French fried Friedman

[Briar]

FRENCH FRIED FRIEDMAN
The Nouvelle Globalizer
by Greg Palast


Vicente Fox got a well-deserved boot in the derriere for saying Mexicans come to America for taking jobs "not even Blacks want to do."



But Thomas Friedman earns plaudits and Pulitzers for his column which today announces that East Indians are taking jobs the French are too lazy to do <"A Race to the Top," New York Times, June 3>. His fit of racial profiling was motivated by his pique over France's rejection of the globalizers' charter for corporate dominance known as the European Constitution.



It's not the implicit racism of Friedman's statement which is most irksome, it's his ghastly glee that "a world of benefits they have known for 50 years is coming apart," because the French and other Europeans "are trying to preserve a 35 hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day."



He forgot to add, "and where Indian families are ready to sell their children into sexual slavery to survive." Now, THERE'S a standard to reach for.



more at:

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=434&row=0

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Friedman is an ass. And he was a major cheerleader for the war.

[cornermouse]

2. Who does Friedman think he is anyway?

What makes Friedman think he has the right to tell the French how to live and work? In my opinion, since Friedman thinks so highly of India, surely we can find someone who can write better editorials than Friendman. Maybe we should ask the New York Times to outsource Friedman's job.

[Eric J in MN]

43. I'm sure there are lots of people in India who can sing

the praises of Free Trade as well as Thomas Friedman.

Outsource Friedman today!

[ConservativeDemocrat]

3. I wonder...

If it ever crosses Greg Palast's mind that both his views and Friedman's could possibly both be right?

Friedman isn't arguing for poor labor conditions. He's arguing that reduced tariffs are dramatically increasing the incomes in the third world. The problem, as Palast correctly points out, is that these incomes are rising disproportionately. And further, because of the ability of capital to move around the globe, investors go shopping for the most plutocratic state they can find, be it right-wing dictatorships or phony crony-capitalistic socialism.

The solution isn't to try and make everyone equally poor. Nor it is possible (or fair) to pretend that 'Merican (or French) High School drop outs can forever be paid more than third world PhDs. The solution is for the U.S. and the rest of the industrialized nations to push for fair international union and environmental standards, so that the world grows both wealthier and more equitable.

It's rather ironic that Palast finds himself on the same side as George Will (that bastion of Democratic values!). And for all of you who toss off inane content free one-liners (e.g. "Friedman is a dick"), I must point out that at least he puts a consistent plan to address world problems. You may not agree with him (I certainly don't all the time), but it's better than mindless screaming.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[thebigidea]

4. I'll gladly go for mindless screaming over "Give War a Chance" Friedman

you don't know where that moustache has BEEN!

[bemildred]

5. Maybe it is possible to raise incomes in the third world

without telling the French how to run their lives?
What ever happened to local autonomy? Why is a global
economic mono-culture better than variety and diversity?

[aion]

17. Raising income is easy, just print more money - let's be real for a moment

Because free-trade allows them to have slaves, provided they're kept outside the country. They know they can only take the citizenry of the USA so far before the population will recoil against them. So rather than try to deal with their own citizenry, they export the jobs. They get the cheap labor. They get governments willing to bring them in with serious tax abatements. They get legislation which allows them to pollute without so much as a concern...

The real question, I think, is how much longer everyone will tollerate it.

I think it is a bit wrong-headed to speak of raising incomes. Government can print money all day long if they so desire. It simply makes for horrible inflation -- but hey, at least their incomes are raised? You have to examine something more realistic, in my opinion. You can't look only at raw #s, you must also look at how those numbers play out in their respective economies.

[aneerkoinos]

33. Good point

Global Corporations understand that they need a military power base, US, to protect the New World Order and bash all resistance, and in fear of loosing that base they keep pouring in new and new debt.

Smart imperialists (Democrats) understand how the system works and that the power base needs bread and circuses and minimum level of social protection to stay willing cannon fodder of oppressors. In- your-face imperialists (Neocons) are stupid and don't understand how the system works, so they are excellent candidates to destroy it. I root for Bush! Go Bush! :evilgrin:

[Wright Patman]

8. If investors didn't totally control our government

right down to the vote-counting computer software, I might agree with you.

We have reached Orwellian critical mass. Imagine a boot stomping on a human face ... forever.

