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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTom Friedman Should Take The Week Off And Regroup - By Charles P. Pierce
From the article Pierce quotes:For those at the cutting edge of this trend, durable goods are viewed as temporal objects to enjoy and pass on rather than belongings. Personally, I no longer feel like I own anything.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-monetize-your-closet.html?hp&rref=opinion
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/billionaire-scion-tom-fri_b_26164.html
TOM FRIEDMAN SHOULD TAKE THE WEEK OFF AND REGROUP
By Charles P. Pierce at 12:45pm
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Yesterday, Friedman may have reached the apogee of entitled and detached foofitude. He once again found some plucky "entrepreneurs" who are the future of the economy, if we'd all learn how to look in our tool sheds, garages, and attics to find the fortunes hidden there. (Friedman would have made a great member of the Oakenshield clan, says the guy who saw the new Hobbit movie last night.) Of course, this only applies to those of us who can still afford homes in which to have garages and attics, and those of us who are not living in tool sheds since the Wall Street entrepreneurs played mumbledy-peg with the world economy back in 2008.
I mean, good for her, but, seriously, this is now the future? (I can't top Billmon, who tweeted that Friedman had saved the economy by "reinventing the consignment shop." I note the absence of labor costs, including what we used to call "wages." Maybe that's the future. Everything's a glorified yard sale and we're all just mail-order houses. But maybe I can get a buck for that old lamp that I've come to hate.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/tom-friedmans-yard-sale-122313?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1456_36519076
politichew
(230 posts)Berlum
(7,044 posts)Freakln Foofers (R)
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Tommy Bucksbaum . . . A picture perfect example of a guy who 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), yet has an endless well of solutions that usually tend 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. 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. I might as well listen to an Ovarian Lottery winner like Steve Forbes on the subject; it'd make about as much sense.
Best comment of all from that article:
The idea that mainstream employment will evolve from hunting/gathering to farming to working in a factory to running a small Internet start-up is simply ridiculous. Despite what Mr. Friedman wants to believe, Internet entrepreneurship will have zero impact on falling middle class wages and quality of life.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)....and is now worth Billions.
Why doesn't EVERYBODY just do that?
The Uniquely American Solution!