TW: Friedman's column could be summed up as: "AfPak is hard and we are not good at fixing things anyway". I concur with both sentiments. But he also goes on to imply Iraq matters more than AfPak and that we can risk a conflagration in AfPak after our departure. This is dangerously wrong-headed. I have no idea where he is headed with the Iraq story unless he still harbors dreams of some Jeffersonian democracy emerging in that tribally riven nation.
As for AfPak, we have been there for eight years, no one would claim it is easy. Some perhaps thought we would waltz in with a bunch of precision weaponry and a few thousand advisers and things would work out, but those pipe dreams are long gone. Yet few would claim it is not a pivotal region. If Friedman is right and it is not a pivotal region, then yes we should get the hell out. But I believe is very wrong. I have stated my case previously here. Just because it is hard does not make it the wrong place to be.
From Tom Friedman at NYT:
"It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here’s my vote: We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan.
I base this conclusion on three principles. First, when I think back on all the moments of progress in that part of the world — all the times when a key player in the Middle East actually did something that put a smile on my face — all of them have one thing in common: America had nothing to do with it.
America helped build out what they started, but the breakthrough didn’t start with us. We can fan the flames, but the parties themselves have to light the fires of moderation. And whenever we try to do it for them, whenever we want it more than they do, we fail and they languish.
The Camp David peace treaty was not initiated by Jimmy Carter. Rather, the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, went to Jerusalem in 1977 after Israel’s Moshe Dayan held secret talks in Morocco with Sadat aide Hassan Tuhami. Both countries decided that they wanted a separate peace — outside of the Geneva comprehensive framework pushed by Mr. Carter...
The message: “People do not change when we tell them they should,” said the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum. “They change when they tell themselves they must.”
And when the moderate silent majorities take ownership of their own futures, we win. When they won’t, when we want them to compromise more than they do, we lose. The locals sense they have us over a barrel, so they exploit our naïve goodwill and presence to loot their countries and to defeat their internal foes.
That’s how I see Afghanistan today. I see no moderate spark. I see our secretary of state pleading with President Hamid Karzai to re-do an election that he blatantly stole. I also see us begging Israelis to stop building more crazy settlements or Palestinians to come to negotiations. It is time to stop subsidizing their nonsense. Let them all start paying retail for their extremism, not wholesale. Then you’ll see movement.
What if we shrink our presence in Afghanistan? Won’t Al Qaeda return, the Taliban be energized and Pakistan collapse? Maybe. Maybe not. This gets to my second principle: In the Middle East, all politics — everything that matters — happens the morning after the morning after. Be patient. Yes, the morning after we shrink down in Afghanistan, the Taliban will celebrate, Pakistan will quake and bin Laden will issue an exultant video.
And the morning after the morning after, the Taliban factions will start fighting each other, the Pakistani Army will have to destroy their Taliban, or be destroyed by them, Afghanistan’s warlords will carve up the country, and, if bin Laden comes out of his cave, he’ll get zapped by a drone.
My last guiding principle: We are the world. A strong, healthy and self-confident America is what holds the world together and on a decent path. A weak America would be a disaster for us and the world. China, Russia and Al Qaeda all love the idea of America doing a long, slow bleed in Afghanistan. I don’t.
The U.S. military has given its assessment. It said that stabilizing Afghanistan and removing it as a threat requires rebuilding that whole country. Unfortunately, that is a 20-year project at best, and we can’t afford it. So our political leadership needs to insist on a strategy that will get the most security for less money and less presence. We simply don’t have the surplus we had when we started the war on terrorism after 9/11 — and we desperately need nation-building at home. We have to be smarter. Let’s finish Iraq, because a decent outcome there really could positively impact the whole Arab-Muslim world, and limit our exposure elsewhere. Iraq matters.
Yes, shrinking down in Afghanistan will create new threats, but expanding there will, too. I’d rather deal with the new threats with a stronger America."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/opinion/28friedman.html?_r=1&hp
Showing posts with label tom friedman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tom friedman. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
While We Dither Others Act
TW: I have posted on how the U.S. has competed for decades against other nations either relatively tired and aging (i.e. Europe), poorly governed (i.e. USSR, Maoist China) or just poor (i.e. India). Now things are changing others are competing far more effectively and attaining level of wealth which place them on a more level playing field. In the mean time our sclerotic political processes and naval gazing politics frequently overlayed with ignorance and tired dogmas plod along as if the rest of the world was suspended in time decades ago. Others are charging ahead. Will we? Or alternatively will we suck our collective thumbs yearning for the "good, old days".
From Tom Friedman at NYT:
"...China’s leaders have decided to go green — out of necessity because too many of their people can’t breathe, can’t swim, can’t fish, can’t farm and can’t drink thanks to pollution from its coal- and oil-based manufacturing growth engine. And, therefore, unless China powers its development with cleaner energy systems, and more knowledge-intensive businesses without smokestacks, China will die of its own development.
What do we know about necessity? It is the mother of invention. And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity, watch out. You will not just be buying your toys from China. You will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.
I believe this Chinese decision to go green is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik — the world’s first Earth-orbiting satellite. That launch stunned us, convinced President Eisenhower that the U.S. was falling behind in missile technology and spurred America to make massive investments in science, education, infrastructure and networking — one eventual byproduct of which was the Internet.
Well, folks. Sputnik just went up again: China’s going clean-tech. The view of China in the U.S. Congress — that China is going to try to leapfrog us by out-polluting us — is out of date. It’s going to try to out-green us.
