Yves here. The far-too-widely-read Tom Friedman has become a parody of a know-nothing American showing off his case of Dunning-Kruger effect. I must confess to lacking the motivation to read his pieces for the purpose of shellacking them, so hats off to Megan Russell for taking up the task.
Russell mentions a key point in passing, and it bears repeating. Friedman can dole out nonsense-posturing-as-insight because his readers are at least as ignorant and lack curiosity. And I don’t even mean going to China, although it would be good (absent carbon costs) for more Americans to see for themselves that the US is not the center of the world and generally has a poor quality of life. As with our military, a lot of our spending goes to overpriced and not terribly fit for purpose items such as bloated higher education, an extortive health care system, slow and costly bandwidth, and supersized houses.
Americans generally and the New York Times should be embarrassed about what Friedman’s status as a member in good standing of punditocracy says about them.
By Megan Russell, CODEPINK’s China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator. Originally published at Common Dreams
Thomas Friedman probably thought he was being clever when he titled his most recent article How Elon Musk and Taylor Swift Can Resolve U.S.-China Relations. It’s a headline meant to catch your attention– appealing to the Swifties, who think Taylor can save the world, the Musketeers, who are certain Elon can save the world, and, of course, their anti-fans who follow their every move with just as much zeal, and perhaps even more. It was the New York Times version of clickbait, because why bother with solid journalism when you can piggyback off the success of billionaires?
It was clickable, but it was hardly readable.
Friedman starts his piece off with a kernel of truth, just enough to shock the regular NYT’s readers who are very rarely fed a positive bit of news about China:
“I just spent a week in Beijing and Shanghai, meeting with Chinese officials, economists and entrepreneurs, and let me get right to the point: While we were sleeping China took a great leap forward in high-tech manufacturing of everything.”
Nobody that knows anything about China can argue with that, though a majority of Americans certainly still view the far-away country through the lens of Soviet communism and rural backwardness. The correlation is that the majority of Americans know nothing about China, have never been, and will never go.
He then goes on to express how Donald Trump’s tariffs and anti-China rhetoric jump-started China’s manufacturing prowess, mentioning how Trump’s name on Chinese social media is “Chuan Jiaguo” meaning “Nation Builder.”
No. It was not Donald Trump that ushered in China’s “Sputnik moment,” as quoted by business consultant Jim McGregor. Trump is merely an amusement to China’s general public—a strange American enigma whose hard lines are overshadowed by unexpected candor and comical behavior. For China, the last 40 years has been a continuous Sputnik moment—from the elimination of extreme poverty to unprecedented shift to renewable energy, China has been on the rise, and Donald Trump has never been the yeast making that happen.
And then comes the meat of Friedman’s theory, what he calls the “Elon Musk-Taylor Swift paradigm.” Instead of suddenly raising US tariffs against China, which will lead us into a kind of supply-chain warfare that benefits nobody, Friedman suggest a gradual rise in tariffs, that would allow the US to “buy time to lift up more Elon Musks” which he describes as “more homegrown manufacturers who can make big stuff so we can export more to the world and import less,” as well as give China more time to “let in more Taylor Swifts” which are “more opportunities for its youth to spend money on entertainment and consumer goods made abroad.”
Friedman isn’t wrong about the idiocy of a US-China trade war, but his prognosis is tone-deaf, and very clearly the result of a Western capitalist tormented by the concept of zero-sum competition:
“It’s important to the world that China continues to be able to give its 1.4 billion people a better life — but it cannot be at the expense of everyone else.”
He does, unsurprisingly, make the Soviet comparison:
But if we don’t use this time to respond to China the way we did to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, with our own comprehensive scientific, innovative and industrial push, we will be toast.”
Toast! Don’t we all collectively like toast?
He talks of the dangers of China’s rising economic dominance. How China “owns the future” because it is the main producer of Electric Vehicles. How China is domestically self-sufficient. How China will soon account for nearly half of all global manufacturing. How all of China’s gains will be everyone else’s loss. How China is going to export robot-run factories to other countries, and thereby steal labor opportunities— as if the West hasn’t exported their own factories and exploited impoverished communities for cheap labor over decades.
