Tom Friedman types entertained the notion that not everybody is fit for a "rigorous education," they might actually have to start asking how we as a country can best support the lower parts of the bell curve.
ReplyDeleteThey have the answer: run errands for rich folks, eat beans and turn your home into a flophouse.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/10392248/Its-not-yet-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-but-watch-Japans-debt-grow.html
ReplyDeleteLiving in denial.
It's interesting. Friedman writes like he's offering new ideas, but it's like history is going back.
ReplyDeleteIn old novels, there are so many female characters who make their living by offering lodging to wandering young men. As many writers were eccentrics who moved from one place to another, they had lots of experience with lodging.
And as unmarried or widowed women had limited opportunities back then, they often took in lodgers.
I guess we are just going back.
Funny. I googled 'lodgers in literature' and got this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/2793521/The-lodger-and-landlady-are-back-and-they-could-be-you.html
From 2008. I guess it was already happening.
"service-labor-seeking" = service-labor-employment-seeking
ReplyDeleteMy bad.
I guess US itself is turning into one big lodgers' paradise. We allow millions from Mexico, India, China, Africa, and etc. to come. We hope they will work and pay as new-arrival lodgers into the national coffers, but many of them turn out to be squatters than lodgers.
ReplyDeleteLook at whole swaths of California and SW. Squatters Keepers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM5rDIgTor0
ReplyDeleteHey, I got me a lodger.
@pat
ReplyDeleteI'm curious what platform(s) O-Care is running on as well. I would assume that given the size and importance of the program it's on an IBM mainframe, but choking on ~200 users during testing sounds like the system is severely underspecced. There are probably dozens of critical issues as well, many of which show up until another has been fixed.
"The California billionaire spent nearly that much from his personal fortune to make an example of Republican Ken Cuccinelli for his arch-conservative views on the environment."
ReplyDeleteGreen policies are called 'left' but they favor the rich since only the rich and affluent can really afford them.
Notice it's rich European nations that are most green and nations like Brazil, China, and India that don't give a shit about the environment in order to create jobs and grow the economy. Poor nations want any kind of economy--even dirty polluting ones--to create more jobs and growth.
But rich folks want clean environment, lots of green scenery, and places with affluent educated people than with lots of under-educated boobs who still wanna work in mines, oil fields, or coal factories. Also, if green technologies take off, there's a killing to be made on Wall Street. It will be the new dot.com bubble or greenairbubble.
Lots of jobs went to Turkey and Mexico because they don't care about the environment. But most such jobs are polluting and for low-skilled labor. And the American South is like that. It creates more jobs for hillbillies, blacks, and Mexicans, but it is also becoming more third-worldized.
But if Virginia has tougher environmental standards, there will be fewer low-skill jobs for hillbillies and blacks, and they'll have to move to other states, and Virginia will grow whiter, more Jewish, and more homo, and more affluent and rich.
Funny how this 'green leftism' works. You gotta be rich to afford it.
Green 'leftism' will hurt the Old Rich dependent on Old Economy, but it certainly is a boon for the big winners of the New Economy.
'Green leftism' is even gradually driving Mexicans, blacks, and poorer whites out of California.
It is important to remember that this land is not your land. Any large group believing that they have staked a claim will need to be demoralized and broken up. Can't have anyone claiming sovereignty on any multinational business space.
ReplyDeleteTime for a new Crying Indian commercial. This time about losing your land. Sucks to be you!
Am I the only one who thinks Friedman's house looks a little tasteless?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfuk6Imrg-Q
ReplyDeleteBetter way to turn everyone into a middle class person.
re: pat about the website.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've worked in medical IT systems and even the simplest-seeming functionality is a damn nightmare. How healthcare.gov works even in a rickety/brokedown/embarrassing manner is really quite miraculous. Having to interface dozens of insurers across dozens of states with thousands of plans and allow people to combine those plans with 5000 pages of regulations and somehow make transactions is horrifying to anyone who's seen similar systems. It's the kind of insane crap that fetches 600/hour consulting fees. For a reason.
The NHS of the UK spent 12 billion pounds failing on a somewhat larger project. No surprise.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2040259/NHS-IT-project-failure-Labours-12bn-scheme-scrapped.html
I personally see and know tons of mediocre workers with comfortable middle class salaries. Tons of people working in education, defense, law, and peripheral businesses have cushy employment. There will always be lots of good people suffering, the market is never close to perfect, but things aren't as bad on this front, where everyone needs to scrape for bottom feeder jobs.
ReplyDelete"I met a former software engineer in Ohio who used his iPad to research clinics that would pay him for donated sperm, which struck me as a fascinating window through which to gaze at the emerging tiger of the elephant of the room that is the new global interconnected bean eating middle class. " - Friedmans next column
ReplyDelete"Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting. Friedman writes like he's offering new ideas, but it's like history is going back."
That's Tommy the 'Stache's schtick: offering old ideas in a brand-new poorly-written, overwrought hacky package.
Tom forgot to mention giving blood and volunteering for medical studies
ReplyDeleteGuess some people have opinions on this guy.
ReplyDeleteHere's my 2 cents (which may repeat others):
Friedman is kind of manic.
Friedman is incabable of admitting he's wrong because he's incapable of imagining he's wrong.
He's like a child who finds a new idea and then drops all the old ones he's had. (And forgets they exist.)
