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Posted By Thomas E. Ricks
Monday, December 6, 2010 - 7:27 AM
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Tom R.: This is a bit far afield from our usual "Best Defense" fare, but Thomas Friedman is so well-known in the field of national security that I thought it might interest you all.
By Sean Kay
Best Defense lamed leprechauns correspondent
Perusing the ForeignPolicy.com list of 100 most influential global thinkers, I paused over the inclusion of Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times. Certainly, he is influential, and he raises vital national issues with his focus on energy and education. However, it is worth noting that on some of the most significant issues of the day, no. 33 has been persistently wrong, from cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq to his jolly theory that countries that have McDonald's outlets do not fight each other (see U.S. vs. Yugoslavia, 1999, and Russia vs. Georgia, 2008.)
And now there is the case of Ireland. Mr. Friedman wrote in The World Is Flat (2005) that, "I do get a little lump in my throat when I see countries like China, India, or Ireland adopting a basically pro-globalization strategy, adopting it to their own political, social, and economic conditions, and reaping the benefits," he wrote. He understandably celebrated that globalization helped many societies, including Ireland, move out of economic stagnation. "When done right and in a sustained manner, globalization has a huge potential to lift large numbers of people out of poverty. And, when I see large numbers of people escaping poverty in places like India, China, or Ireland, well, yes, I get a little emotional. No apologies."
But did Ireland do globalization right? Well, it did exactly as Friedman suggested a country should do. Ireland, he wrote, was, "One of the best examples of a country that has made a huge leap forward by choosing development and reform retail of its governance, infrastructure, and education." (This was, by the way, in 2005, when economists there knew that it was already headed on a path to economic ruin.)
Central to his case for Ireland was his discussion with Michael Dell, done through an e-mail exchange. Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computer, had set up shop in Limerick and said in his note to Tom Friedman: "What attracted us? A well-educated workforce -- and good universities close by. Also, Ireland has an industrial and tax policy which is consistently very supportive of business, independent of which political party is in power." Friedman reported that Dell said, "The talent in Ireland has proven to be a wonderful resource for us."
Yet two years later, Dell began the process of closing up shop in Limerick and moving major operations to Poland. In January 2009, Dell announced it would lay off nearly 2,000 of its 3,000 employees doing manufacturing work at Limerick, citing high labor costs. Actually, Dell's location in Limerick had already belied much of Mr. Friedman's central thesis about Ireland. Had he gone there and spent some time actually researching it, instead of just emailing a CEO, he might have known this. At the height of the leap of the Celtic Tiger, Limerick still suffered unemployment rates five times the national average, educational underdevelopment, and multiple pockets of serious deprivation and violent crime.
Writing in the New York Times on 1 July 2005, Tom Friedman argued that the rest of the world should "Follow the Leapin' Leprechaun." He argued one of the best things Ireland had done was to "make it easier to fire people, without having to pay years of severance. Sounds brutal, I know. But the easier it is to fire people, the more willing companies are to hire people." In a wildly inaccurate statement, he wrote that: "And by the way, because of all the tax revenue and employment the global companies are generating in Ireland, Dublin has been able to increase spending on health care, schools and infrastructure." In reality, the government at the time was not only not generating revenue, its investment in education was declining and it was beginning to accumulate massive debt. Today, Ireland's deficit is at 32% of GDP -- the highest in the Eurozone.
Of course, Ireland has not only a deficit crisis, but now a massive banking crisis which was the result of a skewing of the Irish economy in 2001 towards construction and mortgage lending facilitated by large international banking exposure, well underway when Friedman made his assessment. In 2005, Friedman argued that the Irish path was far superior to that of Germany, which was holding onto jobs and major industrial production. Meanwhile, a central assertion of Friedman was that Ireland had gotten its governance right. The then prime minister, Bertie Ahern boasted to Friedman in 2005 of having "met the premier of China five times in the last two years." Jump forward five years, and Bertie Ahern was run out of government in disgrace and the new party that led the polls heading towards a new election for 2011 was, for the first time in history, Labour. In March 2010, Eamon Gilmore, the head of Labour, called out the new leader of the government, Brian Cowen, for having committed "economic treason."
