General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThomas Friedman, shill for the 1% and Corporate America: Average is Over.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/opinion/friedman-average-is-over.html?src=me&ref=generalYes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. As they say, if horses could have voted, there never would have been cars. But theres been an acceleration. As Davidson notes, In the 10 years ending in 2009, [U.S.] factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs about 6 million in total disappeared.
snip
What the iPad wont do in an above average way a Chinese worker will. Consider this paragraph from Sundays terrific article in The Times by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher about why Apple does so much of its manufacturing in China: Apple had redesigned the iPhones screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the [Chinese] plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the companys dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. The speed and flexibility is breathtaking, the executive said. Theres no American plant that can match that.
Hear that? It's BREATHtaking!!!
He's cheerleading executives that liken militaristic gross servitude in the name of winner take everything capitalism as they would describing a Van Eyck painting.
Thomas Friedman. Just when you think the Life Lottery Winner couldn't get any more shameless . . .
Triana
(22,666 posts)We thought slavery had been abolished. But it's just been moved to China.
Initech
(100,068 posts)phantom power
(25,966 posts)inhumane labor conditions, super-low standard of living and a total lack of environmental regulations == breathtaking flexibility!
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)goggle-eyed take. The sheer arrogance and snideness in that column took my breath away. Sorry, Tom Terrific, most of humanity is "average" and if TPTB won't pay them an honest wage for an honest day's work, they may deservedly be looking up at their bodies from the baskets that contain their recently detached heads.
I really don't know why Friedman doesn't just come clean and say that slavery is a damned fine system. Clearly that is what he actually believes.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Here's the thing: I don't need to hear "solutions" from a guy who's pretty much never really had to work hard to get where he is in life, never really had to struggle, has networking skills and fell into all the right jobs (and eventually, married the right person). I don't think a person such as that should deem himself such an authority as to what American workers have to do to better themselves. Does he not get that if everyone were JK Rowling, "The Next Iron Chef" or even Chriss Angel, no one would be?
And now he's cheerleading slavery. THIS is how we "compete"?? THIS is where we're at?
Friedman always tends to ignore the giant-elephant factors of wage stagnation, astronomical college costs, unrealistic expectations of Corporate America, unrealistic odds of "Horatio Alger" type success and just plain-and-simple bad luck in his columns.
I'm also waiting for Tommy to go on talk shows with an opposing viewpoint to counter his offshore shill-o-rama. Have we ever seen him in a debate format? Have we ever seen him NOT get tossed whiffle ball questions?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Preach it!!
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)is how much gushing approval and agreement he's getting in the comments...
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)The brickbats are coming his way in the comments, big time.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,500 posts)if we extended that model to areas like construction for example. Just look a the pyramids in Egypt and so many other monuments throughout history. No lazy ass workers bitching back then about water, sleep, wages, etc.
I say let's get some kids to work on the drywall and metal framing while their parents pull 18 hour shifts. Do you realize how quick we could build our future monuments.
JHB
(37,159 posts)...they can make their people do that. That doesn't make it a good thing.
And what happens when "average Chinese workers" get fed up en masse with this kind of treatment for biscuits and tea?
Do they have copies of Mao's little book?
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)The FoxConn serfs are so well-adjusted and happy for the opportunity from their generous benefactor (without whom they would be in their rural hometowns shoveling shit for their entire lives) that they popped out of bed in the middle of the night singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", chomping at the bit to get to work...
He probably honestly thinks that the line serfs are so in love with what they do, and so concerned with getting those new iPhones out to the corners of the world on time that they'd work 48-hour shifts if their too-lenient supervisor didn't make them get some sleep...
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,500 posts)HangOnKids
(4,291 posts)HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts). . . got taken for granite.
<--- the world's most microscopic tear, shed for that waste of bytes.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)He is about as average as anybody I can think of.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Born into an upper middle class family, hired at the NYT as a reporter, fell into the right circles, shilled for the "right" causes, married into wealth.
It truly is the story of a rather unextraordinary person (if his writing is any evidence) getting all the lucky breaks.
Responder3
(33 posts)The media has nothing but government mouthpieces.
wilt the stilt
(4,528 posts)average is thy name. Your married into money.
PETRUS
(3,678 posts)Or we wouldn't hear squat from muddle-headed Friedman.
Also, if "average is over," then why is productivity growth slower than it was when average was in? Weird.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Chinese as sub-human or perhaps workers in general.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)FU..
FU, Mustache of Understanding..
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)How does he have any credibility? How do his pieces ever become anything other than unintentional satire?
What kind of evil, greedy elitist psychopath gets a hard-on at the thought of 8,000 people forcibly rousted out of bed (not that they were sleeping that well to being with) to start a 12-hour work shift just so ol' Tommy's new, improved iPhone gets to the mall in time for opening? What kind of diseased mind touts it like this is a bold, brave way of future business?
Maybe the Nazis were just too far ahead of their time with the concentration labor camp idea...They must be green with jealousy from the grave...
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)nt
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)As in, guys like Romney and Friedman can suck all they want, and it doesn't matter because they have wealth.
See, "competition" is only for the hoi polloi. Tommy doesn't even compete in interviews; how in the hell would he know what the word even means?
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Only half of any given group of people can ever be above average. This means that the rest will have no access to a living wage job.
This is quite clearly an engineered system to get rid of half the populace. Don't think so? Then figure in the cuts in welfare and social safety nets that are going on at the same time.
What does all this point to? No jobs for the half of the population that is 'average', no safety net for them, and nothing to protect them from grossly premature death by disease, exposure or outright starvation.
And as we already see, everyone's too scared of the police gangs to do anything else but lay down and die. Americans will starve, they will freeze to death in the cold, they will languish in bed and die of easily treatable diseases that they can't get care for because of poverty, but they will not rebel. Aside from Occupy Wall Street we don't even see civil disobedience anymore.
The people in the Middle East could teach us a lesson.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)"Fallback", "Second" or "Starter" jobs can now be replaced by a console; a phenomenon, no doubt, that makes The Mustache Of Eternal Understanding giggle with delight . . .
Breathtaking.
I'm really all ears, free traitors: How does capitalism continue when the only jobs will be ones that older workers can't retire from, middle-aged workers can't leave or get fired from at any cost, and younger workers won't be able to get?
Offshoring or automation is fast eliminating entry level positions and offshoring or bean counting is eliminating mid-level positions. It requires years of expensive education, experience and luck to land management. Is there no place for non-extraordinary people who just want to work for a living anymore?
Here's another thought . . . if a person was "extraordinary" or even "above average", why the hell would they even want to apply that talent to something as boring, trivial and meaningless like almost any position corporate America has to offer?
Someone logically explain to me how is this going to pan out. PLEASE.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)KG
(28,751 posts)WCGreen
(45,558 posts)he invisions himself as some kind of brilliant futurist and cranks out jargon filled books that are about as relevent to the real world as Ann Coulters.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)bvar22
(39,909 posts)Simple!
"Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment."
Everyone should instantly become Above Average!
It is their fault if they don't!
BTW:This IS the mindset of EVERYONE who is STILL pimping "Free Trade" and "Free Markets".
Pompous Fucking IDIOT!
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