DISQUS

LLDEM · 10 months ago

I was watching "Tucker: A Man and His Dream" (pretty sure that's the whole title) and a couple of lines from the film struck me as pertinent even today.

1) The CEO that attempted to take over his company said "Innovation is only something we do to keep up" I'm paraphrasing here.

2) To which Tucker said in his closing remarks at his corruption trial "If we don't keep up, keep innovating, we'll be buying our cars from our former enemies" (remembering this all took place in1949 ish)

Gee here we are some 59 years later and the big three haven't changed their thinking at all.

KerrynowCampau · 10 months ago

What a great movie. That whole story proves the industry deserves to go under.

I feel bad for auto workers, the industry not so much.

Freeman Bevan · 10 months ago

Where was Friedman 5 years ago? It's good to have this analysis but, at this point, any idiot on the street could provide it.

The people to listen to are the ones who were saying this 5, 10 and 15 and more years ago...

Steve_in_CNJ · 10 months ago

i know it was a rhetorical question, but the answer is, he was cheerleading for bush's war. he still is.

sukabi1 · 10 months ago

5 years ago Friedman was still living LARGE on his wife's billion dollar shopping mall money... he's been reduced to mere millionaire status now and so feels like one of the "littler people"...

Poor f'n baby... why anyone listens to what this asshat says is beyond me... even a broken clock is right twice a day... this is his one time being right is all.

KerrynowCampau · 10 months ago

Heck ya we need a reboot. The stupid way we are bailing out the financial/auto industry is just digging the hole deeper.

pdxprobert · 10 months ago

Don't people remember the old cliche, What's good for General Motors is good for America? Well, now that saying is What's happening to General Motors is happening to America... This country is being dismantled and sold off... from our factories that went to China and Mexico, to our service jobs that went to India to our ports that GW and the politicians sold to Dubai, to the upcoming sale of our highways and bridges so a 3rd party can turn them into tollways and toll bridges... and all at a time when the Republican pundits were saying anybody who didnt support them, the war and tax cuts for the rich were just plain unpatriotic... and the biggest cheerleaders for this direction have been the sales people that kept us divided and against each other, and that was the MSM, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter....and they still have a big audience...

Soundboy_jeff_meanie · 10 months ago

Scenario: all major industry moves 90% of its employment to India due to overhead. Corporate headquarters remain in the US to dodge import tariffs.

what happens then?

Unemployment spikes in the US... GDP drops... the companies that moved to India (China, Singapore etc...) can't sell their products in those countries because their workers are underpaid and can't AFFORD the products they make. One by one these companies either go under or are bought out.

entire industries die.

yeah, NAFTA was just a GREAAAAT idea!


here's a little tip for everyone... if you're ever on a tech support call with "Steve" in Bangalore... tell him you actually work tech support, but you're getting paid $30/hr to sit on the phone with him to figure out why his company's crappy software/hardware isn't functioning...

then ask how much he makes an hour.

repeat with every foreign tech support person.

given the crappy pay and awful hours (remember, to support the USA... someone in Bangalore is working a daily 11-8 shift)... how long before the 'friendly' tech support collapses in India?

leo · 10 months ago

You know, it's funny: they could've built cars in China or India a hundred years ago. They could've made all the clothes and household appliances we use in either country or in England two hundred years ago.

What's difference now? It's definitely not a question of technology.

Yankee · 10 months ago

Unions.

The help got uppity.

Yankee · 10 months ago

The "what's good for General Motors is good for America" line was made back when GM was America's largest employer. America's largest employer today is (drum roll?).....Walmart.

Walmart is America.

p.s. Thom Friedman can suck on that.

Chauncey Gardner · 10 months ago

The company I worked for and built into a billion dollar national brand from nothing was acquired by GM. After they bought us they sucked all the money out or company and proceeded to gamble in the mortgage casino and on dinosaur cars that nobody wanted. After they gambled the money away they fired thousands of us in the past year and destroyed the brand we built and then got all the money back from the taxpayers. Now GM is back in the game and thousands of us are unemployed.

