Why the NY Times is losing money
I had a bad day last Friday, but it was an all-too-typical day for America.Over a longer time period the NY Times has also lost a great deal of money yet it is still sending guys like Friedman on boondoggles to Hong Kong and paying for his transit on what he perceives to be inadequate infrastructure in the US. Most of this country does not rely on rail transportation because it is too inconvenient. For the rest of us to pay so Friedman does not have dropped cells does not compute.It actually started well, on Kau Sai Chau, an island off Hong Kong, where I stood on a rocky hilltop overlooking the South China Sea and talked to my wife back in Maryland, static-free, using a friend’s Chinese cellphone. A few hours later, I took off from Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train — with wireless connectivity that was so good I was able to surf the Web the whole way on my laptop.
Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I’ve argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3. (Couldn’t we at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart, like other major airports in the world?) As I looked around at this dingy room, it reminded of somewhere I had been before. Then I remembered: It was the luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport. It closed in 1998.
The next day I went to Penn Station, where the escalators down to the tracks are so narrow that they seem to have been designed before suitcases were invented. The disgusting track-side platforms apparently have not been cleaned since World War II. I took the Acela, America’s sorry excuse for a bullet train, from New York to Washington. Along the way, I tried to use my cellphone to conduct an interview and my conversation was interrupted by three dropped calls within one 15-minute span.
All I could think to myself was: If we’re so smart, why are other people living so much better than us? What has become of our infrastructure, which is so crucial to productivity? Back home, I was greeted by the news that General Motors was being bailed out — that’s the G.M. that Fortune magazine just noted “lost more than $72 billion in the past four years, and yet you can count on one hand the number of executives who have been reassigned or lost their job.”
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As for the New York infrastructure, my guess is that the authorities responsible for it are spending money on higher salaries than those in Hong Kong, which makes it more difficult to finance improvements. Good luck on restructuring transit salaries in New York Friedman.
Friedman wants to live in a fantasy world of magic energy and transportation while strangling our current energy supply. That is not how the free market works and indeed, he appears to be someone who does not trust the free market. He is a control freakenomics guy.
BTW, we have some nice modern airports here in Texas with ceilings tall enough for Texans.
Ben Greenwald finds further fault with Friedman's comparison of the US to China.
Under an item labeled Flotsam and Jetson James Taranto catches Friedman using some old material in this column.
Thomas Friedman is only pointing out what anyone acquainted with the big wide world out there has known for years -- that many developed nations have superior infrastructure to the US. And, of course, if we talk about service, America, apart from the odd Ritz-Carlton, is third world. The airlines are a joke with their "We have pretzels but it will cost you." And the French have always built better trains.
ReplyDeleteAs Friedman no doubt understands, capitalism is fine if it is properly regulated by a competent, trustworthy government and if it is not totally driven by personal greed. As neither of those things has been true so far in 21st century America, capitalism has collapsed and, to the horror of the Hannitys who seem to think Obama is really left wing, the country is having to turn to doses of socialism to dig itself out of an unholy mess that is making life miserable for millions.
If Obama can really set about modernising America while creating jobs at the same time then, in a few years, Americans travelling abroad will be able to enjoy the modern delights of Hong Kong, Singapore and especially Shanghai without feeling embarrassed. But it won't happen overnight.