Now, Irish banks are to be bailed out by the EU and the IMF to the tune of 85 billion euro at a 5.83 percent interest rate that the country simply cannot afford to pay back. The government will reap enormous pain on its own population in deep budget cuts that are likely to hinder economic growth for years to come. Ireland is a nation lying in economic catastrophe and about to get much worse.
The legacy of Friedman's failed analysis is regrettably, important still today. Ireland, under strong pressure from the American Chamber of Commerce, is holding onto its low corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent hoping to keep the international businesses there. While Ireland gains from this, the impact of foreign companies is not going to solve the country's problems. In fact, Ireland could raise its corporate rate substantially and still be among the lowest in the European Union. The political calculation is, in effect, should Ireland tax international businesses? Or should it cut health benefits for seniors, punish the poor, and stand by while a new generation of talent emigrates?
Now let's talk about Friedman's debt. He owes it to both the people of Ireland and his readers to correct the record. His conclusions about Ireland were deeply flawed and yet they were embraced and celebrated by an Irish government that was reveling in excess and deeply entangled with corrupt bankers. The real Irish model that he did not see was deregulation, corrupt crony capitalism, and low corporate tax rates.
Being wrong as an analyst of globalization is fine -- that is part of the learning process. But Tom Friedman promulgated a theory of globalization that reinforced a doubling down on damaging economic and political actions in a small and vulnerable country that is now suffering deep pain. As Ireland is now threatening to unravel the entire Eurozone, which would do deep damage to the American economy, Mr. Friedman might at least rethink his "no apologies."
Sean Kay is a professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he chairs the International Studies Program. He is also an associate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University. He is the author of several books, including Celtic Revival: The Rise, Fall, and Renewal of Global Ireland (forthcoming, Rowman & Littlefield, 2011).
FaithGoble/Flickr
'From Beirut to Jerusalem' was good journalism
In those days, Mr. Friedman immersed himself in the countries he reported, spoke the language. Now he reminds me of the old SLA Marshall, parlaying his once-earned rep and NYT access to impose the same story on every situation.
"The world is flat' says the man in the alpaca sweater, from his NYC vantage point. Beware, oh ye CNAS wonks.
Even if everything he wrote is eventually proved wrong, this does not diminish the fact that he is influential. His views and opinions on globalization has impacts far an wide ; the current government here (Quebec) is openly Friedman-oriented and has in the past looked at the Irish model as an ideal. How many other governments were perverted by this 19th century nonsense ?
To bring the debate closer to the defense side, Warren Buffet has complained that this kind of free-for-all liberalization is dangerous to economic stability, which is dangerous to social stability. How long until a U.N. peacekeeping mission to Ireland ?
(at work, so no time to quote sources)
Milton is an influential economist. The other is a best-selling writer and celebrity business convention speaker, who's never run a company, or had his meal ticket outsourced either. He had seen and reported on indiscriminate shelling, in Beirut. I'd gladly sit at TF's feet and listen, on subjects he personally experienced, or is 10,000 hour expert on.
Bernie Madoff's sugar-rock roller-coaster was running overtime, just down the street from the grey lady, while TF was off doing fly-by coverage of whatever the captains of capitalism wanted to show him.
At that level of propaganda and biz-jet celebrity, the 'Education of TF' was the story. Caveat emptor.
You are right, I was thinking of Milton, not Thomas. Thanks for the correction.
While Prof. Kay gives Tom Freidman a good smacking around the truth is that the 450,00+ people who are unemployed don't know or don't care who Tom Freidman is. I, as one of that number does know who is responsible and it is F**kers like Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen. As Prof. Kay points out a combination of 'light touch bank regulation', crony capitalism, an over-reliance on the building industry and cheap credit are the main factors in the demise of the 'celtic tiger', not gushing articles from Tom Freidman. As it is Prof. Paul Krugman is the only NY Times columnist whose opinion is ever mentioned in the Irish media. With the 2011 budget to be announced tomorrow and all the misery it will entail ( e6bn in cuts and tax increases in an effort to cut our 32% deficit) I'm sure we will hear Prof. Krugman's opinion been sought.