Soundboy_jeff_meanie · 10 months ago

not just GM either... HP just spent 15 billion on a SOFTWARE support company...

... and is planning more job cuts (probably somewhere around 10,000 people? in the name of 'cost cutting').

considering what the CEO, CFO and CIO make... you have to wonder when the company will either collapse or move overseas completely.

whatever happened to company loyalty and pride?

oh yeah, that was before the companies kept offshoring our jobs.

lucky hussein · 10 months ago

friedman may be making a point now. hindsight is 20-20 for riech-wingers like him. he is completely full of crap, and has been since forever. I can't stand him.

Soundboy_jeff_meanie · 10 months ago

"But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely."

----

the one plus side to the anti-gay adoption law in Arkansas passing?

I'm all for throwing cash at every problem... I never intend to have kids.

sorta the way that the repugnicans view global warming... the "I'll be dead before we ever need to worry about moving to higher ground" approach.

if the big whigs on wall st. and every other money industry can be part of the 'me first, fuck everybody else' crowd... all I can say is, where's my share??

.

FunMe · 10 months ago

Most kids who were in elementary school when bush first took office have been DUMBED DOWN in the 8 years of bush's stolen presidency.

And with the lack of though-provoking dramas and intelligent comedies on TV (replaced by reality shows) well you now have a geneation of DUMB AMERICANS galore.

And many of these dummies voted for bush.

And don't even get me started by the lack of journalism on cable "news" stations. Can we say INFOTAINMENT?

Zorba · 10 months ago

I agree with you, FunMe. If I were prone to conspiracy theories and sporting a tinfoil hat, I would be tempted to say that all of the above (including but not limited to the "No Child Left Behind Act") was done deliberately The stupider, less educated, and less informed your population is, the more likely they will be to believe everything that those in charge tell them, and to keep voting for the same-old-same-old idiots. It has always amazed me that so many people keep on voting against their own best interests.

paulbot5 · 10 months ago

I fail to see how more inflation and more of the same old bailouts that,havent worked, will help the middle class

KerrynowCampau · 10 months ago

Your mistake is thinking there is an intention to help the middle class ;-)

This whole mess pisses me off so much and it is just being made worse.

Grrrrrr

JohnInTexas · 10 months ago

OT - Joe the Plumber is headed to Israel for 10 days as a war correspondant to get the "average Joe's" opinions and views. I can't stop laghing. it is on msn's home page if anyone wants to see. I think I might have peed a little bit. LOL

jcgraham77 · 10 months ago

I saw that...it is the final headline for me...it has all became a farce. I give up.

devlzadvocate · 10 months ago

Why does everybody call him a plumber? He hasn't touched plumbing in ???? He's a jerk-off that can't keep a job.

You know he'll come back announcing his plan for Mideast Peace.

Griffon · 10 months ago

Not so much GM as Jabba the Hutt:

"An odious mass of greasy, insect ridden flesh with a sadistic love of torture." (wiki)

TomJoad · 10 months ago

While not half as smart (and even that is flattering myself) as Krugman, I have been using that exact wording now for a few months...that we need a "reboot".

But thinking about the GM comparison, yup, it is totally apt. Like GM and other corporations, the US has become "top heavy" also, not in numbers but in disproportionate wealth.

I liken it to a game of Monopoly (the real game, though monopolies seem to be the rage again, through privitization, and through buyouts) that we all know...it's fun when you start playing, but as the game nears the end, and it is just obvious who will win, no one else has a chance but still plays, and loses ever more.

We need a reboot. We need a start over. We need competitiveness, the REAL kind, not the "who has the best lobbyists and most money to buy rules that favor them" kind.

We also need to prize inventors, nerds, ideas, as they did in my fathers time. Back then kids wanted to grow up to be explorers, inventors, learned to make crystal radio sets, read about technology. Sure they wanted to be cowboys, and even soldiers too, but seems like soldiers win out now because they are totally seen as the ultimate. Kids join the army "to help people"...