...“If they invest in 21st-century technologies and we invest in 20th-century technologies, they’ll win,” says David Sandalow, the assistant secretary of energy for policy. “If we both invest in 21st-century technologies, challenging each other, we all win.”
Unfortunately, we’re still not racing...too many of our politicians are still trapped in their own dumb-as-we-wanna-be bubble, where we’re always No. 1, and where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, having sold its soul to the old coal and oil industries, uses its influence to prevent Congress from passing legislation to really spur renewables...
China’s leaders, mostly engineers, wasted little time debating global warming. They know the Tibetan glaciers that feed their major rivers are melting. But they also know that even if climate change were a hoax, the demand for clean, renewable power is going to soar as we add an estimated 2.5 billion people to the planet by 2050..
...Of course, China will continue to grow with cheap, dirty coal, to arrest over-eager environmentalists and to strip African forests for wood and minerals. Have no doubt about that. But have no doubt either that, without declaring it, China is embarking on a new, parallel path of clean power deployment and innovation. It is the Sputnik of our day. We ignore it at our peril."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=tom%20friedman%20new%20sputnik&st=cse
From Tom Friedman at NYT:
"...China’s leaders have decided to go green — out of necessity because too many of their people can’t breathe, can’t swim, can’t fish, can’t farm and can’t drink thanks to pollution from its coal- and oil-based manufacturing growth engine. And, therefore, unless China powers its development with cleaner energy systems, and more knowledge-intensive businesses without smokestacks, China will die of its own development.
What do we know about necessity? It is the mother of invention. And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity, watch out. You will not just be buying your toys from China. You will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.
I believe this Chinese decision to go green is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik — the world’s first Earth-orbiting satellite. That launch stunned us, convinced President Eisenhower that the U.S. was falling behind in missile technology and spurred America to make massive investments in science, education, infrastructure and networking — one eventual byproduct of which was the Internet.
Well, folks. Sputnik just went up again: China’s going clean-tech. The view of China in the U.S. Congress — that China is going to try to leapfrog us by out-polluting us — is out of date. It’s going to try to out-green us.
...“If they invest in 21st-century technologies and we invest in 20th-century technologies, they’ll win,” says David Sandalow, the assistant secretary of energy for policy. “If we both invest in 21st-century technologies, challenging each other, we all win.”
Unfortunately, we’re still not racing...too many of our politicians are still trapped in their own dumb-as-we-wanna-be bubble, where we’re always No. 1, and where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, having sold its soul to the old coal and oil industries, uses its influence to prevent Congress from passing legislation to really spur renewables...
China’s leaders, mostly engineers, wasted little time debating global warming. They know the Tibetan glaciers that feed their major rivers are melting. But they also know that even if climate change were a hoax, the demand for clean, renewable power is going to soar as we add an estimated 2.5 billion people to the planet by 2050..
...Of course, China will continue to grow with cheap, dirty coal, to arrest over-eager environmentalists and to strip African forests for wood and minerals. Have no doubt about that. But have no doubt either that, without declaring it, China is embarking on a new, parallel path of clean power deployment and innovation. It is the Sputnik of our day. We ignore it at our peril."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=tom%20friedman%20new%20sputnik&st=cse
Monday, September 21, 2009
Is the U.S. Missing Out On the Solar Industry?
TW: Friedman makes two points: the U.S. lacks an industrial policy relative to alternative energy in particular solar which appears to the likely next big energy play and due to lack of predictable demand in the U.S. the manufacturing base for solar is emerging off-shore leaving the U.S. behind perhaps permanently.
I agree with the former but not so much the former is causing the latter. In comparison to numerous significant countries the U.S. does not have a clear solar or alternative policy. It has not been the American way to create "industrial" policy per se. We have been much more "free market" for better or worse. As I have opined previously new paradigms of political and economic leadership are emerging from China, India and even Germany, Brazil etc. Those countries are making big bets on solar and as a result are creating domestic demand for solar products. Should the U.S. follow suit with a more dirigiste "solar industrial" policy?
The other point Friedman makes about the domestic demand driving domestic production has some merit but the two do not necessarily follow hand in hand. It is entirely possible that the U.S. could generate significant domestic demand whilst importing the vast majority of its solar panels from international sources should they be cheaper.
That China could develop cheaper production seems intuitive, that Germany can less so. I am not clear on all of the reasons. Currencies, tax treatment and subsidies are the likely culprits but then that is what industrial policy does- provide favored treatment to the target industry. We do it all the time with state and localities chasing factories amongst themselves. With globalization perhaps a more national focus becomes relevant.
From Tom Friedman at NYT(h/t reader CM on the link):
"...The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three prerequisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop.
Regulatory, price and connectivity certainty, that is what Germany put in place, and that explains why Germany now generates almost half the solar power in the world today and, as a byproduct, is making itself the world-center for solar research, engineering, manufacturing and installation. With more than 50,000 new jobs, the renewable energy industry in Germany is now second only to its auto industry. One thing that has never existed in America — with our fragmented, stop-start solar subsidies — is certainty of price, connectivity and regulation on a national basis.
That is why, although consumer demand for solar power has incrementally increased here, it has not been enough for anyone to have Applied Materials — the world’s biggest solar equipment manufacturer — build them a new factory in America yet. So, right now, our federal and state subsidies for installing solar systems are largely paying for the cost of importing solar panels made in China, by Chinese workers, using hi-tech manufacturing equipment invented in America.
“About 95 percent of our solar business is outside the U.S.,” said Splinter. “Our biggest U.S. customer is a German-owned company in Oregon. We sell them pieces of equipment.”