“But here’s what’s scary: We no longer make that many things China wants to buy. It can do almost everything at least cheaper and often better.”
That must be incredibly scary to the average American who would rather pay a few bucks for a Temu version of an item rather than shell out tens of dollars for anything made by local businesses. It’s not their fault. The U.S. is incredibly unaffordable and the government does not seem to care.
At the same time, Friedman criticizes the lack of consumption within China:
“If I were drawing a picture of China’s economy today as a person, it would have an awesome manufacturing upper body — like Popeye, still eating spinach — with consuming legs resembling thin little sticks.”
It is the fate of a capitalist to view nonconsumption as a societal malady rather than a sign of good health. The truth is those that consume less have other more nourishing and sustainable ways to fill their souls. At a time when consumerism and overspending are contributing to the destruction of the planet, this is a rather thoughtless point to make. Imagine if society applauded community-building rather than the pointless expenditure of money to temporarily fill a gaping emptiness left by a lack of community and an overemphasis on hyperindividualism? It is very American to look for quick solutions rather than address the root cause.
To his credit, Friedman does state the importance of China providing for its 1.4 billion population, but it is a mere drop of humility that does little to balance the western self-righteousness. He does not comment on the fact that China’s population is greater than the US and Europe combined. Neither does he comment on the West’s own role in exporting labor for cheaper prices— because a capitalist system is run on greed, and wherever a buck can be saved, you bet it will be. Even at the expense of the people.
Friedman suggests that China should “let their people have more of the supply.” Apparently, they want to buy more stuff from us. Stuff that Friedman claims they are being starved of under the rule of the Communist Party of China. Things like art and entertainment. Majors in gender studies and sociology.
“Its youth need more outlets for creative expression — without having to worry that a song lyric they write could land them in prison.”
I have doubts that Friedman ever ventured out to a concert in Shanghai, let alone listened to some of China’s latest indie music. Culture is something that China definitely does not lack, and to make that claim is so wildly misguided that I question whether he has any understanding of China at all. One merely has to take a walk along the riverside in literally any city, and they will be bombarded by musicians, performers, and an impressive amount of outdoor public karaoke. There are as many artists as there are consumers of art, and indeed, a fair share of students pursuing the humanities.
He concludes:
“In sum, America needs to tighten up, but China needs to loosen up. Which is why my hat is off to Secretary of State Antony Blinken for showing China the way forward.”
What did Antony Blinken do that was so impressive? He stopped at a record store in China and bought a Taylor Swift album.
Maybe, just maybe, Friedman is just one giant Swiftie. But more likely, he threw the article together with a preschool level understanding of the WTO, and an opinion that almost sounds like an opinion, but doesn’t really say much of anything when you give it a thought.
The only difference between sudden tariffs and gradual tariffs is time—and what will time do? In our 4-year system, time is as fickle as our word. Either way, China will still be pioneering the green energy revolution, selling affordable EVs and renewable energy equipment around the globe while the United States, as the NYT Beijing bureau chief Keith Bradsher says, will “become the new Cuba—the place where you visit to see old gas-guzzling cars that you drive yourself.”
And if the US continues its threatened posture around anything coming from China—including green energy tech—the world will continue to heat up, and we will all face the consequences.
Friedman’s general lack of understanding about China was a let down. But mostly I was disappointed because the title had me anticipating a much different read—something with a bit of creativity, and maybe even an original thought.
I would have been more impressed if Friedman suggested sticking Elon Musk and his federal spending chopping block DOGE on the over-bloated Department of Defense, and booking Taylor Swift a highly-publicized multi-city tour around China. Send Blinken along with her, if he’s such a big fan, and have him venture outside of his strict China perimeter to meet, talk with locals, and experience a version of China that he never would in his fancy hotel rooms and secure government buildings. Maybe then he would form an opinion based on his own experiences rather than the lines he memorized over the course of his typical Ivy League education, and the subsequent falling-in-place that one must do to become the Secretary of State of the United States. A selling out of the soul, if you will.