He's perfect for the NY Times editorial page.
(Also, in six months we'll really find out if the Iraq war was worth it..)
"Am I the only one who thinks Friedman's house looks a little tasteless?"
ReplyDeleteFrom the outside, it looks pretty humdrum by mansion standards - like whoever designed it, whether the Friedmans or someone else, didn't have much sense of style. They just wanted "big." But an aerial view of a house doesn't tell you all that much.
I'm more humored by the fact that Tom Friedman, visionary genius, wasn't able to help the company run by his brother-in-law avoid bankruptcy.
Friedman's been a scumbag since he was little. He was a cherry picker in broomball games:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/thomas-friedman-is-on-top-of-the-world/
"One of the leading scorers was the youngest child of the Friedman family on West 23rd Street in St. Louis Park. It took his teammates a few games to figure out why: Little Tom would plant himself near the opposing goalie so when the ball got close, he could sweep it right in."
He's also a dweeb who gets bloody noses when he's nervous:
"He was so nervous during his first weeks—he says he had never so much as covered a fire—that he kept getting bloody noses and was hospitalized, which became something of a joke among the UPI reporters."
Friedman himself and his friends don't consider him to be very bright:
"Ken Greer refers to his childhood friend as a “20-year overnight sensation. . . . Tom has become really smart,” he says. “I don’t know that he started out really smart. Now he has a gift because he’s worked hard for 20 years.”
Friedman, who admits he’s not “SAT bright,” has always worked hard to master the subjects he covers, steeping himself in history and trends to understand the larger contexts."
What a jackass:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/Best-of-Bethesda-2011/Best-of-Bethesda-2011-Thomas-L-Friedman/
" “The world for me is a puzzle,” Thomas Friedman says, explaining how he selects topics for his books. “I am always trying to figure it out.”
The three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and New York Times columnist is the author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded, The World Is Flat and From Beirut to Jerusalem. Originally from a Minneapolis suburb, the Bethesda resident says, “I kind of imagine myself explaining the Middle East, environmentalism and the flat world to an educated Midwestern mom.”
Friedman, 57, travels frequently. His motto: “You don’t know if you don’t go.” His next book topic: America."
What a free world, eh?
ReplyDelete"Friedman, who admits he’s not “SAT bright,” has always worked hard to master the subjects he covers, steeping himself in history and trends to understand the larger contexts."
ReplyDeleteThe 'context' being figuring out how to flatter those who got higher SAT scores and succeeded more in life.
Flatter the successful and good things come to you. A modern day court jester/soothsayer.
World may be flat but the word is 'flatter'.
Flatter those who own the world and you will own something too.
Not to keep harping on this topic, but Friedman's been held up with far too much importance ever since around 9/11. Before that he was a minor columnist at most. I'm not sure how his undeserving fame came about, but we can always look back and laugh at his infamous "six months" meme vis-à-vis Iraq. Now that was some buffoonishly comedic stuff.
ReplyDeleteAs others have said, he's leading himself down the path required to realize that we should not double future legal immigration -- either the 1 million green cards issued every year or the 700,000 temporary work visas.
ReplyDeleteNow, will he take anybody with him?
And will they be willing to admit to themselves and others the handwriting that is on the wall which so many see so clearly that says:
"Stop bringing in so many new people, we don't have enough jobs and money to take care of ourselves."
I think he forgot the key skill: marry a rich woman. It worked for him, Kerry, and McCain!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how his undeserving fame came about
ReplyDeleteYou're not sure how Thomas Friedman's undeserving fame came about? Man, my sides... Hope you're kidding.
Just catch a ride on the government stagecoach. Doesn't matter what level you get onboard, the important thing is to swing onboard the only growth industry in America: government. A guaranteed for life low pressure middle class income will be yours. And if you consistently make the right sounds shmoozing the right level bureaucrats the sky's the limit.
ReplyDeleteFarang:
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the French. Various Democrats have tried to push the idea that, for instance, a stay-at-home mom contributes to the household income an amount equal to what it would have cost to hire a housekeeper, and to levy tax on the larger amount.
The last one I remember touting that realignment was Hillary Clinton, when she was living in the White House.
Doesn't look like Steve's been too busy today, so I'll add a word about Friedman.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to think of what literary character he reminds me of. I thought maybe Polonius from Hamlet, but that wasn't right. Friedman wouldn't say, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." After all, being a borrower pleases our new Chinese overlords, so I guess Friedman's for it.
No, it's Dr. Pangloss. They're both full of crap, insistent that it's all for the best, and superficially erudite while lacking real wisdom.
PS
ReplyDeleteSteve, still not sure about accepting Bitcoin?
You could have been a millionaire, man.
@302:
ReplyDeletewouldn't you rather live in Vermont than some shithole down south?
Sounds like the ideal solution is immigration restrictions with real teeth, enforcibility, and effectiveness and "green leftism".
Having been in VA quite often, I'd love to see it turn into Vermont instead what it is right now.
"It's very difficult to overemphasize just how evil these people really are:"
ReplyDeleteQuite.
.
"The long real estate/credit boom from the mid-90s to the collapse 5 years ago papered over the loss of manufacturing jobs in a couple of ways"
Yes, the credit bubble operated as a smokescreen for what they were doing.
.
Downton Abbey is what a non-hostile elite is like. Hostile elites are different.