VINDICA

The best thing about a new book by Thomas Friedman is that it gets reviewed by Matt Taibi. New book "Hot, Flat and Crowded" is reviewed at: http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html This one is another classic! On Friedman's style: "The first rule of holes is when you're in one, stop digging.When you're in three, bring a lot of shovels." First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you're supposed to stop digging when you're in one hole, why should you dig more in three? On Friedman's content: "I laid out my napkin and drew a graph showing how there seemed to be a rough correlation between the price of oil, between 1975 and 2005, and the pace of freedom in oil-producing states during those same years." Friedman plots exactly four points on the graph over the course of those 30 years. In 1989, as oil prices are falling, Friedman writes, "Berli...

John Kay is a columnist for FT and I have read a lot of original pieces from him. In this article he points out the silliness of corporate citizens claiming that all public sector work is "entitlement". He points out that public sector project created things like the computer and the green revolution without a need for financial incentive. He also points to the sense of entitlement exibited by corporate citizens who aparently need bonuses over and above their pay in order to do their jobs. (The corporate types) explained that in addition to the considerable salaries senior managers receive, large financial incentives were needed to persuade them to perform the duties that were attached to their jobs. In contrast, people who worked in the public sector mostly did so because they were too lazy or ineffective to get jobs in large corporations. They professed surprise that teachers did not relay these opinions to their charges. I understood why, and was relieved they did not....