And maybe the well being of the people—of all people—would be considered for once, rather than the flimsy monetary aspirations of the already-wealthy.
Taylor Swift’s music is the epitome of vapid, derivative schlock. If that’s all the West has to offer to China, then we’re really in trouble.
It seems like Friedman believes US cultural exports, which only endure a few years before being thrown by Americans on the trash heap of history, can compete against China’s thousands of years of culture (which has strong state support) and history without the leading technology and massive economy to back US missionary (for crony capitalism) zeal.
I have enjoyed a number of Pixar-level Chinese animations lately, which do not have the hidden greed is good and profit at the expense of the community that is evident in all Pixar – see Boss Baby (!) and Hollywood’s generally enjoyable) propaganda (unlike the unenjoyable non-stop MSM propaganda).
Boss Baby is a Dreamworks film, not Pixar.
Funny you should say that. This old guy tuned into a few minutes of the Eras Tour movie, and she really is awful. I try to keep it in perspective, though. My folks did not get the Mothers of Invention, but I was a huge fan.
American addiction to pop culture is what America has been exporting for over a century and the UK too, since their musicians cloned our Rock-a-billy genre into the Merseybeat, which also got exported world wide, never mind that Benjamin Britain and Aaron Copland will outlast it all, as will Chinese traditional music, and Tán Dùn, best known to Americans through his film scores, all of which takes some measure of expertise to write about, without getting taken to task by genuinely expert reads
Frank Zappa! Susie Creamcheese!
everything they did, from “america drinks and goes home” to the oldies they had a penchant for.
“it would be good for more Americans to see for themselves that the US is not the center of the world and generally has a poor quality of life.”
I think many Americans know the quality of life here needs big changes.
But looking at things like the H1B Visa program discussion, who is really drinking the Kool-Aid?
And then quality of life measurements continue to fall, but then there is always somewhere else falling faster that makes the USA look better.
Also, improving the quality of life here is going fall on people that stay in USA or with roots in the USA. It has to be more than about quality of life and accommodations for what would be transient guests.
Slightly OT, but I thought that
“We got Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney, and Taylor Swift on the same ticket,”
is one of the worst political slogans I’ve ever heard.
mr. free trade bitching about the results of his own crackpot policies. many years ago the crackpot on PBS held up a compaq keyboard and said, see they buy american products.
it was pointed out that it was made in china.
was his article in the comics section?
https://fair.org/home/tom-friedman-mourns-a-trade-deal-he-doesnt-understand/
“I was speaking out in Minnesota—my hometown, in fact—and a guy stood up in the audience, said, “Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you’d oppose?” I said, “No, absolutely not.” I said, “You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn’t even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade.””
Musketeer, I believe that was self-branding back in early ’22, lol, better yet, how did Kanye make the guild? The three MUSKeteers? Elon Musk deletes meme tweets about him, Donald Trump and Kanye, WPDE.
Everybody loves toast.
And all this time, I’d thought it was bad drugs, genetic predisposition, echo-chamber hive-minded specious denial, delusion & early-onset senile dementia (with SARS CoV2 brain damage as icing?)
If you question this assumption, go check out BlueSky’s speciously obsequious commentariate?
This seems like a warmed over version of the tongue in cheek (I assume) solution to the perpetual middle-East crises dating back to at least the 80s: give them more sex, drugs and rock and roll. Then, the theory goes, they will have something to do instead of sitting around all day hating America for our freedom.
Such insightful analysis!
Yes, its just the same warmed-over gruel. “Let’s turn the jihadist into Israel-loving infidels!” strategy seems to be working in Syria, with HTS.
Something tells me that it won’t travel well, though.
I have a different view of serious jihadists–they are, often, in the pay of countries like the US, Turkey, Israel. I never bought into the BS the media and government put out, for example, that ISIS was made up of jihadis. A lot of what the media reports about “terrorism” is pure bullshit fed to them by the intel community.
CIA have not found a group of crazies that it did not feel like supporting. Jihadists give better bang-for-the-buck than Nazis, though.