[aneerkoinos]

9. Friedman is a dick!

I saw the Mouth of Sauron on BBC's hard talking. He's nauseating racist who thinks US has the God Given Mission to edumacate it's materialist ideology of greed to the wogs, by force if necessary. He absolutely maliciously hates France, because there are still many people who are not ashamed to be socialists who put human dignity before corporation interests and cannot be ignored.

There's nothing intellectual, humane or dignified in Corporate Fascism, the ideology the Mouth of Sauron is propagating for.

[fedsron2us]

10. Friedman is a naive fool

The idea that he postulates that peoples that are part of a common consumer culture and share an integrated supply chain will never go to war is nonsense. At the beginning of the twentieth century the countries of western Europe had very similar political, economic and social systems. Indeed many of their ruling families were related. This did not stop the cataclysm of the First World War. Free market economies competing for scarce global resources are just as likely to be involved in conflicts as the ideological blocs of the Cold War era. He also completely ignores the fact that centuries of religious, ethnic and class conflict will simply not disappear just because everyone has access to a wireless network etc.

[aion]

19. Friedman is myopic at best, a shill at worst

Exporting jobs to China/India also has the wonderful side-benefit of making both countries more oil-hungry than they likely would have been otherwise. We're setting the stage for our own demise...and Friedman is trumpeting the way.

[aion]

18. Those 3rd World PhDs were coming here for awhile...now?

Many of those third-world PhDs were coming here for awhile -- are you suggesting that they will stop? We should try to bring them here, not take 'here' there.

[aneerkoinos]

20. How neocolonialist

How about you (and we) invest in educating your (our) own PhD's instead of robbing other countries the fruits of their investments in education. Shees!

[aion]

24. Robbing? Why shouldn't they come here IF THEY WANT TO?

I wasn't talking about robbing anyone. They can come here of their own free will -- OR NOT. And likewise, our people can go THERE of their own free will -- OR NOT. Quite frankly, I think the USA is a better place to live than India or China. If their educated classes wish to flock here, then who are you to stop them?

By the way -- it is not our job to build up the rest of the world.

[aneerkoinos]

30. Robbing, exploitation, pick your term

If you wan't freedom of movement, fine, then don't cherrypick the brains but take the also all the poor uneducated masses ready to immigrate where their natural resources and educated people have been taken. Deal? What is cherrypicking if not exploitation and robbery?

You can also take the tax-payers view, if they make big investments in public education in the hope that educating their children will serve the common good and return the investments, but find out that the fruits of those investments are going somewhere else to benefit corporations in distant countries, is that justice, is that utilitarian?

By the way -- it is not the job of rest of the world to subsidize your consumerism based on debt and exploitation.

[aion]

38. You do not own them after you teach them a skill.

You can call it expropriation of their intellectual class. I have no problem calling it that. However, I do have a problem with you believing that you own someone and can restrict their movement simply because they learned something at government expense.

You cannot say whether it is utilitarian, actually. If that person is a scientist, does he not have more opportunities here in the USA? Does the person not have a better chance of helping THE GREATEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE by going where his skills can be best utilized?

Nobody said it was the rest of the world's job to subsidize us. But if they like it here, and they have skillsets that we need, I say why not?

Furthermore, I would contend that such a person is more likely to earn more in the USA than in some foreign country. That money could be sent back to impoverished family members, etc.

[aneerkoinos]

40. No you don't

I'm not talking in absolutes. In fact I'm for full freedom of movement for all of us, no borders at all, but that is a distant dream.

And of course our best minds should be allowed to get together where-ever they wan't, also from utilitarian point of view. But I'm not talking about best minds, but rather skilled professionals.

Surely you don't see nothing wrong with those getting a public education at tax-payers expence, e.g. doctors, committing in response to work certain period helping their poor countrymen?

And you skip the main argument, cherrypicking of immigrants, which I think you agree is morally indefensible (why should skilled professionals be more equal than less educated?). And by no means it is US alone, also others are doing it and UK and Germany and others are openly planning to do so.

[aion]

44. If they agree to such conditions...of course

If these folks agree to such terms as a condition of their taxpayer-paid higher education, I have no problem with it. It may be their only option as borders disappear -- but it does strike me a bit as indentured servantry.

