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Tom Friedman: Why I (Still) Support Obamacare
The New York Times ^ | November 9, 2013 | Thomas L. Friedman

Posted on 11/09/2013 1:08:46 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

AT the recent New York Times forum in Singapore, Eleonora Sharef, a co-founder of HireArt, was explaining what new skills employers were seeking from job applicants, but she really got the audience’s attention when she mentioned that her search firm was recently told by one employer that it wouldn’t look at any applicant for a marketing job who didn’t have at least 2,000 Twitter followers — and the more the better. She didn’t disclose the name of the firm, but she told me that it wasn’t Twitter.

At a meeting with students at Fudan University in Shanghai a few days earlier, I was struck by how anxious some of the Chinese students were about the question: “Am I going to have a job?” If you’re a software engineer in China, you’ll do fine, also a factory worker — but a plain-old college grad? The Times reported earlier this year that in China today “among people in their early 20s, those with a college degree were four times as likely to be unemployed as those with only an elementary school education.”

Stories like these explain why I really hope that Obamacare succeeds. Say what?

Here’s the logic: The Cold War era I grew up in was a world of insulated walls, both geopolitical and economic, so the pace of change was slower — you could work for the same company for 30 years — and because bosses had fewer alternatives, unions had greater leverage....

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: china; obamacare; socializedmedicine; unions
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1 posted on 11/09/2013 1:08:46 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

And I hope you get a rash Mr. Freidman.


2 posted on 11/09/2013 1:12:56 PM PST by VRW Conspirator (Obama is a proven liar, an admitted liar, an unrepentent liar.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

3 posted on 11/09/2013 1:14:10 PM PST by Impala64ssa (You call me an islamophobe like it's a bad thing.)
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To: VRW Conspirator

In all the wrong places.......


4 posted on 11/09/2013 1:14:17 PM PST by basil (2ASisters.org)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

He still supports Obamacare because he hasn’t had his policy canceled and/or force to take out another policy twice as much with 5 times his present deducible.


5 posted on 11/09/2013 1:15:06 PM PST by HarleyD (...one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Having a national health care safety net under the vast majority of Americans — to ease and enable people to make this transition — is both morally right and in the interest of everyone who wants a stable society.

What transition? Where are these wonderful jobs he speaks of?

Obamacare is dragging heavily on the economy. Socialized medicine will never aid in job creation. The cost and crisis of confidence it causes will drag us into more and more unemployment.

6 posted on 11/09/2013 1:16:18 PM PST by what's up
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To: VRW Conspirator

A Rash No. He should come down with shingles.


7 posted on 11/09/2013 1:16:48 PM PST by SandRat (Duty - Honor - Country! What else needs said?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Freidman: “He’s a leftist...I’m a leftist. Not to difficult to understand is it?”


8 posted on 11/09/2013 1:16:49 PM PST by driftless2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I hope de gets a rash, too, and that he gives it to his multimillionaire heiress wife, who makes it possible for Friedman to condescend to all of us.


9 posted on 11/09/2013 1:18:01 PM PST by Mamzelle
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Friedman seems to be coming to a conclusion I have been worrying about --

The global economy has changed, and the need for human labor is diminishing. When farms became more automated, people shifted to factories. When factories became more automated, people shifted to offices. Now the offices are more automated and there is no where to shift. We have lots of people and -- to a disturbing extent -- no need for their labor. What do we do with those people? How do we keep them from starving in alleys?

The answer that Friedman is coming up with is: MORE SOCIALISM.
Give the unproductive people free food (EBT), free housing, and free healthcare. They'll be sitting pretty, while a few people slave away to keep society functioning and the goodies flowing.

In my opinion, this is not a good solution at all. But I certainly don't see the GOP pushing for anything different.

10 posted on 11/09/2013 1:18:19 PM PST by ClearCase_guy (21st century. I'm not a fan.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Why I (still) support Obamacare

Because I can afford to live here, so screw all you little people.


11 posted on 11/09/2013 1:22:21 PM PST by Maceman (Just say "NO" to tyranny.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It all sounds so wonderful and utopian. Now, how do the liberals fish people out of the safety net that have fallen asleep down in the thing? Or do they just let folks drop down in to it until we run out of other people’s money?


12 posted on 11/09/2013 1:24:20 PM PST by MulberryDraw (That which cannot be paid, won't be paid.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Just give everyone corns flakes, cable tv, and Soma. Charge it all on their EBT cards. It’s all good. Who wants people to work and be independent anyway? /sarc

Thomas Friedman considers himself above the little people. He is a moronic twit whose theories are more wrong than they are right and who is right at least twice a day like a broken clock.


13 posted on 11/09/2013 1:27:24 PM PST by 3Fingas (Sons and Daughters for Freedom and Rededicaton to the Principles of the U.S. Constitution...)
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To: ClearCase_guy

-— We have lots of people and — to a disturbing extent — no need for their labor. -—

This is what the Luddites said. I would love to hire people to do a multiplicity of things. I just can’t afford to. That’s all that limits employment.


14 posted on 11/09/2013 1:29:47 PM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Friedman is an idiot 7 days a week.


15 posted on 11/09/2013 1:30:11 PM PST by Psycho_Bunny (Thought Puzzle: Describe Islam without using the phrase "mental disorder" more than four times.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Tom Freidman thinks he is just so brillant!!! Fact is, he is a total, dumb, buffoon!!!


16 posted on 11/09/2013 1:30:34 PM PST by JLAGRAYFOX ( My only objective is to defeat and destroy Obama & his Democrat Party, politically!!!.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Tom Freidman thinks he is just so brillant!!! Fact is, he is a total, dumb, buffoon!!!


17 posted on 11/09/2013 1:30:34 PM PST by JLAGRAYFOX ( My only objective is to defeat and destroy Obama & his Democrat Party, politically!!!.)
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Yet another Chine-related anecdote from a Leftist.


18 posted on 11/09/2013 1:36:20 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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China-related


19 posted on 11/09/2013 1:36:37 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
But here's the thing: you would hire those people -- if you could pay them 50 cents an hour. Now, you don't do that for two reasons:
1) Minimum wage laws say you can't.
2) People won't work for such a low wage because they cannot survive on such low wages.

Now, if the government is in the business of handing out food, housing and healthcare, then the government may make such goodies contingent on forced labor from the masses. And who knows? The government might even throw in some cash ... say, 50 cents on hour?

Employment in a market-driven economy is limited by supply and demand and the need to run a profitable business.
But government makes its own rules and now moves perilously close to "employing" people as slaves.

20 posted on 11/09/2013 1:36:47 PM PST by ClearCase_guy (21st century. I'm not a fan.)
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