Any time I have brought this up to anyone, the mouth drops open the eyes bug out and I’m accused of being some sort of lune. This has been going on since 9-11 and the result is the same whether they are lefties or right wingers. Terrorist lurk every where and think of nothing but attacking and killing people. Especially Americans because you know “ they hate our freedom”. Most of the time now, I don’t bother.
Michael Hudson, who knows a lot about genuine economics and a lot about China, once remarked that the American ruling elites have so drastically hollowed out education due to austerity and increased the cost of housing and healthcare due to financial manipulation, so that American workers could never compete with Chinese workers. Even at the highest of wages, American workers struggle with housing, healthcare, and educating their children, while Chinese workers with lower wages enjoy very affordable housing, accessible healthcare, convenient transportation, and free education. These are the benefits of infrastructure that America once championed and which led to the American industrial powerhouse. So, if America really wants to restore industrial competence and vigor, she would have to become a socialist economy like China’s.
Not much profit in that for the profiteers – which is why it will never happen. Unless, perhaps, a completely new society is being built on the complete ruin of the old.
Households’ Income and Consumption Expenditure in 2023 – National Bureau of Statistics of China
tl;dr China consumer consumption grew 6.3% in 2023. Housing consumption grew the least, “Education, culture and recreation” grew the most.
Thomas Friedman op-ed and essay generator:
Write Your Own Thomas Friedman Column!
https://observer.com/2004/05/write-your-own-thomas-friedman-column/
I understand now how in an outfit like El Pais the number of friedmanite opinators has mushroomed. It is like an infectious disease.
A terrible shame. I regularly read El Pais early in this century. The NeoLIb/ NeoCon blob took over everything. I stupidly bought 2 issues of Granta in ’22-3 in the local Barnes and Noble. Years back it was nearly always insightful. Now, it was spewing absurd Russophobia and State Dept.-speak. Literally one article claimed that the Provoked Russian SMO (Provoked is the title of a new book by Scott Horton clarifying the record) was completely the fantasy of the “mad” “dictator” Vlad Putin. Pathetic dribble for brain-dead zombies.
This has also happened to Current History. Sad.
To help Friedman-bashing, has anybody got the article about Assad when he took power? I remember that it was such a fawning article (because he claimed to be a neoliberal?) that I realised for the first time how useless he had become. The article seems to have been suppressed; did anyone manage to save a copy?
Antony Blinken is the Paris-raised silver-spoon son of Warburg-Pincus founding partner, financier, and political fixer Don Blinken. Daddy bought him a sinecure as a Dem-adjacent “advisor” as a Columbia undergrad. He is completely disconnected from everyday reality. Just like Tommy.
Great takedown.
And though it makes me sound like a nut for saying it, I like to mention it because it’s so little known: Blinken was raised by his stepdad Samuel Pisar–his ‘real father’– who was the right-hand man of Robert Maxwell. Which puts much less then six degrees of separation between Blinken, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Jeffrey Epstein. Always wished someone would ask Blinken if he’d ever met Epstein…
> “It’s important to the world that China continues to be able to give its 1.4 billion people a better life — but it cannot be at the expense of everyone else.”
Oh my mutha family-blogging gawd … I just can’t.
Stay poor we can make bigger profits off cheap sh** … wow.
Excellent commentary, thank you Yves for this. I have nothing to add to something so well laid out, except to consider that the only available antidote to this is truth to receptive audiences from sources trusted to that audience.
” Friedman can dole out nonsense-posturing-as-insight because his readers are at least as ignorant and lack curiosity”.
Yesterday at the annual Oscar Grant vigil, among many topics in a wide-ranging New Year greeting the NOI minister spoke to a receptive audience on how China is not an enemy and elucidated some of the above points covered by Ms Russell. in a nutshell what NC does, all we living in the belly of the beast can do at this point.
Washington only thrives when there are enemies. China, Russia, Iran, all can become friends if it was up to them. But the prosperity of inside the Beltway requires them to be enemies. Washington is a town run by gangsters–it is far worse than it has ever been. Maybe the Trumpsters will change this but even if they wanted to change it the change would have to be slow and incremental. The gangsters (a mix of public and private operators) would all need to be shot (symbolically or actually) for things to improve, i.e., be the capitol of the USA and not the Empire.
what’s the old saying, “you can’t tell the players without a scorecard” ?
