In Business Week magazine, Andy Grove, founder of Intel, describes what really ails America: lack of manufacturing jobs. He also puts to rest Mr. Friedman's bizarre notion that more high tech startups are the solution:

From Andy Grove: How America Can Create Jobs

"New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently encapsulated this view in a piece called "Start-Ups, Not Bailouts." His argument: Let tired old companies that do commodity manufacturing die if they have to. If Washington really wants to create jobs, he wrote, it should back startups.

"Friedman is wrong. Startups are a wonderful thing, but they cannot by themselves increase tech employment. Equally important is what comes after that mythical moment of creation in the garage, as technology goes from prototype to mass production. This is the phase where companies scale up. They work out design details, figure out how to make things affordably, build factories, and hire people by the thousands. Scaling is hard work but necessary to make innovation matter."

No One Ever Said It Better

John Kenny in the New Yorker takes a dig at that self anointed expert in Middle Eastern affairs: No One Ever Said It Better Its pretty funny, too.

Root Canal Politics

Well, thought others would be doing the job, but I can't resist ranting about the latest Tom Friedman absurdity. And the top newspaper in the country publishes this nonsense on a Sunday! In Root Canal Politics the upshot is that after the WWII "i.e. 'Greatest') generation, their spoiled children squandered their inheritance, and now have built up debts to be paid for by their children. Tom's response? Sacrifices must be made. But by who, Tom? Surely not the indebted generations coming up right now. Do you mean the baby boomers? How will this work, now that they are retiring?

I have different perspective on this. How about the trillion dollar wars in the middle east? Or the trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or the trillion dollar bank bailout? That's $3 trillion of squander in the last few years. My math tells me this is $10,000 per person in the USA. And this says nothing of the bloated defense budget or the many recent tax dodges by big corporations and the ultra wealthy. Let's call it $20,000 per person. Seems like a good start at 'sacrifice', without any root canals.

Really, where do you get this stuff, and how do you get people to pay you for it?

The Fat Lady Has Sung

In his most recent article, The Fat Lady Has Sung Tom Friedman tells us how a community in California is charging $300 for an emergency 911 call. He thinks this is the future due to the 'lean years' we will be experiencing due to our previous decades of excess. So, 911 calls for emergencies were excesses we all enjoyed?

No mention of the drastic shift in the tax burden away from corporations and the wealthy in recent decades. Nor the ongoing abuse of American by insurance, banking and energy companies. There has been excess, but it hasn't been by the vast majority of Americans. But (to use another trite phrase) we'll see who has to pay the piper. At this point it looks like the abuse will go on, and the middle class will continue to get the squeeze. Particularly if people read and believe the nonsense of people like Mr. Friedman.

This Is Not a Column

Mr. Friedman, in his recent column This Is Not a Test. This Is Not a Test. Aims squarely for the side of a barn, and misses. He wishes President Obama (ah, I still like the sound of that) would get on with fixing the banking system, and stop fooling around with all these other side issues. I presume this means health care, Iraq, Iran, education, infrastructure, etc.

But fixing the banking system is obviously not so simple. Most US banks are insolvent (i.e. have more debts than assets). In other contexts, this is called 'bankrupt'. Except some of these banks may be really bankrupt. We're talking trillions of dollars in the hole. International banks are in similar situations. And many of these banks are 'international' institutions. How does one deal with this, without risking shoveling billions of dollars out of the US and to foreign enities? Mr. F was a bit light on suggestions.

Well, at least Mr. F is posting harmless drivel these days, after years of cheerleading everything from rampant globalism to the war in Iraq.

Start Up the Risk-Takers

Let's move away from H1-B visas and rampant internationalism, and back to the subject at hand: the cluelessness of Mr. Friedman. A recent column (Start Up the Risk-Takers) talks about how the government is pouring billions into 'losers' like GM (and AIG and Citi?) whereas it should be helping to 'nurture the next Google'.

Well, the government has spent many billions on research, and continues to. Many start-ups are still funded by research grants, including the SBIR program. But the real problem today isn't with the government, but with the private sector. The IPO market has been broken for at least a decade. This leaves start-ups (and their investors) with no way to cash out. This lack of reward has been devestating to the technology business as we know it.

Why is the IPO market broken? There are many theories on this, but my best guess is that it was easier for Wall Street to sell Credit Default Swaps than to help place the offerings for small companies. Maybe we'll return to the Good Old Days where bankers were in the business of actually investing in companies, rather than simply moving money from one account to another. It's so quaint and old fashioned. But it might be just what this country needs.

No More H1-B Abuse on Wall Street

From Forbes: Foreign Workers Banned From Wall Street Too bad the High Tech world still have to live with this abusive system.