Oh Jesus, another ridiculously stupid column by Thomas Friedman. I swear to God, he must write these while he is tripping on acid or whatever drugs Boomers took back in the day.
Today’s column is titled “The Real Generation X“, but I’m not sure why.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation,” that classic about our parents and their incredible sacrifices during World War II. What I’ve been thinking about actually is this: What book will our kids write about us? “The Greediest Generation?” “The Complacent Generation?” Or maybe: “The Subprime Generation: How My Parents Bailed Themselves Out for Their Excesses by Charging It All on My Visa Card.”
Our kids should be so much more radical than they are today. I understand why they aren’t. They’re so worried about just getting a job or paying next semester’s tuition. But we must not take their quietism as license to do whatever we want with this bailout cash. They are going to have to pay this money back. And therefore, we have an incredibly weighty obligation to make sure that we not only spend every stimulus dollar wisely but also with an eye to creating new technologies.
Ohhhhh! So now you actually consider future generations while you ponder what to do with this bailout cash? It’s too bad you didn’t think about that a few years ago while you were cheerleading for the “Great Baby Boomer Fuck Up of the 21st Century”, otherwise known as the Iraq War, in which thousands of Gen Xers and Yers have been killed and American dollars spent (What was Stiglitz’s estimate? THREE TRILLION DOLLARS?!) Thanks, Tom.
Let’s get specific. When it comes to Detroit, my views are clear: I think we should be talking about “bail,” not “bailouts,” regarding the people running the Big Three car companies and the lawmakers who mindlessly protected them for so long. Still, I do not want to see jobs destroyed. But if taxpayers are going to give Detroit money, we must not entrust the spending to people who have run their businesses into the ground.
You want my tax dollars? Then I want to see the precise production plans and timetables for the hybridization of all your cars and trucks within 36 months. I want every bailed-out car company to move to hybrid electric drive trains, because nothing would both improve mileage and emissions more — and also stimulate a whole new 21st-century, job-creating industry: batteries.
WTF? Since when is Mr. The World Is Flat and Globalization is Goddamn Amazing so concerned about American manufacturing jobs? And now he wants to impose the complete hybridization of all cars and trucks in three years?!
We can’t allow ourselves to be battery importers in the 21st century the way we were oil importers in the 20th.
Dude, just wait until I form OLEC, or the Organization of Lithium Exporting Countries, and you can write a column bitching about that.
In sum, our kids will remember the Obama stimulus as either the burden of their lifetime or the investment of their lifetime. Let’s hope it’s the latter. I like that book title much better.
Yes, yes, and then you can use that title for your next book, in which you tell all of us to quit driving SUVs and stop eating at restaurants. Tom sure has jumped on the green bandwagon. I’d be interested to know what his carbon footprint is. I’m sure that his 11,000 square foot house in Bethesda is covered in solar panels and he rides the metro to work every day!
