NY Times Elitist Wants Us to Live More Like Khmer Rouge

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John_Browning
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10 Jun 2011, 1:28 am

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/06/169911
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08friedman.html

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wants you to own less to save the planet.
Image
Meanwhile, he’ll be home at his estate.

Priveleged New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman may live like a king but he wants all of you to work less and own less.
It’s for the greater good, of course.
NewsBusters reported:

Good news, we’re doomed, says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in Wednesday’s “The Earth Is Full.” (Has the globe-trotting Friedman never been to Texas?) But we can still save ourselves eventually, as long as we realize that “the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we have to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less.” But does that “own less” solution include the privileged columnist as well?

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?
“The only answer can be denial,” argues Paul Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur, who described this moment in a new book called “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.” “When you are surrounded by something so big that requires you to change everything about the way you think and see the world, then denial is the natural response. But the longer we wait, the bigger the response required…

…We will realize, he predicts, that the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we have to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less.

“How many people,” Gilding asks, “lie on their death bed and say, ‘I wish I had worked harder or built more shareholder value,’ and how many say, ‘I wish I had gone to more ballgames, read more books to my kids, taken more walks?’ To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.”


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simon_says
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10 Jun 2011, 3:52 am

The Khmer Rouge would have killed Thomas Friedman on day one so I don't think that's what he is saying.

And he does use "we", not "you poor schmucks".



MarketAndChurch
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10 Jun 2011, 3:56 am

he's not as bad as collins, krugman, dowd, cohn, and blow, but, it is normative for all of them to be hysterical over something

i do think that people should own a little less by at least taking the time to appreciate what they already currently own. I'm not a fan of "new" unless it is more efficient and therefor saves you money, time, electricity, or energy.

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“How many people,” Gilding asks, “lie on their death bed and say, ‘I wish I had worked harder or built more shareholder value,’ and how many say, ‘I wish I had gone to more ballgames, read more books to my kids, taken more walks?’


I agree, but this isn't an argument against a growth model.


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10 Jun 2011, 7:33 am

Interesting article. Kind of reminds me of Obama's latest job growth idea. It has a backwards feel to it.

"Job Plan With A Page From Marx"
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysi ... m-Marx.htm

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Quote:
Politics: The president has unveiled a plan to cut joblessness with an industrial policy from the 19th century. In this "new" economy, government will pick winners and losers for industry. It didn't work then, it won't work now.

Taking a cue from classical Marxist theory as well as vintage union organizing doctrine, both discounting the value of service work over manufacturing, we now see President Obama touting training for factory jobs over all others, pushing government spending in that area and calling it a jobs recovery plan.

"I see a future where we train workers who make things here in the United States, and continue a important and honorable tradition of folks working with their hands, creating value, not just shuffling paper," he said Wednesday at Northern Virginia Community College, urging students to pack up and go to ... Detroit.

As he announced his public-private "Skills for America" partnership to train and credential 500,000 students for jobs in industries favored by the Obama administration, it bears looking at how at odds this approach is to both history and economic reality.

"We know it means building the infrastructure, the roads and bridges, and manufacturing new products here ... that create good jobs," Obama said. "Above all, it means training and educating our citizens to out-compete workers from other countries."

The Bill Moyers crowd has been touting manufacturing-era nostalgia for years, claiming the world would go back on its axis if America could just shut its market and put everyone back into blue collars, turning gears and listening for the lunch whistle.

Fact is, the more advanced the economy, the greater percentage of the work force that moves out of manufacturing and into services.

Economists call this the "tertiary progression" of development — from farming and fishing, to the Industrial Revolution, to an advanced service economy. Every rich nation has followed this path — every one.

In the U.S., that move started not last decade but more than 70 years ago. In the U.S. there are six times more service workers than factory workers, boasting higher skills and per capita income. U.S. trade data consistently show U.S. surpluses in service exports across the board because that's America's competitive advantage.

Now the president wants us to "give back" all that white collar development and return to a simpler sort of economy premised on manufacturing — one that's more characteristic of today's China or Peru than a developed economy such as America.



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10 Jun 2011, 7:55 am

Although I think the Khmer Rouge reference is uneccessary hyperbole, that house does make me say, "you first". His argument would sound a lot more compelling coming out of the mouth of somebody who lived in an apartment near where he worked. I'm guessing that some of his co-worker columnists actually do live in apartments in New York City and take the subway to work, all of which is very green. He should have turned the writing assignment over to one of them.



pandabear
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10 Jun 2011, 8:37 am

Wow, what a nice home.