If you read some of the anti-green commentary today, you’ll often see sneering references to “green jobs.” The phrase is usually in quotation marks as if it is some kind of liberal fantasy or closet welfare program (and as if coal, oil and nuclear don’t get all kinds of subsidies). Nonsense. In 2008, more silicon was consumed globally making solar panels than microchips, said Splinter.
...making these complex machines requires America’s best, high-paid talent — people who can work at the intersection of chemistry, physics and nanotechnology.
O.K., so you don’t believe global warming is real. I do, but let’s assume it’s not. Here is what is indisputable: The world is on track to add another 2.5 billion people by 2050, and many will be aspiring to live American-like, high-energy lifestyles. In such a world, renewable energy — where the variable cost of your fuel, sun or wind, is zero — will be in huge demand.
China now understands that. It no longer believes it can pollute its way to prosperity because it would choke to death. That is the most important shift in the world in the last 18 months. China has decided that clean-tech is going to be the next great global industry and is now creating a massive domestic market for solar and wind, which will give it a great export platform.
In October, Applied will be opening the world’s largest solar research center — in Xian, China. Gotta go where the customers are. So, if you like importing oil from Saudi Arabia, you’re going to love importing solar panels from China."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16friedman.html?_r=2&th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1253374250-fSo8QBkitP93eqmw0v8sXg
I agree with the former but not so much the former is causing the latter. In comparison to numerous significant countries the U.S. does not have a clear solar or alternative policy. It has not been the American way to create "industrial" policy per se. We have been much more "free market" for better or worse. As I have opined previously new paradigms of political and economic leadership are emerging from China, India and even Germany, Brazil etc. Those countries are making big bets on solar and as a result are creating domestic demand for solar products. Should the U.S. follow suit with a more dirigiste "solar industrial" policy?
The other point Friedman makes about the domestic demand driving domestic production has some merit but the two do not necessarily follow hand in hand. It is entirely possible that the U.S. could generate significant domestic demand whilst importing the vast majority of its solar panels from international sources should they be cheaper.
That China could develop cheaper production seems intuitive, that Germany can less so. I am not clear on all of the reasons. Currencies, tax treatment and subsidies are the likely culprits but then that is what industrial policy does- provide favored treatment to the target industry. We do it all the time with state and localities chasing factories amongst themselves. With globalization perhaps a more national focus becomes relevant.
From Tom Friedman at NYT(h/t reader CM on the link):
"...The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three prerequisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop.
Regulatory, price and connectivity certainty, that is what Germany put in place, and that explains why Germany now generates almost half the solar power in the world today and, as a byproduct, is making itself the world-center for solar research, engineering, manufacturing and installation. With more than 50,000 new jobs, the renewable energy industry in Germany is now second only to its auto industry. One thing that has never existed in America — with our fragmented, stop-start solar subsidies — is certainty of price, connectivity and regulation on a national basis.
That is why, although consumer demand for solar power has incrementally increased here, it has not been enough for anyone to have Applied Materials — the world’s biggest solar equipment manufacturer — build them a new factory in America yet. So, right now, our federal and state subsidies for installing solar systems are largely paying for the cost of importing solar panels made in China, by Chinese workers, using hi-tech manufacturing equipment invented in America.
“About 95 percent of our solar business is outside the U.S.,” said Splinter. “Our biggest U.S. customer is a German-owned company in Oregon. We sell them pieces of equipment.”
If you read some of the anti-green commentary today, you’ll often see sneering references to “green jobs.” The phrase is usually in quotation marks as if it is some kind of liberal fantasy or closet welfare program (and as if coal, oil and nuclear don’t get all kinds of subsidies). Nonsense. In 2008, more silicon was consumed globally making solar panels than microchips, said Splinter.
...making these complex machines requires America’s best, high-paid talent — people who can work at the intersection of chemistry, physics and nanotechnology.
O.K., so you don’t believe global warming is real. I do, but let’s assume it’s not. Here is what is indisputable: The world is on track to add another 2.5 billion people by 2050, and many will be aspiring to live American-like, high-energy lifestyles. In such a world, renewable energy — where the variable cost of your fuel, sun or wind, is zero — will be in huge demand.
China now understands that. It no longer believes it can pollute its way to prosperity because it would choke to death. That is the most important shift in the world in the last 18 months. China has decided that clean-tech is going to be the next great global industry and is now creating a massive domestic market for solar and wind, which will give it a great export platform.
In October, Applied will be opening the world’s largest solar research center — in Xian, China. Gotta go where the customers are. So, if you like importing oil from Saudi Arabia, you’re going to love importing solar panels from China."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16friedman.html?_r=2&th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1253374250-fSo8QBkitP93eqmw0v8sXg
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Some West Bank Optimism
TW: We and others have invested heavily in building up the Fatah government in the West Bank. The West Bank Palestinians are now taking responsibility for some of their security. Partially as a result the West Bank economy is booming despite the worldwide contraction.
A big piece has been a well-trained para-military Palestinian force, trained by the U.S. These programs take time but now appear to be paying dividends.
From Tom Friedman at NYT:
"For Palestinians, long trapped between burgeoning Israeli settlements and an Israeli occupation army, subject to lawlessness in their own cities and the fecklessness of their own political leadership, life has clearly started to improve a bit, thanks to a new virtuous cycle: improved Palestinian policing that has led to more Palestinian investment and trade that has led to the Israeli Army dismantling more checkpoints in the West Bank that has led to more Palestinian travel and commerce.