I absolutely agree, gangsters, The Paul Castellano types make up the bulk of them – maybe a touch of Gotti for some. All Crazy Joe in reality.
By the 1990s, it was clear who had won the Cold War. Living standards in the former Eastern bloc countries were miserably low, and Western countries were grateful to have the U.S. on their side, whether they liked it or not. Today it is hard to say which is better, the life of the average American or the average Chinese.
I don’t think that anybody won the ColdWar. The years following WW2 were wasted years, mainly due to the US doing whatever it could to damage, in its way of thinking, the Soviet Union. American operatives were determined to eliminate its communist competition.This was the basic reason for the terrible wars around the world, and the numerous bloody overthrow of governments feared by the US. Nations arising at the end of WW2 were relentlessly, and often violently, dragged into the American orbit. Instead of resolving to provide its citizens with an increasingly better way of life, the US shot its wad by creating a greatly exaggerated fear of the USSR to ensure that the latter’s economic wealth would finally fall to American capitalists. A world ‘safe’ from the ‘communist threat’ would be ripe for the taking. And the US intended, and still intends, to have it all. Everyone was a loser at the ‘end’ of the ColdWar, and the time, energy, and resources wasted on fear and greed can never be reclaimed.
Gadzooks, I think everyone misses the point about the delightful Thomas Friedman, whose columns have kept me in chuckles however dark the times. He is, as every Brit knows, a master ironist with a gift for the absurd which can only be compared to that of the good Dean Swift. But, then, ’tis known that Americans are incapable of comprehending irony, preferring the slapstick of the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris team and the penile clowning of Zelensky, and the like.
Your writing sounds like you are blessed with not having to listen to US politicians every 2 and 4 years spout Friedman-esque vapidity 24/7 (and the MSM for the years in between) or an excellent use of irony. Being a Californianan (rural – not La La Land), my sense of irony was ground down until only cynicism remained a long long time ago.
I live in the USA and do not listen to the politicians, read Friedman, or give the MSM any attention. There is always the excellent alternatives. Treqt yourself.
As a fellow Naked Capitalism supporter, I concur, but during election time it is hard to avoid the idiocy completely (though I try I try).
Yes, how he can stay completely deadpan decade after decade is beyond me.
If Americans are incapable of comprehending irony, then how is it that the American writer Thomas Friedman is capable of writing irony? This claim sounds like something for the Department of Irony Department.
It really is the party of the undead! These people were shockingly horrendous during Covid pandemic. How many died because they kept information front the public. Liz Cheney…..too awful.
China is a civilization that defies the simplistic view of nearly all Americans. I’ve studied Chinese culture abit so everything I read about China, including many of the stories that come up here at NC, suffers from that stunning lack of understanding of the depth of cultures like China, Iran, or even Russia. The sad part is that even the elites who make policies bask, succeed, and get rich (from this nation of suckers and chumps) precisely because they put their trust in slogans.
Aside from the satisfaction of debunking conventional wisdom, to understand The Situation and get along successfully in the world, we have appreciate how the route to success (and often survival), hews to following the conventional wisdom closely.
It’s a matter of staying safe within the center of the herd.
In any business meeting, note how restating/summarizing the pertinent conventional wisdom as though it were really, really important, or some fresh and trenchant insight, leaves you (or whomever) in the position of being regarded a thought-leader (that would be Friedman).
It’s actually more a sign of mediocrity. And why real leadership in any venue is exercised privately, between those who matter and know better, before or after said meetings, quietly.
Democracy is a sop, and at best an Irony (hat tip to Dye & Ziegler)
Dowd, Friedman, Krugman, etc… and general reporting.
I have not taken NYTimes seriously in this century.
This century or for a century?
I have always thought that Friedman’s pieces stated the obvious…… and somehow managed to get it wrong. Nice to know that others see through him as well. Kudos to Yves and Megan Russell and extra kudos to Yves who, on January 2, already has a strong contender for post title of the year.