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10 Jun 2011, 8:50 am

I nearly fell off the couch when I read the phrase "NewsBusters reported"

:lmao:

Anyway... He's not exactly an environmentalist. He's an opportunist. This is the guy that wrote "The World is Flat" a few years ago, which was basically free trade and globalization navel gazing. Now it is quite clear that people have to wake up to the realities of climate change... He's just riding the wave to sell a few books.


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dionysian
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10 Jun 2011, 8:55 am

I was going to post about Bill McKibben's book "Eaarth", and what he says about Friedman and his wife... But, whatever.

I think any kind of rational discussion would just be lost on you.


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Tequila
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10 Jun 2011, 8:58 am

Janissy wrote:
Although I think the Khmer Rouge reference is uneccessary hyperbole, that house does make me say, "you first". His argument would sound a lot more compelling coming out of the mouth of somebody who lived in an apartment near where he worked. I'm guessing that some of his co-worker columnists actually do live in apartments in New York City and take the subway to work, all of which is very green. He should have turned the writing assignment over to one of them.


A similar, irrefutable argument should apply to those dangerous misanthropic lunatics that call for culling of the human race.



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10 Jun 2011, 12:44 pm

I wouldn't say that the solution isn't necessarily owning less as it would be about not having to get new stuff when it really isn't necessary.

Take smart phones, for example: Ten years ago we had cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, digital camcorders, GPS navigators, Game Boys, and none of those things had any wireless internet connectivity or social networking applications. Then somebody invented a cell phone with a digital camera in it, making the cameras themselves inconvenient. Then they made a cameraphone that could store your music files, so owning an MP3 player and a cameraphone became inconvenient. Then they made MP3-capable cameraphones with larger screens and better cameras that you could shoot video with, so owning an MP3-capable cameraphone and a digital camcorder became inconvenient. Then they made MP3-capable videophones that had wireless internet access, which didn't really make laptop computers any less convenient but unnecessary for certain internet-related tasks. Then they made wireless-enabled-MP3-capable videophones that you could also play video games on, so owning a wireless-enabled-MP3-capable videophone and a Game Boy became an inconvenience. Then they made wireless-enabled-MP3-capable videogamephones with GPS navigators built in, so owning a wireless-enabled-MP3-capable videogamephone and a GPS navigator became an inconvenience. And then of course, they added touch screens (which I find are less convenient since they hinder one's ability to multitask) and social networking capabilities--not really necessary, but people would buy them anyway.

I'm glad I've always been pretty apathetic to fads and novelties. The way I see it, (modern) market economies go through three phases: The boom phase (when production, competition, and innovation are at their maximum), the bust phase (when surplus exceeds demand, innovation starts to stagnate, companies go under) and the consumerist phase (the companies that survive the bust form an oligopoly on the market, innovation is stagnate, supply meets demand). The reason consumerism is so wasteful is because its goal is to maximize profits and minimize risk without having to grow, so in order to do that companies need to find a way to perpetuate that cycle of consumption, which means coming up with a bunch of fads and novelties to keep the consumers coming back for more when they don't really need anything.



Last edited by TheSnarkKnight on 11 Jun 2011, 1:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

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10 Jun 2011, 10:53 pm

dionysian wrote:
I nearly fell off the couch when I read the phrase "NewsBusters reported"

:lmao:

Anyway... He's not exactly an environmentalist. He's an opportunist. This is the guy that wrote "The World is Flat" a few years ago, which was basically free trade and globalization navel gazing. Now it is quite clear that people have to wake up to the realities of climate change... He's just riding the wave to sell a few books.


Newsbusters has a lot more credibility than your beloved MSNBC.



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10 Jun 2011, 10:56 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
dionysian wrote:
I nearly fell off the couch when I read the phrase "NewsBusters reported"

:lmao:

Anyway... He's not exactly an environmentalist. He's an opportunist. This is the guy that wrote "The World is Flat" a few years ago, which was basically free trade and globalization navel gazing. Now it is quite clear that people have to wake up to the realities of climate change... He's just riding the wave to sell a few books.


Newsbusters has a lot more credibility than your beloved MSNBC.

I figured there would be some criticism for posting a link to a blog, that's why I included a link to the original NYT article.


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11 Jun 2011, 7:23 am

Forget the Khemer Rouge.

Sooner or later we will all learn to live within our means.

ruveyn



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11 Jun 2011, 1:54 pm

Ad hominem: The movie.


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