Here in Ireland the people who have to apologise first are our elected leaders whose negligence and hubris over the last decade has cost us very dearly. Until we are honest about ourselves and the situation we are in and start to take the proper sane yet painful measures to sort it out we don't need to worry about Tom Freidman.
Too often we Irish like to look for scapegoats but not this time. Despite Prof. Kays well intentioned piece we have too look inside ourselves for the answers. The solutions to our problems are on this island not in the op-ed columns of the NYT.
And I would also agree 100% with WW's analysis of Friedman's evolution.
Having lived on the island during the height of the tiger it wasn't difficult to see how it was all going to go pear-shaped.
The housing bubble existed as early as 1996 or 97 and it was clear that this was going to create problems down the road as the workforce demanded better wages to match the outrageous housing costs. The rest of the story is clear and well-known.
Friedman's methodology is boilerplate whatever the subject: he parachutes in (or not, as in the case of Ireland), talks to a few journalists or scholars who he knows will parrot his POV, and then writes his column, also in boilerplate fashion.
Country (fill in the blank) X has a hardworking, educated workforce that is willing to undersell American workers. Unless the US gets its math scores up it will be passed by, blah, blah,. blah.
He has a point to some degree but in the end he sounds like Robert Kagan Lite. His biggest concern isn't really about competitiveness - seems to me that when given a chance the American worker competes just fine - but about American dominance.
Kagan's stupid and ill informed piece in yesterday's WaPo bemoaned the lack of an American empire. If only the US ran everything and/or had the leverage to coerce any other state do do our bidding all the world's problems would be solved. Without going into the specific and unique circumstances of the bi-polar world that gave the US that sort of leverage with its allies, it's unrealistic and just plain dumb to expect that the US can force anyone to its will because it's the big bad USA.
So that means we will be forced to compete like everyone else. The problem is, as long as bankers, the IMF, and shareholders demand and expect super-fast returns on their investments, with the ability to manipulate globalization to up and move shop every time it looks as if the cost of production is going to go up, and the sole object of doing business is to maximize profits at all costs, what has happened to Ireland will happen to everyone else at some point. And that includes China and India, the two biggest "threats" of the moment.
As for China and India, if you read Friedman you would think that everyone in both places live like a tiny select few in Shanghai, Mumbai, and Bangalore.
Eventually even this big globe will run out of inexpensive places to house manufacturing. Everyone will have been through the process and will demand a middle-class standard of living. And maybe the ultra-rich captains of global industry will have to take a couple of bucks less and provide exactly that.
Don't even get me started on his foolish and hypocritical championing of the invasion of Iraq.
The IMF is only responsible for stablizing the economic situation; they will not be helping to improve the economy.
It is rather sad. I live in northside suburb which was built up within the last two years; most people in Dublin are not even familiar with it, but it was built around the new, "apartment" living flash that many young professionals were seeking. Now, I look out my bedroom window and I see a large, empty lot where another row of apartments should have been built. This was supposed to be town centre where a creche, Supervalu, hair salon and clothing boutiques were supposed to open but the buildings remain empty.
I have former co-workers who moved to Ireland within the last few months; at the time, this American e-commerce giant was expanding the office here in Dublin, but I am beginning to wonder what will happen with those folks.
For a simple plain English explanation
of the Irish economic catastrophe you could do far worse than read Scottish economist Mark Blyth.
Crony capitalism creates dodgy too big too fail banks. Irish Government needs to take over the banks near worthless debt so private savings, pensions and even payrolls aren't wiped out. Irish sovereign debt explodes so PO'd bond holders threaten to dump their holdings and send government bond interest into orbit. Crony Capitalists agree to EU plan to force Irish workers to bail everyone out. Except for the 95% of the Irish population, who had no responsibility for the crisis but have to pay 100% of it's cost, everyone is happy.
Friedman Tops Everyone's Hack Pundit List
Salon pegs him as our #3 Hack Pundit, and that's just about right [http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/11/24/hack_list_3/index.html].