Anyway, the "we're the best" has always rubbed me the wrong way, it is such a STUPID sentiment.Every politician says to farmers in the US "the US farmers are the BEST in the world" (nowdays it is just huge agro-corporations anyway) but to my mind the mongolians that grow potatos in the altitude they do (which is just about impossible, but they do it) ought to be at least considered. "the BEST" is just....a game. Meaningless. How about just doing a good job as a reward in itself?

Just like a country of 5 million (Norway) disproportionately win medals in skiing, because a huge percentage of people here DO it, so the skiing pool is huge, if the US once again thought making something was worthwhile (because along with being able to make a quality product, comes the ability also to evaluate materials, so you don't buy crap that doesn't work or last), or that inventions were a cool thing, the pool of people the US has would ensure MANY folks would come up with energy ideas, solutions, etc. from their garages and hobby labs.

Seriously. Corporate is too short sighted anymore to pay for non-practical R&D. You know, the kind that Bell paid for once upon a time that got us transistors, etc. Playing, but with interest in ideas...that is where the breakthroughs come.

Dumb seems to be the new cool. Jackass, reality shows, US magazine, fashion models, etc....are a cluture in total decline.

Also, the old SNL skit "It is better to LOOK good than to FEEL good" seems to be the total sum of our philosophy. That looking like a president makes you a good one, looking tough means you are tough, looking like a top executive automatically makes you a good decision maker.

devlzadvocate · 10 months ago

So you are saying that marketing has created the reality? I was thinking the same thing and then I thought, "I'm not so sure". Are you just believing what they want you to see? Are people really smarter than you think and what you see is the dumb stuff? What about "Current" - smart stuff and other media like it. What about people who do read books and newspapers and just don't talk about it.

I'm not willing to throw in the towel yet.

I'm not saying Friedman is wrong. I think he's probably correct, but we're not as dumb as you might think. Maybe lazy.

TomJoad · 10 months ago

I don't think we are dumb....as society we have dumbed down, willfully...actual intelligence (the raw stuff) is either the same or better than ever, but LEARNING is the thing that is not prized, or thinking ahead, or planning. Making a quick decision wins over taking time to think things out a little and experts aren't listened to.

I don't think we are dumb at all, but I think the US is too isolated in their thinking in this world today, and there are (in a country like the US) millions of exceptions. Also, the media is the one painting it more black and white than it is, but many people follow and take their cue as to "how to be" from just that, the TV. so it starts self-fulfilling.
I mean, the average credit card debt in the US is HUGE, and saving is way down and has been even in the boom times. Looking good, buying stuff (you can't afford, or can't save up for) is more important than prudence. It's unsustainable.

Dave of the Jungle · 10 months ago

We were Number One at the beginning of the century.

The largest transfer of wealth in history occurred under W. The oil interests have shifted the center of gravity to the Middle East. Most people didn't know it was happening. Non-state actors, investment cartels and Arabs rule the world. Too late, now.

SCLiberal · 10 months ago

It started in earnest under Reagan and continued unabated under Bush, Clinton, and W.

Antinous · 10 months ago

Unfair trade agreements have all but destroyed the industrial base of our great country. Until changes are made to level the playing field we will continue in decline. When we see closed factories and failing industries, it's not because of the workers, unions. It's because American workers though they are the best in the world, cannot compete with workers around the world being paid $1.00 per hour. Our high priced congress has literally stabbed the American worker in the back to fill their political coffers.

pdxprobert · 10 months ago

When the citizenry is looked upon as an employee/consumer of Corporate Trans America, then the same rules that apply at the office apply to the citizenry... In a corporation, employees are looked at as expendable... when the company no longer needs you or the service/labor you provide, they eliminate your position... are we as citizens being eliminated? Face it, labor in this country has no real influence or power like we did after WW2 through the 70s.... what do we have to look forward too? That's what Im wondering as someone from the boomer generation...

