Mr. Friedman;

“What is the state of financial education among the general population in the United States?”
“Would improving that level of education help prevent economic disasters in the future?”

“What is a sustainable growth rate for the United States economy?”
“What is a sustainable growth rate for the world economy?”
I churn over these questions almost daily.  These are, in my mind the most important questions of this age and they hold the key to solving some of the largest problems we are facing.  Unfortunately I don’t know how to go about addressing these issues.  Perhaps Mr Friedman can offer his opinion on the solutions as well as the answers to these questions.  If we discuss these things in a public forum, we are a lot more likely to find the answers.

Thank you,
Jeremy Springfield

Would the United States be better off if all the money that is being spent to fight two wars was being spent on defense? If so, roughly how much money would be left to be invested in other equally important issues?

Can Tom be really serious?
Â
How many Americans will score  perfectly on the SAT or go to an Ivy League?
Â
So we simply need to all be better that the best scoring Chinese and Indians and then nice US corporations will hire us instead of outsourcing our jobs overseas? Â
Â
How about the Wall Street crooks and our richest 1%?  Are they all Einsteins? Can we truly compete on an equal basis with nations where people are paid 10 or 100 times less, lucky to eat 3 times aday, and have runniung water?

 Tom Friedman thinking is disappointly linear and his witty puns sadly and crually fall “flat”.  The world is only flat for the Internet savvy minorities in Asia and Africa. 90% of India is dirt poor. So how do we ensure that we contibue to enjoy our high standard of living?

First we need  be more honest about the challenges we are facing.

As I see it, the more obvious roots of the American “decline” might be Neanderthal level of knowledge in the populace promoted by the arrogant and corrupt political class, and more omninously, obsolete economic and political structures, supported by those who benefit from the status quo. 

Â
The US greatness was not, as the jingoistic propagandists tell us because we are an “exceptional” nation, more because we were  a lucky one, which did very well for 50 years, after Europe self-destructed and we destructed Japan.

Since then, brainwashed by politicians and demagogues, repeating at nauseum that we would always be first, we have become complacent, no matter how poorly we were doing, as long as we kept shopping, scapegoating big Government while we were at war continuously, replaced our engineers with salesmen, scientists with evolution denying bigots.

We nowly realize (too late) what President Eisenhower warned us about in the fifties: our country is dominated by a war-making, industrial complex.

The middle class “compact “ (enjoy our bank-owned, white-fenced houses and accept that to be consumers from cradle to grave. as long as we do not rock the militaro-capitalistic boat) which made America “wealthy” has been broken.

Â
Maybe the jig is up: the ruling class has been umasked: it has never cared about the middle class and the poor and now, after it has destroyed the economy here and abroad, it is ordering its lackeys in Washington to ensure that nothing will be done to the status quo, no matter how much the population suffers andbegs for help.

So Tom Friedman may be barking at the wrong trees. Wringing his hands about how we are missing opportunities to prevent the  Chinese and Indians  from eating our lunch is not going to move us  closer to the root issue: the ruling class cannot do anything but fight tooth and nail to perpetuate its control .

So just running  “faster on the flat road” as Friedman recommends is not the real answer.

We may in fact “run flat”, and stay in the same place!

I beieve that we need to think in a more multi-dimensional  way.

We need to completely change the rules of our rigged game, not be better at it.

Dear Tom,

I have been frustrated by your show lately for a couple reason we just start getting into the heart of deep and very discussion about the economy and boom its the next hour and the topic changes completely. I wanted to hear more discussion about the protests in wall street and the changes that people want but the hour went by so quickly. I was interested in your women ceo’s because I think that is important too but I think this hour per topic format is doing a disservice to you and your listeners who look to you and your show to dig deep. Are you afraid to dig deep into the questions about the economy? Is is too scary? Are you afraid that your audience isn’t interested enough and incapable of sustaining a deep discussion for a two hour period? Don’t be afraid we want to dig deep and hear more.

Why have you not talked about the article The Speedup:Why Americans Work So Hard But Feel So Poor covered in the Atlantic Monthly in which corporations are cutting jobs and piling on the remaining work onto the remaining employees who are working 60 to 80 hours a week to do the work while the company has record profits.

What about covering the book “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard which looks at how this consume in order to survive is unsustainable.

Is China will be a real threat to be”Super Power” than USA? I hope not because we will be losing the “Human Rights/Democracy at large issue protected”

On Point: please stop pretending that Thomas Friedman’s opinions are of any interest.