Anyone who has ever read Friedman (including From Beirut to Jerusalem) has their favorite Friedman non sequiturs. Matt Taibbi collects the best ones:
Remember Friedman’s take on Bush’s Iraq policy? “It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel,” he wrote, “as long as you remember you’re driving without one.” Picture that for a minute. ... When a man who thinks you need to break a vase to get the water out of it starts arguing that you need to invade a country in order to change the minds of its people, you might want to start paying attention to how his approach to the vase problem worked out. Thomas Friedman is not a president, a pope, a general on the field of battle or any other kind of man of action. He doesn’t actually do anything apart from talk about shit in a newspaper. So in my mind it’s highly relevant if his manner of speaking is fucked. [http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html]
I suspect Tom Ricks enjoys a little NYT bitch slappin'...
Great post. I'd love to hear an explanation from Friedman. I'm interested to see how some of his China exultation pans out.
but who cares? Why any of us should care very much about Friedman's oh-so-clever observations—or some doozies from Mr. Ricks, who isn't immune to the Friedman disease, for that matter—is an interesting question. Nothing wrong with reading Friedman—in fact, I think some of his stuff on energy issues is pretty good—but to view him as an independently authoritative source on anything important (and war is important) is to misunderstand the process .
Why is Friedman important? Well, maybe it's because original thoughts and Friedman don't go together. So where do his thoughts come from? He has excellent sources among higher-level government officials; all he's doing when he's peddling his insights—e.g., about a dandy war in Iraq—is packaging a government guy's opinions in his own wrapping.
Friedman's important, not because of his own intellect, but because he's the talking dog for the people who actually formulate the policy and do the work. Read him and you'll sometimes get some good insight. Fellow named Walter Lippmann used to do the same thing. Friedman's just the new Lippmann.
Thomas Friedman is wrong on every subject
Thomas Friedman is wrong on every subject. He is so nauseatingly wrong that I have stopped reading New York Times because of his constant whining.
Thomas Friedman is so wrong about everything that he should officially change his name to Friedman Wrongman.
AK
lalqila.wordpress.com
Today, Ireland's debt is at 32% of GDP -- the highest in the Eurozone.
This from eurostat: In 2009, the government deficit1 and government debt1 of both the euro area2 (EA16) and the EU27 increased compared with 2008, while GDP fell. In the euro area the government deficit to GDP ratio increased from 2.0% in 20083 to 6.3% in 2009, and in the EU27 from 2.3% to 6.8%. In the euro area the government debt to GDP ratio increased from 69.8% at the end of 2008 to 79.2% at the end of 2009, and in the EU27 from 61.8% to 74.0%.
2006
2007
If you look at the link, it is clear that he meant "deficit," not "debt."
I'll try to get it fixed soon.
Best,
Tom
I've corrected the language.
—FP copy chief
Not to defend Friedman who is among one of the shallowest of the 'deep' thinkers out there - but he's a macro guy, likes the broad, attention getting stroke - and therefore misses a lot - as in a business revolution grafted onto a retrograde political culture can mutate into something ugly, which is exactly what happened - but that does not therefore mean the free market ideals motivating the Celtic tiger were in and of themselves 'bad' or 'wrong' - of course Mr Ricks as a socialist thinks they were and that explains this post - but Friedman makes the same mistake when he rhapsodizes about China: the 'capitalist' miracle there suits his book selling talking points and so he tends to go vague or 'hyper macro' when discussing the attending retrograde political and social cultures that, as in Ireland, are like to cause the 'miracle' to morph eventually into something grotesque if not reformed as well.