...Make no mistake: Palestinians still want the Israeli occupation to end, and their own state to emerge, tomorrow. That is not going to happen. But for the first time since Oslo, there is an economic-security dynamic emerging on the ground in the West Bank that has the potential — the potential — to give the post-Yasir Arafat Palestinians another chance to build the sort of self-governing authority, army and economy that are prerequisites for securing their own independent state. A Palestinian peace partner for Israel may be taking shape again.
The key to this rebirth was the recruitment, training and deployment of four battalions of new Palestinian National Security Forces — a move spearheaded by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority. Trained in Jordan in a program paid for by the U.S., three of these battalions have fanned out since May 2008 and brought order to the major Palestinian towns: Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin and Bethlehem.
These N.S.F. troops, who replaced either Israeli soldiers or Palestinian gangs, have been warmly received by the locals. Recently, N.S.F. forces wiped out a Hamas cell in Qalqilya, and took losses themselves. The death of the Hamas fighters drew nary a peep, but a memorial service for the N.S.F. soldiers killed drew thousands of people. For the first time, I’ve heard top Israeli military officers say these new Palestinian troops are professional and for real.
...“Our people need to see we are governing ourselves and are not simply subcontractors for Israeli security,” Prime Minister Fayyad told me.
...America must nurture this virtuous cycle: more money to train credible Palestinian troops, more encouragement for Israel’s risk-taking in eliminating checkpoints, more Palestinian economic growth and quicker negotiations on the contours of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Hamas and Gaza can join later. Don’t wait for them. If we build it, they will come."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1251396184-T5Pb8q+HzcTniv7/M8FSbw
A big piece has been a well-trained para-military Palestinian force, trained by the U.S. These programs take time but now appear to be paying dividends.
From Tom Friedman at NYT:
"For Palestinians, long trapped between burgeoning Israeli settlements and an Israeli occupation army, subject to lawlessness in their own cities and the fecklessness of their own political leadership, life has clearly started to improve a bit, thanks to a new virtuous cycle: improved Palestinian policing that has led to more Palestinian investment and trade that has led to the Israeli Army dismantling more checkpoints in the West Bank that has led to more Palestinian travel and commerce.
...Make no mistake: Palestinians still want the Israeli occupation to end, and their own state to emerge, tomorrow. That is not going to happen. But for the first time since Oslo, there is an economic-security dynamic emerging on the ground in the West Bank that has the potential — the potential — to give the post-Yasir Arafat Palestinians another chance to build the sort of self-governing authority, army and economy that are prerequisites for securing their own independent state. A Palestinian peace partner for Israel may be taking shape again.
The key to this rebirth was the recruitment, training and deployment of four battalions of new Palestinian National Security Forces — a move spearheaded by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority. Trained in Jordan in a program paid for by the U.S., three of these battalions have fanned out since May 2008 and brought order to the major Palestinian towns: Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin and Bethlehem.
These N.S.F. troops, who replaced either Israeli soldiers or Palestinian gangs, have been warmly received by the locals. Recently, N.S.F. forces wiped out a Hamas cell in Qalqilya, and took losses themselves. The death of the Hamas fighters drew nary a peep, but a memorial service for the N.S.F. soldiers killed drew thousands of people. For the first time, I’ve heard top Israeli military officers say these new Palestinian troops are professional and for real.
...“Our people need to see we are governing ourselves and are not simply subcontractors for Israeli security,” Prime Minister Fayyad told me.
...America must nurture this virtuous cycle: more money to train credible Palestinian troops, more encouragement for Israel’s risk-taking in eliminating checkpoints, more Palestinian economic growth and quicker negotiations on the contours of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Hamas and Gaza can join later. Don’t wait for them. If we build it, they will come."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1251396184-T5Pb8q+HzcTniv7/M8FSbw
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Curb Those Settlements
TW: Friedman was in Israel and Palestine recently, he came back with some optimism. This piece speaks to the need for Israel to back off settlements, something about which I obviously feel strongly.
From Tom Friedman at NYT:
"Israel and America are having one of those periodic marital spats..I’d like to offer some free marriage counseling.
Here’s what Israelis need to understand: President Obama is not some outlier when it comes to Israel. His call for a settlements freeze reflects attitudes that have been building in America for a long time. For the last 40 years, a succession of Israeli governments has misled, manipulated or persuaded naïve U.S. presidents that since Israel was negotiating to give up significant territory, there was no need to fight over “insignificant” settlements on some territory. Behind this charade, Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank, creating a huge moral, security and economic burden for Israel and its friends.
As Bradley Burston, a columnist for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, put it last week: “The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion. ... The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property. ... Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress.”
For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it.
...So if Mr. Obama has bluntly pressed for a settlements freeze, he is, in fact, reflecting a broad sentiment in Congress, the Pentagon and among many Americans, Jews included...
...there are a few style points Mr. Obama should keep in mind.
One is: Don’t get into the business of apportioning historical blame for this conflict, which his Cairo speech veered into. Palestinians don’t believe they are to blame for this problem; neither do Israelis. A religious Israeli professor friend of mine said it well: “People will give a lot if they think they are not guilty. My mother says to me: ‘Look, I am ready to give them Jerusalem, but don’t tell me that I started it...’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/opinion/02friedman.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=thomas%20friedman&st=cse
From Tom Friedman at NYT:
"Israel and America are having one of those periodic marital spats..I’d like to offer some free marriage counseling.
