So, nice to be back home and I hope to get a better report out on the Edwards poverty tour. But, since it will take a little time to look at my video results, here’s something for now: Tom Friedman has written a lot of dumb things in the past. It’s worth separating the dumb things that are just idle ruminations from the dumb things that are simply factually wrong. In yesterday’s New York Times (apologies–on-the-road travel delay), Friedman gave us another globalization whopper that shows that he hasn’t a clue what is happening in China–and his comment had a tinge or racism in it to boot.
 In his column “The Green Road Less Traveled,” Friedman writes:
What can many U.S. companies still manufacture? They can manufacture things that are smart — that have a lot of knowledge content in them, like a congestion pricing network for a whole city. What do many Chinese companies manufacture? They manufacture things that can be made with a lot of cheap labor, like the rubber tires on your car. Which jobs are most easily outsourced? The ones vulnerable to cheap labor. Which jobs are hardest to outsource? Those that require a lot of knowledge.
So what does all this mean? It means that to the extent that we make “green” standards part of everything we design and manufacture, we create “green collar” jobs that are much more difficult to outsource. I.B.M. and other tech companies are discovering a mother lode of potential new business for their high-wage engineers and programmers thanks to the fact that mayors all over the world are thinking about going green through congestion pricing systems.
 How to say this: that is complete nonsense. It is false to assert that China is simply manufacturing products that, as Friedman suggests, are simply lower-end products made with cheap labor. In his impressive book, “The Chinese Century,” Oded Shenkar writes:
China’s goal, and that of its government is not merely to catch up with the major industrialized powers but to overpass them. No other developing country has sets its sights so high, and none…has laid such a detailed road map to take it there.
Shenkar’s book lays out in great detail how China is already overtaking the rest of the world in the higher-end, high-value, highly-skilled product lines. Since Shenkar’s book was published in 2004, Friedman could easily have access to Shenkar’s data. But, there is a hitch–it contradicts Friedman’s world view.
 As I’ve pointed out a number of times (for example, here), Friedman is one of the purveyors of the lie–repeated by Republicans, too many Democrats, academics and political analysts–that education is the salvation for workers trying to survive in Friedman’s brave new global world. But, the truth is that that is a cruel hoax.
 Friedman has it partly right when he talks about cheap labor–but that cheap labor extends up and down the ladder at all levels of manufacturing.  Yes, China is making your clothes–but it is also designing jet engines, and investing heavily in bio-technology and computer research, to mention just a few areas.
 Is Friedman a racist? Well, what I would suggest is this: people who believe that, if we simply educate Americans better, than this country will “win” out in economic global competition are mouthing a line that edges pretty close to: we’re smarter and better than “the others.”
 The fact is the competition in the world is simply about who will do the work cheapest–whether you are sewing on buttons or coming up with the newest “green” technology. When Friedman and his similarly-thinking brethren start dealing with the facts, not ideology, we can start having an intelligent and rationale conversation.
