The Open-Door Bailout

Here goes Mr. F. with the H1-B visa stuff again ( The Open-Door Bailout ) and his quasi-racist caricature of 'smart, hard working Indians'. They are actually mostly just young and willing to work for much less money than Americans. Really, is this guy being paid by the electronics industry to lobby to help further drive down wages in this industry? And all this as unemployment is spiking in the US with IBM and others laying off thousands. I don't oppose immigration, especially of skilled and educated wokers, but this is about as dumb as it gets. Unless you are indeed a shill for the American electronics industry.

500,000 Strong

I guess I should have done a Google before starting this blog. Googling "Thomas Friedman idiot" yields at least a half a million hits. To be fair, maybe all the 'idiots' don't refer to Mr. Friedman. Must all of them on the first page do ...

Abandon all hope

In today's column TF searches Davos (perhaps lamp in hand like Diogenes) looking for The Man with The Plan (Elvis Has Left the Mountain). He concludes that we must all suffer for our sins. Sorry, not me bub. I neither bought nor sold a subprime mortgage nor a derivative thereof. I agree that someone needs to suffer some pain here, but it shouldn't be me or most of the people I know.

In a further testament to poor judgement, TF mentions his association with Indian outsourcer and fraudster B. Raju. He only speculates on how Mr. Raju helped start India's first 911 system. How could such a good man steal $1B (or more) of other people's money? Hint: it's not jus teasy, its smart to spend a few bucks on P.R. like this of you are a crook. Ask Mike Milken and Mother Theresa.

Bush Squander

Occasionally Mr. Friedman stumbles onto acorns of pure wisdom. I cannot agree more with his statement: "George W. Bush completely squandered his post-9/11 moment" (from: Radical in the White House). Truer words were never spoken.

Unfortunately, the biggest piece of squander to come out of 9/11 was the Iraq War. It is worth remembering that Thomas Friedman was one of its biggest cheerleaders. He continues his support of Bush Era war crimes with his support of Israel's bombing of civilians in Gaza. But I'll let Glenn Greenwald take it from here: Tom Friedman offers a perfect definition of "terrorism".

Technology and Engineers

For decades there has been talk of an engineering 'shortage' in the US. Such shortages should always be viewed with suspicion, since shortages of producable goods are rare in a free market. If there is a shortage of engineers, salaries will go up, and more students will go into that field.

Mr. Friedman wants to "staple green cards to the diplomas of foreign students who graduate from any U.S. university in math or science" (from: Tax Cuts for Teachers). But this is exactly the source of the current problems in US engineering. With a flood of millions of highly talented, intelligent engineers being admitted to the US under the highly flawed H1-B visa program, the effect has been to drive down wages and push American students into other fields.

If Mr. Friedman wonders why the brightest American students chose to become MBAs, lawyers or investment bankers, here is his answer. They are too smart to go into a field where the government and industry collude to manipulate their salaries.

Perhaps we need to use immigration policy to import more intelligent New York Times columnists instead.

Welcome!

After years of reading irresopnsible drivel from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, I decided it is time to stand astride his flat, crowded world and say: "Huh?"