Here’s what Israelis need to understand: President Obama is not some outlier when it comes to Israel. His call for a settlements freeze reflects attitudes that have been building in America for a long time. For the last 40 years, a succession of Israeli governments has misled, manipulated or persuaded naïve U.S. presidents that since Israel was negotiating to give up significant territory, there was no need to fight over “insignificant” settlements on some territory. Behind this charade, Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank, creating a huge moral, security and economic burden for Israel and its friends.
As Bradley Burston, a columnist for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, put it last week: “The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion. ... The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property. ... Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress.”
For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it.
...So if Mr. Obama has bluntly pressed for a settlements freeze, he is, in fact, reflecting a broad sentiment in Congress, the Pentagon and among many Americans, Jews included...
...there are a few style points Mr. Obama should keep in mind.
One is: Don’t get into the business of apportioning historical blame for this conflict, which his Cairo speech veered into. Palestinians don’t believe they are to blame for this problem; neither do Israelis. A religious Israeli professor friend of mine said it well: “People will give a lot if they think they are not guilty. My mother says to me: ‘Look, I am ready to give them Jerusalem, but don’t tell me that I started it...’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/opinion/02friedman.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=thomas%20friedman&st=cse
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Go Green Or Eat Dust
TW: Have hit this before and will keep hitting it. The world will go "green", industries to reduce reliance on carbon energy will emerge. We can either sit back with our collectives thumbs up our backsides listening to Fox News extol the virtues of denialists like the Inhofes and Palins of the world or we can act. The U.S. is turning so defensive and reactionary that it risks missing out on the next great ECONOMIC trends of the 21st century.
Status quo works okay if you are the top dog (with improving demographics) competing against the commies like the Soviets who were economically clueless but we are competing against capitalists now.
From Tom Friedman:
"Over the past decade, whenever I went to China and engaged Chinese on their pollution and energy problems, inevitably some young Chinese would say: “Hey, you Americans got to grow dirty for 150 years, using cheap coal and oil. Now it is our turn.”
It’s a hard argument to refute. Eventually, I decided that the only way to respond was with some variation of the following: “You’re right. It’s your turn. Grow as dirty as you want. Take your time. Because I think America just needs five years to invent all the clean-power technologies you Chinese are going to need as you choke to death on pollution. Then we’re going to come over here and sell them all to you, and we are going to clean your clock — how do you say ‘clean your clock’ in Chinese? — in the next great global industry: clean power technologies. So if you all want to give us a five-year lead, that would be great. I’d prefer 10. So take your time. Grow as dirty as you want.”
Whenever you frame it that way, Chinese are quizzical at first, and then they totally get it: Wow, this energy thing isn’t just about global warming! In a world that is adding one billion people every 15 years or so — more and more of whom will be able to live high-energy-consuming lifestyles — the demands for energy and natural resources are going to go through the roof.
Therefore, E.T. — energy technologies that produce clean power and energy efficiency — is going to be the next great global industry, and China needs to be on board.
Well, China has gotten on board — big-time. Now I am worried that China will, dare I say, “clean our clock” in E.T.
Yes, you might think that China is only interested in polluting its way to prosperity. That was once true, but it isn’t anymore. China is increasingly finding that it has to go green out of necessity because in too many places, its people can’t breathe, fish, swim, drive or even see because of pollution and climate change. Well, there is one thing we know about necessity: it is the mother of invention.
And that is what China is doing, innovating more and more energy efficiency and clean power systems. And when China starts to do that in a big way — when it starts to develop solar, wind, batteries, nuclear and energy efficiency technologies on its low-cost platform — watch out. You won’t just be buying your toys from China. You’ll be buying your energy future from China.
“China is moving,” says Hal Harvey, the chief executive of ClimateWorks, which shares clean energy ideas around the world. “They want to be leaders in green technology. China has already adopted the most aggressive energy efficiency program in the world..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05friedman.html?_r=2
Status quo works okay if you are the top dog (with improving demographics) competing against the commies like the Soviets who were economically clueless but we are competing against capitalists now.
From Tom Friedman:
"Over the past decade, whenever I went to China and engaged Chinese on their pollution and energy problems, inevitably some young Chinese would say: “Hey, you Americans got to grow dirty for 150 years, using cheap coal and oil. Now it is our turn.”
It’s a hard argument to refute. Eventually, I decided that the only way to respond was with some variation of the following: “You’re right. It’s your turn. Grow as dirty as you want. Take your time. Because I think America just needs five years to invent all the clean-power technologies you Chinese are going to need as you choke to death on pollution. Then we’re going to come over here and sell them all to you, and we are going to clean your clock — how do you say ‘clean your clock’ in Chinese? — in the next great global industry: clean power technologies. So if you all want to give us a five-year lead, that would be great. I’d prefer 10. So take your time. Grow as dirty as you want.”
Whenever you frame it that way, Chinese are quizzical at first, and then they totally get it: Wow, this energy thing isn’t just about global warming! In a world that is adding one billion people every 15 years or so — more and more of whom will be able to live high-energy-consuming lifestyles — the demands for energy and natural resources are going to go through the roof.
Therefore, E.T. — energy technologies that produce clean power and energy efficiency — is going to be the next great global industry, and China needs to be on board.
Well, China has gotten on board — big-time. Now I am worried that China will, dare I say, “clean our clock” in E.T.
Yes, you might think that China is only interested in polluting its way to prosperity. That was once true, but it isn’t anymore. China is increasingly finding that it has to go green out of necessity because in too many places, its people can’t breathe, fish, swim, drive or even see because of pollution and climate change. Well, there is one thing we know about necessity: it is the mother of invention.