“Thomas Friedman probably thought he was being clever when he titled his most recent article How Elon Musk and Taylor Swift Can Resolve U.S.-China Relations.”
This is the guy that came up with book titles like: “The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization”
(eye roll)
I didn’t read that one, but I endured The World is Flat
Fortunately I haven’t wasted any further time or money on him.
What I want to know is who’s this “we” Friedman was sleeping with while China was jumping for decades? Some us were paying attention and found the current state of affairs eminently predictable.
And the US is awesome because Blinken could buy a Swift CD at a Chinese mall? Nobody tell Tom and Tony that is was a pirated copy – that would blow the whole theory. Meanwhile, maybe Friedman can explain why I can’t get a state of the art Huawei phone at a USian store near me.
Hopefully Friedman got a mustache brush for Festivus so he can clear out the crumbs because his capacity for understanding has taken a nose dive, and it was a low bar to begin with.
I figure he stopped talking to cab drivers.
Here is a ten year old article on the NY Times editorial writers.
I’d guess this was well read at the Times in 2014.
But why change a winning formula?
https://observer.com/2014/02/the-tyranny-and-lethargy-of-the-times-editorial-page/
Poor Tommy. His Head is Flat. (“The World is Flat,” Tommy Friedman, 2007. Now available on Amazon for a little as 99 cents.)
And never forget the “Friedman Unit.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_Unit
Sharing a deep understanding of world political dynamics, one taxi driver at a time.
One must throw some sympathy to Tom Friedman.
His wife’s family’s fortune has probably suffered quite a bit as shopping malls have collapsed.
See General Growth Properties (GGP. Inc).
Maybe Tom Friedman HAS to write and we are witnessing his desperation.
“(…)The far-too-widely-read Tom Friedman (…) Friedman can dole out nonsense-posturing-as-insight because his readers are at least as ignorant and lack curiosity. (…) Americans generally and the New York Times should be embarrassed about what Friedman’s status as a member in good standing of punditocracy says about them.(…)”
quote of the week
What is so revolting about Friedman is that after years of critical attacks on “free trade” as it has played out in globalization and hyperglobalization (Dani Rodrik and Wolfgang Streeck at the top of the pack here) he refuses to take seriously the destructive political ordering it requires and the backlash it sets off.
Back in the mid 20th c the question of an ethics of intent vs. an ethics of responsibility was a hot topic, particularly among the French left, in response to the Stalinist use of the latter to justify the murder of anyone who had supported policies that were deemed to have brought negative consequences. Before a world tribunal working on that premise Tommy wouldn’t have a prayer. He couldn’t enter being an ignoramus as a plea.
Having had the opportunity to travel through different parts of Asia as a senior; I realized that many impressions of the world can be ‘fixed’ when one is in primarty and secondary school. E.G. the image of Russia is from the Cold War: a middle age woman bunded up wearing, leggings, a long coat, and a babuska, and carrying a sack to a brutal architecture apartment building in a snow storm. This instead of the incoceivable picture of a modern Moscow or St. Petersburg. Or, China: endless rice paddies, instead of a supercharged society capable of building highs speed train networks, high rise building, ports and bridges. A few years back, I was standing near the ‘colonial ‘Bund’ on the west side of the Hangpu River in Shanghai and looking across at the river at a totally modern skyline. I imagined that the Shanghai Tower was a a giant middle finger to interlopers. “Humiliated once, never again.” Mao’s legacy regarding the ‘Opium Wars.” What I have found in travel, with feet on the ground,, is that the modern reality doesn’t match the rhetoric or the propaganda or the viewpoints of people who lack imagination or a sense of history or a sense of geography. Ride a railroad in China, the tracks do not follow the meandering course of a river, they go straight ,tunneling through whatever obstacle that happens to lie in the way. Off to the side, one might see (again a few years back) crane after crane and thirty story skycrappers in pods of six, time and time again. Perhaps, the young women of Xian would be enamoured with Taylor Swift, but it is doubtful that the likes of Xi”s inner circle would be impressed by a songbird who might truly represent a vapid US culture. Perhaps, in a way, Musk is correct, in a race, compete, or get left behind.
