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I have criticized Thomas Friedman for supporting every trade
agreement he has ever seen, despite not reading one of them. His
past (and continued?) lemming-like support for trade agreements has pushed America into these troubles.
"We got this free market, and I admit, I was speaking out in
Minnesota--my hometown, in fact, and guy stood up in the audience,
said, `Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you'd oppose?' I
said, `No, absolutely not.' I said, `You know what, sir? I wrote a
column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I
didn't even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade."
But he makes some good points today, in an op-ed on whether America is still strong.
Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book,
I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign
crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if
there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People
want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do
nation-building in America.
Nation building in the U.S. is a good idea. But we are
following the U.K. trajectory of decline. Giving away the riches
of the realm for foreign policy reasons on trade, pursuing expensive
military action in pipsqueak countries, allowing our production to be
shipped overseas, and financing it all on credit cards and subprime
mortgages.
We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past
three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard,
study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to
subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no
money down and no payments for two years.”
Here is a good visual metaphor - our infrastructure as a measure of our current prosperity position.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy
Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a
place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s
ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play
zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown
from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare
Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit
Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who
lost World War II.
Singapore has a national strategy. We do not.
How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing
money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing
billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and
scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including
Americans.
If you don't have a strategy, you don't win. You shuffle and
sputter and decline. We still have the assets to deploy in a
focused strategy to reclaim prosperity for everyone. We just
don't have as much margin to survive distraction by the Colombia FTA or
tabloid issues in the presidential race.
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