And that is what China is doing, innovating more and more energy efficiency and clean power systems. And when China starts to do that in a big way — when it starts to develop solar, wind, batteries, nuclear and energy efficiency technologies on its low-cost platform — watch out. You won’t just be buying your toys from China. You’ll be buying your energy future from China.
“China is moving,” says Hal Harvey, the chief executive of ClimateWorks, which shares clean energy ideas around the world. “They want to be leaders in green technology. China has already adopted the most aggressive energy efficiency program in the world..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05friedman.html?_r=2
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Creative Solution For Slumping House Prices
TW: Friedman mashes up concepts: immigration, protectionism with a little housing thrown in. While I doubt pulling in 2 million folks to buy up depressed housing is viable or desirable it is indicative a path available to the U.S. One of the things that will keep the U.S. relatively strong amidst the worldwide economic carnage is open door policy with immigrants combined with rational trade policy.
Obama and the Dems are headed in the right path on immigration but have been sending out troubling signals on protectionism. The buy American clause of the original stimulus package received far more coverage overseas than here and sent a very bad signal. If there is one thing that could turn the Great Recession into a depression it is poor trade policy (will have more soon on the topic).
From Tom Friedman at Int'l Herald Tribune:
"All you need to do is grant visas to 2 million Indians, Chinese and Koreans," said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper.
"We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate - no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans, because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans."
"Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn't through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: Build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat."
While I think President Barack Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.
Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage that a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower - anywhere? That's called "Old Europe." That's spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D.
...If there is one thing we know for absolute certain, it's this: Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression, but it sure helped to make it "Great." From 1929 to 1934, world trade plunged by more than 60 percent - and we were all worse off.
We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/11/opinion/edfriedman.php
Obama and the Dems are headed in the right path on immigration but have been sending out troubling signals on protectionism. The buy American clause of the original stimulus package received far more coverage overseas than here and sent a very bad signal. If there is one thing that could turn the Great Recession into a depression it is poor trade policy (will have more soon on the topic).
From Tom Friedman at Int'l Herald Tribune:
"All you need to do is grant visas to 2 million Indians, Chinese and Koreans," said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper.
"We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate - no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans, because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans."
"Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn't through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: Build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat."
While I think President Barack Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.
Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage that a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower - anywhere? That's called "Old Europe." That's spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D.
...If there is one thing we know for absolute certain, it's this: Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression, but it sure helped to make it "Great." From 1929 to 1934, world trade plunged by more than 60 percent - and we were all worse off.
We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/11/opinion/edfriedman.php
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Making It More Difficult For Talented Immigrants Is Utter Foolishness
TW: I will not bore with cliches about the contributions of most and especially highly educated immigrants over our history but these policies are just stupid. Since 9/11 it has become more and more difficult for well-educated (or those seeking education) immigrants to spend time in the U.S. One of the U.S. key competitive advantages as a nation has been our ability to attract and take advantage of talented immigrants throughout the world. We should be initiating policies to make them more welcome not less. If the Dems (and apparently some Republicans) in Congress are getting sideways on this, then shame on them.
From the Economist and Tom Friedman:
"Thomas Friedman alerts us to a very troubling development on the immigration front:
'While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.'
This has the potential to be just as, if not more, harmful than “Buy America”, at least in the long run. Like it or not, finance has become an increasingly quantitative field, and Wall Street is going to need highly-skilled people to repair the financial system. New techniques need to be developed and employed. There are simply not enough natives with adequate skills to go around. Particularly if salaries in the finance field shrink, quantitatively-skilled Americans will be drawn to other industries.
Even more troubling, as Mr Friedman points out, is that these high skill immigrants are the very ones who can create jobs. According to research by:
25.3 percent of technology and engineering companies started in the United States from 1995 to 2005, at least one key founder was foreign-born. Nationwide, these immigrant-founded companies produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005. The majority of these immigrant entrepreneurs came from India, United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, Japan and Germany.
...a main source of job growth in America is entrepreneurial firms. The immigrants who start these types of firms often come to America as students and then work in industry on H1-Bs. This visa is often a gateway to residency.
American immigration policy was at one point unique for encouraging highly-skilled immigrants, but other industrialised countries have begun to attempt to attract educated workers. Britain now has a points system in place, and the European Union is considering a blue card which will speed up the visa process for high skill workers. So if America does not want these job creators, they can go elsewhere.
Immigration is a major impetus for entrepreneurship and innovation. If long-term economic growth and job creation is the purpose of the rescue package moving through Congress, then preventing firms from hiring immigrants undermines that goal."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/02/dangerous_protectionism_rears.cfm
From the Economist and Tom Friedman:
"Thomas Friedman alerts us to a very troubling development on the immigration front:
'While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.'
This has the potential to be just as, if not more, harmful than “Buy America”, at least in the long run. Like it or not, finance has become an increasingly quantitative field, and Wall Street is going to need highly-skilled people to repair the financial system. New techniques need to be developed and employed. There are simply not enough natives with adequate skills to go around. Particularly if salaries in the finance field shrink, quantitatively-skilled Americans will be drawn to other industries.
Even more troubling, as Mr Friedman points out, is that these high skill immigrants are the very ones who can create jobs. According to research by:
25.3 percent of technology and engineering companies started in the United States from 1995 to 2005, at least one key founder was foreign-born. Nationwide, these immigrant-founded companies produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005. The majority of these immigrant entrepreneurs came from India, United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, Japan and Germany.