Antinous · 10 months ago

Unless severe changes are made quickly there will be "NO MIDDLE CLASS". In the past the middle class was the engine that drove prosperity and because of its strength, it was capable of pulling the economy out of recession. Today due to the loss of good paying industrial jobs, and the lowering of wages we are struggling to avoid the abyss. The industries that once employed millions of workers, workers capable of buying the products being produced in this country are either gone or, are skeletons of themselves......Americans no longer have any expendable resources, they can only afford the necessities......Americans can no longer afford to buy it's own products.......Industry has killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

caphillprof · 10 months ago

We may be going the way of the Netherlands and the UK. See American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips.

"Phillips uses the term “financialization” to describe how the U.S. economy has been radically restructured from a focus on production, manufacturing and wages, to a focus on speculation, debt, and profits." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Phillips_(po...)

In 2006, Phillips "points to the "debt culture" of this coalition, and to a coming "debt bubble" related to the debt of the U.S. Government and U.S. consumers. He argues that similar issues have been prevalent in the past, when other world powers, such as the Roman Empire and the British Empire declined from their peaks and fell into disarray."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Theocracy

amsterdamize · 10 months ago

"We may be going the way of the Netherlands and the UK."

I'm curious to know in what sense, as I see no correlation between American Theocracy and my home country the Netherlands (however asleep at the wheel it may be).

ekwhite · 10 months ago

From where I'm sitting, the Netherlands looks a lot better than the United States at the moment.

Neil · 10 months ago

I was gonna say, we should be so lucky.

PrahaPartizan · 10 months ago

Thye're referring to the Netherlands of the 17th and 18th centuries, who then ruled the world financially. They made some short term financial decisions too because of a need for quick profit. After one of their wars with Britain, the Dutch traded New Amsterdam (now New York) for the sole remaining nutmeg (I believe it was nutmeg) producing island which they didn't already control in what is now Indonesia to establish a global monopoly for that particular spice. They made a great short-term deal. Three hundred years of perspective might give it a different rating. That's what Phillips is talking about.

amsterdamize · 10 months ago

ah, thanks, yes, true. But Suriname (South-America) was also a big part of that deal.

More/very broadly, the Dutch established their initial wealth by being the first to leverage the risks involved in exploring new trade routes and had an edge geographically becoming the trade hub of Europe. This dominant position also (obviously) resulted in speculations (tulips, for instance) that rocked the system a few times, which had relatively similar impacts as we see today, but the main reason the Dutch never bounced back were the wars (for varied reasons, trade, politics, etc) with England, France and Spain, and the complete depletion of the treasury by the occupiers (Spain, France).

One nugget: at the height of their prosperity the Dutch were financially 'fat' and 'lazy' on innovation. More and more was imported (trade deficit), and real national investments were scarce. Later on, this accelerated their demise, enabled other countries to surpass them and have a significant edge at the start of the industrial revolution.

Older_Wiser · 10 months ago

What I read was goddamned insulting enough, thank you.

So, how much did the Friedmans lose, exactly, in Madoff's scheme?

Indigo · 10 months ago

32,000,000 comedians out of work and O_W wants to be a comedian! I get it, I'm laughing! ☺

Older_Wiser · 10 months ago

I gotta laugh or commit suicide. : )

Indigo · 10 months ago

Have some chocolate!

tbhull · 10 months ago

No, GM is a worldwide corporation (with several thousand indentured employees and execs here in the US) owned by the world's wealth holders, which wealth holders the US government is bailing out with the middle class' future hard earned tax dollars.

tigergrrldc · 10 months ago

Americans are focused on how much money they can accumulate and not the collective good of the country. How do you explain men making millions of dollars playing games that kids play while our schools are crumbling and teachers are buying the school supplies instead of the schools? Why do movie stars and musical entertainers make millions of dollars, but we have people living on the street or in shelters, not knowing where their next meal is coming from? Or people who are terrified of getting sick because they can't afford to go to the doctor or even pay for a prescription? It's all about getting our priorities straight and caring about people and not material things.

Older_Wiser · 10 months ago

In no way do I want to be described as EVER being a part of the ruling class (including its cheerleaders like Friedman).

