You have to be kidding yourself. Friedman’s views are obviously socialist, overtly and sadly naive, and idealistic. They are disassociated from the real world in which real people live. Those dogmatic, ignorant views, from which he has no real world experience, to his opinions on realistic energy sources, to not being cognizant that government has no money that it does not get from free enterprise profits, must be formed by the beltway envionment in which he lives. If he were to follow a fuel truck driver in the rural areas of say, North Carolina as well as most other non-urban areas , he would see, that although the world is flat,(an acknowdlegement to his correct observance of the impact of our electronic communications), it is not crowded. And he would see that you can’t put a windmill on a tractor
to produce our foods and other necessities, or on a 747 jet for his travel, for that matter. Wish in one hand and physically put something in the other and see which one get full first.
Liking and respecting Friedman doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with his entire body of work, nor was I trying to comment on it. I just thought this was a particularly cogent remark.
I like and respect Friedman from having heard him on Meet The Press. Sounds grim, especially since I have a shorter horizon now. 🙁
I’ve always like and respected him too, and hearing him say this was terribly depressing.
You have to be kidding yourself. Friedman’s views are obviously socialist, overtly and sadly naive, and idealistic. They are disassociated from the real world in which real people live. Those dogmatic, ignorant views, from which he has no real world experience, to his opinions on realistic energy sources, to not being cognizant that government has no money that it does not get from free enterprise profits, must be formed by the beltway envionment in which he lives. If he were to follow a fuel truck driver in the rural areas of say, North Carolina as well as most other non-urban areas , he would see, that although the world is flat,(an acknowdlegement to his correct observance of the impact of our electronic communications), it is not crowded. And he would see that you can’t put a windmill on a tractor
to produce our foods and other necessities, or on a 747 jet for his travel, for that matter. Wish in one hand and physically put something in the other and see which one get full first.
Wow, you got all that from one 12-word quote? Which was the naive idealistic part, “hard decade” or “bad century”?
# 3 response was obviously referring to Friedman’s views in general and not just this commentary. Add Paul Krugman’s views to this critique.
Liking and respecting Friedman doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with his entire body of work, nor was I trying to comment on it. I just thought this was a particularly cogent remark.