...a main source of job growth in America is entrepreneurial firms. The immigrants who start these types of firms often come to America as students and then work in industry on H1-Bs. This visa is often a gateway to residency.
American immigration policy was at one point unique for encouraging highly-skilled immigrants, but other industrialised countries have begun to attempt to attract educated workers. Britain now has a points system in place, and the European Union is considering a blue card which will speed up the visa process for high skill workers. So if America does not want these job creators, they can go elsewhere.
Immigration is a major impetus for entrepreneurship and innovation. If long-term economic growth and job creation is the purpose of the rescue package moving through Congress, then preventing firms from hiring immigrants undermines that goal."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/02/dangerous_protectionism_rears.cfm
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Spiraling Away From a Two State Solution
TW: Friedman nicely frames the emerging train wreck in Israel/Palestine. Palestinians are developing the capability through longer and longer range rockets to truly harm Israel. If the Palestinians continue to grow this capability then Israel will inevitably and understandably respond with strong force. Meanwhile Jewish settlements inside the West Bank continue to grow and develop tentacles which will become increasingly difficult to reverse. Palestinians lobbing deadly and highly disruptive rockets into Israel and Israelis growing their footprint inside Palestine are two cars headed towards a very bad collision
From Friedman at NYT:
"...We’re getting perilously close to closing the window on a two-state solution, because the two chief window-closers — Hamas in Gaza and the fanatical Jewish settlers in the West Bank — have been in the driver’s seats. Hamas is busy making a two-state solution inconceivable, while the settlers have steadily worked to make it impossible.
If Hamas continues to obtain and use longer- and longer-range rockets, there is no way any Israeli government can or will tolerate independent Palestinian control of the West Bank, because a rocket from there can easily close the Tel Aviv airport and shut down Israel’s economy.
And if the Jewish settlers continue with their “natural growth” to devour the West Bank, it will also be effectively off the table. No Israeli government has mustered the will to take down even the “illegal,” unauthorized settlements, despite promises to the U.S. to do so, so it’s getting hard to see how the “legal” settlements will ever be removed. What is needed from Israel’s Feb. 10 elections is a centrist, national unity government that can resist the blackmail of the settlers, and the rightist parties that protect them, to still implement a two-state solution.
...What makes it so challenging for the new Obama team is that Mideast diplomacy has been transformed as a result of the regional disintegration since Oslo — in three key ways.
First, in the old days, Henry Kissinger could fly to three capitals, meet three kings, presidents or prime ministers and strike a deal that could hold. No more. Today a peacemaker has to be both a nation-builder and a negotiator.
The Palestinians are so fragmented politically and geographically that half of U.S. diplomacy is going to be about how to make peace between Palestinians, and build their institutions, so there is a coherent, legitimate decision-making body there — before we can make peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Second, Hamas now has a veto over any Palestinian peace deal. It’s true that Hamas just provoked a reckless war that has devastated the people of Gaza. But Hamas is not going away. It is well armed and, despite its suicidal behavior of late, deeply rooted.
The Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank will not make any compromise deal with Israel as long as it fears that Hamas, from outside the tent, would denounce it as traitorous. Therefore, Job 2 for the U.S., Israel and the Arab states is to find a way to bring Hamas into a Palestinian national unity government.
As the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen says, “It is not enough for Israel that the world recognize that Hamas criminally mismanaged its responsibility to its people. Israel’s longer-term interest is to be sure that it has a Palestinian partner for negotiations, which will have sufficient legitimacy among its own people to be able to sign agreements and fulfill them. Without Hamas as part of a Palestinian decision, any Israeli-Palestinian peace will be meaningless.”
But bringing Hamas into a Palestinian unity government, without undermining the West Bank moderates now leading the Palestinian Authority, will be tricky. We’ll need Saudi Arabia and Egypt to buy, cajole and pressure Hamas into keeping the cease-fire, supporting peace talks and to give up rockets — while Iran and Syria will be tugging Hamas the other way.
And that leads to the third new factor — Iran as a key player in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy. The Clinton team tried to woo Syria while isolating Iran. President Bush tried to isolate both Iran and Syria. The Obama team, as Martin Indyk argues in “Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East,” “needs to try both to bring in Syria, which would weaken Hamas and Hezbollah, while also engaging Iran.”
So, just to recap: It’s five to midnight and before the clock strikes 12 all we need to do is rebuild Fatah, merge it with Hamas, elect an Israeli government that can freeze settlements, court Syria and engage Iran — while preventing it from going nuclear — just so we can get the parties to start talking. Whoever lines up all the pieces of this diplomatic Rubik’s Cube deserves two Nobel Prizes. "
http://tinyurl.com/am4s5j
From Friedman at NYT:
"...We’re getting perilously close to closing the window on a two-state solution, because the two chief window-closers — Hamas in Gaza and the fanatical Jewish settlers in the West Bank — have been in the driver’s seats. Hamas is busy making a two-state solution inconceivable, while the settlers have steadily worked to make it impossible.
If Hamas continues to obtain and use longer- and longer-range rockets, there is no way any Israeli government can or will tolerate independent Palestinian control of the West Bank, because a rocket from there can easily close the Tel Aviv airport and shut down Israel’s economy.
And if the Jewish settlers continue with their “natural growth” to devour the West Bank, it will also be effectively off the table. No Israeli government has mustered the will to take down even the “illegal,” unauthorized settlements, despite promises to the U.S. to do so, so it’s getting hard to see how the “legal” settlements will ever be removed. What is needed from Israel’s Feb. 10 elections is a centrist, national unity government that can resist the blackmail of the settlers, and the rightist parties that protect them, to still implement a two-state solution.