The telling quote about Ireland came from an Irish business man who said: it's an indication of how horrible things were before 'the revolution' that as bad as things look now we're still better off for the change. I remember visiting Dublin as a student in the 80's and being shocked by the dozens of dirty faced kids lining O'Connell bridge begging money from 'rich' foreigners - so I'm willing to bet that somewhat counter intuitive declaration is in many ways true.
well, 'socialist' employed more as a sobriquet for the purposes of sporting fun - after all what's life without enemies - but your point about Ike is something of a red herring you 'socialists' are bringing up a lot lately and it's completely misguided - the rich in large part managed to avoid the ridiculously high marginal tax rates of that era - in other words. to the naive or ideologically deluded it looks like Ike's America was able to prosper while taxing the rich to death, but that's an illusion - indeed, the whole point of the Reagan revolution was to attempt to sweep away this charade, this tax the rich shell game, and admit as a matter of policy that, one, it was in the country's best interests to use the tax code to incentivize business and, two, let's acknowledge that gov't may be a necessary evil but that does not mean it can compete with the market when it comes to the efficient allocation of capital - in other words, gov't tends to be wasteful. After all, as a war historian I'm sure you know that Ike's 'great crusade' was not funded by taxes, which no doubt most people think was the case, but rather with war bonds, which incentivized people and businesses to support the cause.
Great phrase, but inaccurate characterization
I like that phrase, "a business revolution grafted onto a retrograde political culture can mutate into something ugly, which is exactly what happened." Well said.
But if I am a "socialist," then Eisenhower was. All I'm advocating is tax rates and social spending more like his. To call that "socialist" is I think to so expand the word as to make it meaningless.
Best,
Tom
The only thing more absurd than Friedman's writings is this professor's take on the situation: Ireland's problems are due to massive debt incurred via excessively low interest rates and its membership of the euro. For years, Ireland's real interest rates were negative, fueling a real estate bubble, which burst, and wrecked their banks.
The one thing they got right was cutting their corporate tax rate to attract businesses; get over the Marxist class warfare horseshit and think whether raising these rates at this point will actually generate more revenue: They are already being warned they face a mass exodus of US companies if they do this dumb-ass professor's suggestion. This guy thinks this will help things? Let's see...get 12.5% or get...nothing.
http://liten.be//SKJmP
The Irish government has been given a stark warning from some of the biggest American companies in Ireland on the risk of a mass exodus if the country's low corporation tax rate is raised.
The warning - from executives at Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Intel - spoke of the "damaging impact" on Ireland's "ability to win and retain investment" should the country's corporation tax rate be increased from 12.5pc.
Google has strongly warned against any corporate rate tax increase, saying that a move to increase business costs would damage Ireland's competitiveness.
re: The only thing dumber than Tom Friedman...
... is TALKING about Tom Friedman.
The proper thing to do is ignore him.
Who put him on your list of 'thinkers', anyway? I want to know who to blame.
So, are you arguing that all the data about increasing income inequality in this country is wrong?
Here is a review copy for you:
http://www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/2266026/
Best,
Tom
""So, are you arguing that all the data about increasing income inequality in this country is wrong??""
Dont know if that was directed at me or not; these FP threads only have 1-level threading...
In the event it was; no, I have no issue with the quite-accurate data on rising levels of income inequality... who debates the census!? :)
I was simply saying Tom Friedman is a mushy-brained inarticulate hack whose opinion on anything is not worth debating.
Case in point: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/opinion/08friedman.html
""More than ever, America today reminds me of a working couple where the husband has just lost his job, they have two kids in junior high school, a mortgage and they’re maxed out on their credit cards. On top of it all, they recently agreed to take in their troubled cousin, Kabul, who just can’t get his act together and keeps bouncing from relative to relative. Meanwhile, their Indian nanny, who traded room and board for baby-sitting, just got accepted to M.I.T. on a full scholarship and will be leaving them in a few months. What to do?""
Parse that one.
Like...Who's "Kabul" supposed to be?(afghanistan? Is afghanistan 'sleeping on our couch'?...and he's our cousin??)... and why do our 'junior high school kids' need a babysitter?... and ... OK, our Indian 'nanny' is a rocket scientist...which, what, because we *need* brilliant babysitters for our overaged babies?
Its so *@#&$ stupid its not worth the effort deconstructing.
And of course, he says, "More than ever...", as though this metaphorical setup is something he's *been dwelling on for a long time*, and is an ever-present concept rather than... well, just some meaningless gibberish he happened to whip up on the spur of the moment.
If he intentionally tried to mock himself, he'd fail to do as well
I've corrected the language.
—FP copy chief
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