The World Is Flat

I was passing by a bookstore a while back and I picked up a copy of
"The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman (My brother Tom mentioned it
in response to my earlier rant against outsourcing and other issues.)
Interesting book, I didn't know we were so far down that road.
Thomas Friedman is considered one of the smart guys, isn't he?

I recommend the book too, but on occasion Friedman seems to
lose his ability to do simple math and basic reasoning. Maybe I
got a defective copy and some of the numbers were misprinted.
I was about halfway through (pg 228) when I read this:

Friedman writes,
"Let me illustrate this with a simple example... Imagine that 
the American economy has only 100 people.  Of those 100 people,
80 are well-educated knowledge workers and 20 are less-educated
low-skilled workers"

Friedman can't possibly believe those proportions are accurate,
can he??!!! 

Friedman continues, 
"Now imagine that the world goes flat and America enters into 
a free-trade agreement with China, which has 1000 workers..."

Apparently Friedman didn't consult any world census data.
China doesn't have 10 times more people than America.
Actually it's less than 5 times. He's off by more than
100 percent, yet he goes on to try to make some point.
I can't figure out why he would try to make a point with
such a bogus premise. Maybe if he used accurate numbers
he couldn't make his point.

Anyway, when I read that kind of stuff it loses alot of credibility
with me. I read the rest of the book with suspicion that he had
some agenda to make points which HONEST FACTS don't support.
Yet Thomas Friedman is considered one of the smart guys,
isn't he?

Anyway the issues about outsourcing are important and interesting.
It is here to stay and there isn't anything Joe Q. Public can do to stop
it. We'll have to learn to live within this New World Capitalistic Order.

Just don't hire Friedman to make any analytical decisions for you.
(He actually claims that the reason companies are outsourcing
their 'phone help' is to improve service, not increase profits.
Well at least he provided a good laugh, that alone was worth it.)