...What makes it so challenging for the new Obama team is that Mideast diplomacy has been transformed as a result of the regional disintegration since Oslo — in three key ways.
First, in the old days, Henry Kissinger could fly to three capitals, meet three kings, presidents or prime ministers and strike a deal that could hold. No more. Today a peacemaker has to be both a nation-builder and a negotiator.
The Palestinians are so fragmented politically and geographically that half of U.S. diplomacy is going to be about how to make peace between Palestinians, and build their institutions, so there is a coherent, legitimate decision-making body there — before we can make peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Second, Hamas now has a veto over any Palestinian peace deal. It’s true that Hamas just provoked a reckless war that has devastated the people of Gaza. But Hamas is not going away. It is well armed and, despite its suicidal behavior of late, deeply rooted.
The Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank will not make any compromise deal with Israel as long as it fears that Hamas, from outside the tent, would denounce it as traitorous. Therefore, Job 2 for the U.S., Israel and the Arab states is to find a way to bring Hamas into a Palestinian national unity government.
As the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen says, “It is not enough for Israel that the world recognize that Hamas criminally mismanaged its responsibility to its people. Israel’s longer-term interest is to be sure that it has a Palestinian partner for negotiations, which will have sufficient legitimacy among its own people to be able to sign agreements and fulfill them. Without Hamas as part of a Palestinian decision, any Israeli-Palestinian peace will be meaningless.”
But bringing Hamas into a Palestinian unity government, without undermining the West Bank moderates now leading the Palestinian Authority, will be tricky. We’ll need Saudi Arabia and Egypt to buy, cajole and pressure Hamas into keeping the cease-fire, supporting peace talks and to give up rockets — while Iran and Syria will be tugging Hamas the other way.
And that leads to the third new factor — Iran as a key player in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy. The Clinton team tried to woo Syria while isolating Iran. President Bush tried to isolate both Iran and Syria. The Obama team, as Martin Indyk argues in “Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East,” “needs to try both to bring in Syria, which would weaken Hamas and Hezbollah, while also engaging Iran.”
So, just to recap: It’s five to midnight and before the clock strikes 12 all we need to do is rebuild Fatah, merge it with Hamas, elect an Israeli government that can freeze settlements, court Syria and engage Iran — while preventing it from going nuclear — just so we can get the parties to start talking. Whoever lines up all the pieces of this diplomatic Rubik’s Cube deserves two Nobel Prizes. "
http://tinyurl.com/am4s5j
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Stupidity More Than Malfeasance (Although Plenty Of That Too)
TW: This Friedman column does a nice job of framing a common sentiment, this financial crisis is as unnecessary as it was avoidable but at the end of the day common greed took over. Not just on Wall Street but everywhere. Where were the adults?
From Friedman at NYT:
"...some of America's best-paid bankers were overrated dopes who had no idea what they were selling, or greedy cynics who did know and turned a blind eye. But it wasn't only the bankers. This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility, government regulation and financial ethics.
So many people were in on it: People who had no business buying a home, with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years; people who had no business pushing such mortgages, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business bundling those loans into securities and selling them to third parties, as if they were AAA bonds, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business rating those loans as AAA, but made a fortunes doing so; and people who had no business buying those bonds and putting them on their balance sheets so they could earn a little better yield, but made fortunes doing so...
"This [analyst] wasn't saying that Wall Street bankers were corrupt," he added. "She was saying they were stupid. Her message was clear. If you want to know what these Wall Street firms are really worth, take a hard look at the crappy assets they bought with huge sums of borrowed money, and imagine what they'd fetch in a fire sale...
"What he underestimated was the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism ... 'We always asked the same question,' says Eisman. 'Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I'd always get the same reaction. It was a smirk.' He called Standard & Poor's and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S&P couldn't say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number..."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/26/opinion/edfriedman.php
From Friedman at NYT:
"...some of America's best-paid bankers were overrated dopes who had no idea what they were selling, or greedy cynics who did know and turned a blind eye. But it wasn't only the bankers. This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility, government regulation and financial ethics.
So many people were in on it: People who had no business buying a home, with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years; people who had no business pushing such mortgages, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business bundling those loans into securities and selling them to third parties, as if they were AAA bonds, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business rating those loans as AAA, but made a fortunes doing so; and people who had no business buying those bonds and putting them on their balance sheets so they could earn a little better yield, but made fortunes doing so...
"This [analyst] wasn't saying that Wall Street bankers were corrupt," he added. "She was saying they were stupid. Her message was clear. If you want to know what these Wall Street firms are really worth, take a hard look at the crappy assets they bought with huge sums of borrowed money, and imagine what they'd fetch in a fire sale...
"What he underestimated was the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism ... 'We always asked the same question,' says Eisman. 'Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I'd always get the same reaction. It was a smirk.' He called Standard & Poor's and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S&P couldn't say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number..."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/26/opinion/edfriedman.php
Monday, September 8, 2008
NYT Friedman: Whilst We Feed Our Own Paranoia the Chinese Build the Future
The Money quote:
"I couldn’t help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; we’ve been preparing for Al Qaeda. They’ve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And we’ve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=tom%20friedman&st=cse&oref=slogin
"I couldn’t help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; we’ve been preparing for Al Qaeda. They’ve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And we’ve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=tom%20friedman&st=cse&oref=slogin
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