As usual, Tom Friedman is dripping with more “aw, shucks… come on, guys” common sense today than Piggy had in The Lord of the Flies. Professionally speaking, I wouldn’t mind if Friedman suffered the same fate that Piggy did in everyone’s favorite book about prep school kids stranded on a deserted island regressing into murderous savages.
In his piece today, Friedman follows the same rhetorical and argumentative scheme that he nearly always does:
(1) Friedman almost always starts by announcing some sort of catch phrase that encapsulates his larger point and draws the reader into thinking, “Hey this is entertainment, not learning. I’ll keep reading.” In this case, he puts forth one of his lamer phrases, “This is not a test,” echoing those Emergency Broadcast System announcements that we all remember interrupting Scooby Doo on summer mornings when we were kids. Those were actually tests, and they do remind me of Friedman’s column, except they were less annoying.
(2) He then goes on to make his first argument, which is generally non-controversial point that no one is likely to disagree with. In this case, he forcefully forwards the assertion that we “need to let failed companies, or homeowners, go bankrupt…” Who can disagree with that? By now we’re all thinking, “Gee, this Friedman guy knows his stuff. He’s right there in the center of things. A man we can trust.”
(3) Friedman makes his second point, which is always the fugazi in this game of three card monte, sandwiched in between two nearly incontrovertible arguments. In this case, I will quote at length:
Second, we need to get a market going that would bring fair value and clarity to the “toxic mortgages” crippling the balance sheets of our major banks. This will likely require some degree of government subsidy to private equity groups and hedge funds to get them to make the first bids for these toxic assets by guaranteeing they will not lose. This could make great policy sense, but be a nightmare to sell politically. It will strike many as another unfair giveaway to Wall Street.
Unfortunately, the president may have to look the American people in the eye and explain that “fairness is not on the menu anymore.” All that’s on the menu now is whether or not we avoid a system meltdown — and this will require rewarding some new investors.
Ah, yes, Mr. Friedman. Fairness is off the table, or everything is fucked, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like Mr. Friedman wouldn’t like to be more fair about things if it were at all possible, but when the only solution to a problem is an unfair one, then me must suck it up like men and follow that route, right?
Wrong, I’m not at all convinced that this is the only way to “clear” these “toxic assets.” As I’ve stated many times, there has to be some way to throw this wind-fall to the people who are hurting rather than the monumentally incompetent banks and hedge funds that got us into this mess. I’m not going to beat a dead horse, but I’ll make another suggestion. Why not subsidize the sale of these toxic mortgages in auctions open to the public? Thus, people who would otherwise be unable to purchase a home might be able to take them off the market at a discounted price. If no one would buy the pieces of real estate, then what value are they to the banks at all? Of course, I’m not an expert and this plan could be highly flawed, but until Mr. Friedman and his ilk show me why the waves of cash can’t go to average Americans rather than Wall Street, I’m going to assume that something fishy is going on. Something real fishy. Like the scene on a tuna boat or at a fish fry.
(4) Here, Friedman says things that pretty much everybody already knows, thus further reinforcing our perception that he’s just reasonable Uncle Tom, and we can all trust implicitly everything he says. Here, he tells us that Obama is either going to have to double the stimulus or nationalize banks for us to get out of this mess.
(5) Friedman signs off with another seemingly benign but, on closer inspection, ridiculous assertion. Today, he states:
Which is why I wake up every morning hoping to read this story: “President Obama announced today that he had invited the country’s 20 leading bankers, 20 leading industrialists, 20 top market economists and the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate to join him and his team at Camp David.
Yes, the 20 TOP BANKERS, the 20 LEADING INDUSTRIALISTS, the 20 TOP MARKET ECONOMISTS, and… the democratic and republican leaders in the house and senate. Right, Friedman, let’s put more faith in our bankers, industrialists, and economists than in our law makers in order to solve this mess.
Your faith in the members of the business and financial community to come up with the solutions to their own problems is gravely misplaced, sir. For God’s sake, do I even have to explain why? When another economic ideology and world-view has failed, such as Soviet Communism, you wouldn’t have argued that the former Kremlin aparatchiks should decide how to liberalize Russian markets, would you? So why would you go to adherents of unfettered, corpratist, neo-liberal capitalism to figure out how to nationalize banks and fundamentally restructure our financial system in ways certainly not auguring in their favor?
Who is paying your rent, Friedman, the CEO of Goldman Sachs? ‘Cause either you’re a real devious bastard, or you drank the punch years ago, all of it. I’m not sure which it is. It’s probably a little of both. But, ultimately, Mr. Friedman, you are probably the most dangerous of all the Times op-ed columnists, because you seem so damn reasonable. You would have made a good lawyer, no doubt. As for being a journalist, you are not good. You are terrible, from a professional as well as a moral view-point. In sum, I must call that the Times do the right thing and immediately sever all professional ties with you, Mr. Friedman. Any other move on their part would be just another sign of their upper-class liberal pandering and cowardice. So do it, now, Times editors, before another piece of Friedman’s insidious copy fogs the good sense of your faithful readers and the American people at large.