I am NOT GM or any other corporation. I have fought them all my life.

lynchie · 10 months ago

no one is accountable for anything. the regulators who should have oversight on people like Maddoff--still have jobs no problem. The regulators who should have blown the whistle on the banks and investment houses practises--still have jobs no problem. Teens pregnant, parents blame tv or porn or whatever--kids knocked up no problem. Take bribes, kickbacks and the like--politicians still taking millions no problem. It is non stop. W illegal war lies to Americans about every thing he has ever touched--elect him twice no problem. CEO's run companies into the ground--bonus and raises no problem.

Naja pallida · 10 months ago

Saying we are Chrysler is probably a more apt analogy. We failed horribly a long time ago, and rebuilt ourselves from the ground up to be successful once again, only to forget those lessons we learned and repeat the same mistakes of the past. Not to mention, allowing ourselves to be bought out by corrupt and greedy management who refuses to inject capital they have to help us survive.

Ben Dover · 10 months ago

What are we going to do with all these "We're #1" foam fingers now?

Webster · 10 months ago

This was all outlined back in 2002, in a book by Walter Williams, Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy from Georgetown University Press. It was published at the height of Republican Rule (in the government and in the Main Stream Media) however and it was barely reviewed and sank. I think it's still available--just in case anyone might be interested in how this tragic state of affairs came about. Bush just followed Reagan's playbook--and if anyone had been paying attention some of this misery might have been avoided.

Why is it that Americans have to have a building fall on them before they pay attention?

monopole · 10 months ago

What you mean "we"? Mr Suck on this, Mr. Married into billions. You have had a column at the NYT for how many years, and now you say "we" fucked up?

bluestockton · 10 months ago

And the Pat Buchanans and David Dukes wonder why only brown- and black-skinned people want to immigrate here any more. The answer is that things are even worse where the nonwhites come from; whereas Europeans also have sour economies, but at least they have their social safety nets. There aren't many Danish, French and British boat people giving up their guaranteed health insurance to sneak into this country.

MNUSA · 10 months ago

The whole "we're the best....." drives me to distraction. I really have come to dislike that kind of mentality, especially since those who use it are usually lying.

Asterix · 10 months ago

All one need do is look at the schedule of prime-time broadcast TV to see what drooling idiots the American people are taken for.

The big decline in US manufacturing has largely been due, I think, to the rise of the "business mentality"; MBA hell, in short.

The executives worry more about creating leveraging than actually making something that anyone would want to buy. Marketing is funded instead of R&D. The stock price is held above everything.

Like him or hate him, Steve Jobs, for example, saved Apple after it had been run into the ground by a soft-drink peddler "businessman". I don't believe that Jobs cares one whit about how Apple stock performs from day to day.

...and I'm a PC user.

refresh · 10 months ago

"We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history."

ANOTHER Friedman Unit?

cowboyneok · 10 months ago

As long as we have to desperately convince ignorant people to vote for their self interest and keep them from voting for those who will make transfer money from the middle class to the wealthy elites we are screwed. If people have been dumbed down enough to vote for the most illogical choice then there is no hope because America will get the kind of disastrous leadership it deserves. Dubya is a fine example of this axiom.

CitizenX · 10 months ago

"We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover."

It will never happen.

ekwhite · 10 months ago

First we need a reboot up Mr. "Lexus and the Olive Tree's" rear end. Then we can talk. Friedman has supported the policies that got us into this crapfest since the 1990's. Now, he wants to talk to us about the economy? Forget it. I'll take Krugman over this asshat any day.

Jay Randal · 10 months ago

No Americans are not GM > workers there get high wages, good healthcare benefits, 80% of pay for retirement, and get bailed out by government. We the average People of US get treated like third world serfs.

Jennifer · 10 months ago

It is only NOW that Thomas Friedman writes a column like this?! NOW!? How about three years ago, how about five years ago? These problems that he mentions in this article have been festering for quite a while, but during that time, he's been writing rah-rah columns to keep Americans happy to be keeping troops and spending money in the cesspit that is Iraq. I'm sorry, Tom, but you lack all credibility to complain about these things now, when 5 years ago the American Society of Civil Engineers were distributing warning reports about our nation's infrastructure.