[aneerkoinos]

45. So

no comment on the cherrypicking?

[aion]

26. I don't think it is Neocolonialism -- Perhaps you meant Dependency Theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_theory

[aneerkoinos]

31. Dependency theory

is one description of how neocolonialism works.

[depakid]

6. Bottom line is that the man's not worth reading-

He's become a waste of space. The times really does need to do some serious housecleaning. Between Friedman, whacked out Kristoff, psuedo-intellectual Brooks and Bob Teirney- whose lack of actual knowledge about the world is quickly becoming legend, the Editorial page has become a one or two shot read most days....

[bemildred]

7. Exactly, trite, predictable, and juvenile. nt

[kingfisherbeer]

11. Hi

First of all, Hi everyone! (1st post)

As an Indian (living in India) I have a lot of mixed feelings about this article.

I'll call myself a left leaning nationalist, but I disagree with a lot of what Greg Palast has written. He is exploting the almost negligible knowledge of India to get his point home. All that stuff about Kerala being some virtuous progressive state is just that, stuff and nonsense. Kerala is a communist ruled state that is prvented from going under only because of the money expats working in the Gulf remit. It has no IT capabilitoes of any significance. And Uttar Pradesh being some rightist non-socialist failure... what a lie. India is a socialist country by definition (it is written in our constitution). BTW, the next Bangalore is in UP, a place called Gurgaon (near Delhi).

This is unethical journalism. I know Friedman is an idiot, but using outright lies (which most people would take at face value) to prove a point is quite sad.

If anyone has specific questions wrt India, I can easily answer them.

[bemildred]

12. Welcome to DU.

:hi:

[aion]

14. Our collective national debt is an albatross that makes free-trade unfair

I would like to know the average per capita indebtedness in India. I believe that the USA people are far more in debt than the people they're now being forced to compete against.

Economics is easy to understand when you only consider widgets. If widgets cost $1 each, and I am making $1000 a week, I can get 1,000 widgets. If they cost only $0.50 each, and I am only making $500 a week, I can still get the same number of widgets.

But widgets aren't the whole story. Our people are quite literally born owing, per capita, enough to pay for a small house alone (national debt). Couple that with the fact that so many homes are mortgaged, and you get the point. We have more debt than you.

When you understand that, you can no longer only look at the widget story above. When wages AND widget prices fall, nothing happens -- I get the same number of widgets....but the bank gets my house.

[kingfisherbeer]

15. ??

I believe it was the IMF and WTO, and GATT before that started the globalization ball rolling. All US controlled entities.

And free trade is not in the picture yet, not by a long shot. But lets see how the game is played.

And 'unfair'. Tell that to the small scale farmers in Asia and Africa who have to grapple with cheaper wheat coming from US/Europe due to the massive subsidies to the farmers there.

(Oh well.. that is the standard retort. Always willing to learn.)

[aion]

16. Our exported food most likely doesn't come from our subsidized farmers

In order for me to believe your retort, I would have to believe that the 'small scale' Asian/African farmers were as productive and efficient as their US Counterparts without the subsidies. I think a little bit of common sense says otherwise. We have the land for it. We have the equipment for it. Our people have the training for it. And I am not talking about Ma and Pa farmer with a couple acres. If the food you eat comes from such a place, I would be quite surprised.

[kingfisherbeer]

22. wrt small scale farming

(Indian) High School Geography:

Intensive vs. Extensive agriculture.

Developed agricultural countries, where labour is expensive use machines and farm/own huge tracts of lands. USA/Australia fall in this category.

65-70% of India's population (700 million people) depenend on Agriculture as their primary source of (family) income. India is self sufficient in food peoduction (after the 'Geen evolution' paid results back in the 70s), and indeed, we get almost all our food from such small scale or intensive (ma and pa 2 acre) farms.

And I believe the same holds true for most of Asia and Africa.

ps: To which contries does USA export wheat to?

[aion]

25. Hand-picked food vs. Machine-picked

If your hand-picked food is as cheap as our machine-picked food, then what is the problem? Do you want us to pick by hand so you can export your hand-picked food? That's ridiculous.