Amazing that Friedman would give advice to a collective Americam “we” about what to make. Has the man ever had a job in his entire life? Op-ed-ing at the NYT certainly doesn’t count.
Sorta off topic, but Taylor Swift’s music isn’t all that bad (this coming from an oldster).
Her song “Anti-Hero” is a catchy song and I found the lyrics intriguing.
Had no idea it was her when I heard it, but I liked it. Does that make me vapid?
I’d rather read an op-ed from Swift than Friedman.
There’s that….
Since this is a low-bar competition, I’d rather look at Swift than Nuland.
So if I get this right, Thomas Friedman’s idea of how to deal with China is to create more billionaires like Elon Musk – because that has worked out so well for America – and demand that China convert a chuck of their economy to be a consumer society to help Taylor Swift to be on her way to be the first trillionaire. Come to think of it, you could reword what he said to be a pretty good Babylon Bee or The Onion article and it would be pretty funny. And by the way, the New York Times has devolved to be come a Clown Show for having hosted his ideas.
Elon Musk is Joiler Veppers.
Frankly, we don’t even do the cultural stuff all that well in the West any longer. See Disney spending $231 million (!!!) on the Star Wars Acolyte show – eight episodes for something that flopped sooo hard I don’t know a single person in my friends group that actually bothered to see even one episode.
Or we have the infamous Sony crash-and-burn of their game “Concord” , reportedly costing up to $400 million (!!!) for a game that was pulled from shelves after less than two weeks because it sucked so badly.
Or we have Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which is a giant meme at this point. Not sure how many 100s of millions this flop cost.
The last few years in AAA gaming have been pretty sh*** in general, with lots of overmonitized unfinished garbage. Wait until the Chinese take over AAA gaming, lol.
Thomas Friedman, Noah Smith, Paul Krugman, and similar commentators are essentially the kind of people that gain influence because they peddle the kind of propaganda that the ruling class wants you to believe.
I remember back in the 1990s and early 2000s, when they were condescendingly lecturing those who opposed the idea of the US outsourcing its manufacturing sector as people who didn’t understand comparative advantage (a deeply flawed economic concept used to justify labor arbitrage and pretty naked class warfare). That outsourcing played a big role in helping accelerate China’s growth.
The reality is that the people like Friedman will worsen the problems the US has. More billionaires like Elon Musk will only result in higher economic inequality. High inequality means slower economic growth and more rent seeking. Note that China, the nation that Friedman is in both awe and attempts to fearmonger about, is trying to reduce its inequality under the public policy of “common prosperity”.
As for hyping China as a threat, China as never threatened to attack the US and has publicly indicated that it does not want to be a hegemon. The main reason for escalating tensions is because the US elite see the Chinese as overtaking the US and thereby causing the US to lose its status as hegemon.
Friedman and his ilk are basically the US version of Joseph Goebbels. Their goal is to keep their readers of publications like the NYT, which is mostly the upper middle class, aligned with the interests of the elite.
I am pleased to see someone else recognizes that Noah Smith belongs in this category of concern-trolling narrative managers for the oligarchs — I would include the equally vile David Frum, possibly Canada’s most noxious export.
Matt Taibbi did two epic piss takings on the Great Mustache of Understanding years ago that have not been topped, probably because anyone who read them never thought about Friedman again, much less bothered to read him.
I think of Tom as the cutting edge of conventional (PMC) wisdom.
Unfortunately, the influence of the NYT and writers like Freedman extends beyond the Times itself as local news reports and what remains of local newspapers follow the direction of the NYT and help spread its propaganda across the country.
Freedman is little more than the empire’s messenger boy and even cable news outlets like MSNBC or CNN gets much of its news, tone, and direction from the NYT, as well as the WaPo, which are their go-to sources for state propaganda and what is or isn’t allowed to be heard and read by the people.
Thomas might also visit Japan which he has long ridiculed for its three (or is it 4?) lost decades. Superb transit, universal first class medicare, excellent education, crime-free cities and affordable housing. They also live forever. No Elon Musk or Taylor Swift – instead the have Shohei!