[aneerkoinos]

27. What is ridiculous

is intensive farming based on using ridiculous amounts of oil (labour productivity and transport) and natural gas (fertilizers) to produce food. Most of fertile topsoil in US has allready gone because of unsustainable short-termist intensive farming, so what do you do when Peak Oil effects start really hitting. How do you avoid famine, especially when Monsanto has killed of biodiversity in crops?

[kingfisherbeer]

28. But...

your government gives massive subsidies to your farmers, making your machine picked food cheaper than our hand picked food.

That is the problem. And if free trade is to exist, these people would be without a livlihood because of US subsidies.

[kingfisherbeer]

29. PS:

Can some DUer post this:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=3025

Tomgram: It’s a Pentagon World and Welcome to It

Bases, Bases Everywhere

wrt Permanent deplyoment in Iraq.

[aion]

39. Don't expect to be competitive.

I don't think the larger machine-picked farming behemoths need any subsidies to exist. Those who are receiving the subsidies are small-time farmers who still exist in our system.

Again, I ask you -- does it make more sense for a few thousand peasants to pick from the ground, when a single man driving an enormous machine can do the same amount of work? And if you expect those thousand peasants to compete on the global marketplace, how do you expect it to take place? Should the man in the machine earn 1000 times as much as the peasants, simply becasue he produces 1000x as much 'stuff'? Or should the peasants be expected to do 1000x as much work to receive as much as the man driving the enormous machine around?

If you want to support small-time farming, then fine. Don't expect to be competitive.

[fedsron2us]

34. Indian small scale farmers and family shop owners

are every bit as under threat from the globalisation of the world economy as western call centre employees and IT workers. Multi-national agri-business and huge retailers such as Walmart could wipe out their livelihoods within a generation if they are not checked. This is certainly what has happened in the US and Europe in the last half century. You are simply never going to get enough jobs outsourced from the West to replace those that you are likely to lose.

[aneerkoinos]

21. Namaste!

Wellcome to DU! :hi:

I like King Fisher Beer! :beer:

[kingfisherbeer]

23. :-)

Thank you. Cheers for the Kingfisher!

(I just hope they start brewing ale in India in my lifetime)

[fedsron2us]

35. Check the label.

It is as likely to have been made in the England as India. Most of the Kingfisher beer sold in the UK's Indian restaurants comes from the Shepherd Neame brewery in Kent. Beer is one of those items where labour costs only make up a small element of the cost whilst transportation and distribution are very expensive. It is why so much of the supposedly European continental lager in the UK is actually brewed in Britain.

[newyawker99]

36. Hi kingfisherbeer!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[kingfisherbeer]

37. Thank you :)

And of course, posting count ++

[aion]

13. Friedman never learned about the tortoise and the hare

I remember Friedman on the Daily Show pushing his book. His 'flattening' effect is probably not all that off the mark -- as insensitive as it is. But it is not inevitable -- it is controllable through immigration standards, and trade tariffs.

Something else that struck me as interesting was that Friedman suggested that we hadn't much to worry about from it -- that we would still be climbing, but at a slower pace.

First off, I wanted to smack him when he said that we'd always stay ahead. He was saying that the rabbit would always beat the tortoise. Secondly, Friedman is ignoring some very important sociological factors.

We are a nation which is in debt out our collective wazoos. When this flattening effect happens to my wage and also (thankfully) to prices, what happens to my mortgage? Does anyone flatten that out for me, or do we just chalk that one up as a win for the banks?

That's exactly the plan, people. It's how they rob you of your property -- driving down wages long enough to buy up huge swaths of land for pennies on the dollar. It's their game, and they're quite good at it -- look at Iraq.

[aneerkoinos]

32. Not flattening

The very opposite, Everest in the middle of flood plains. Small elite of global corporatocracy and race to the bottom for the rest of us in the wage slave fiefdoms, forced to compete against each other instead of cooperating for common good.

There is no country in the world where market liberalism has not lead rich coming richer and poor poorer.


Debt driven consumerist bubble economy is related, but different issue. I would say it is desperate attempt to stall what race to the bottom means to US middle class, just bit longer before the collapse comes.

[Frederik]

41. Friedman is a globalist apologist

I doubt he even believes his own drivel.

[RelativelyJones]

42. Can anybody recommend

a good "I can't stand Friedman" blog? This guy is so consistently smug and infuriating I need to have find a go-to site after each one of his columns.