EDITORIAL: Friedman’s book offers more anecdotes than specifics

Jan. 18--The best service a columnist can make is to point the readers toward solutions.

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times has gained acclaim for brilliantly outlining the historic changes taking place in the world through his columns and books.

But Friedman's latest book -- "Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving In the Age of Accelerations"-- is likely to leave a reader frustrated.

The book is packed with personal anecdotes and nostalgia and short on any reason for the optimism in the title.

He begins with the depressing statistic that change is happening too fast for most of us to adjust, that technology is turning over in five years but it takes humans 15 years to adjust. Thus, the title -- Friedman is thankful when he has a chance to slow down and take a break.

Frankly, he should have saved most of the book for his family memoirs and concentrated on Chapter 10 in which he outlines the sort of political solutions that ought to work for Mother Earth. Each of these solutions could have used their own chapter in the book.

Here are a few of them:

--He supports a single-payer health care system funded by a progressive Value Added Tax. This is highly controversial and deserves more than a paragraph. Won't this simply add another cost on the world's most costly health care system? Where do the cost savings come from?

--He wants to cut America's corporate income tax rate to zero. In one fell swoop America would go from one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world to the lowest. He would offset the lost income with a carbon tax and a tax on stock trades for all but small traders.

--He calls for setting up competition among the states to find the best methods of retraining workers and other innovative ideas.

--He favors extending and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Care Tax Credit. These are largely Republican proposals that serve to incentivize work as opposed to welfare payments that do the opposite.

--He writes that support for free trade agreements must be paired with wage insurance for workers impacted by free trade. But how would a person prove that? It's not always as simple as a factory closing and moving overseas.

--He believes all postsecondary education at accredited schools should be tax deductible. We would take that a step further and include work at a governmental or nonprofit group a qualification for a reduction in student loans.

--He wants tax incentives and reduced regulations to be used to scale up internet services.

--He suggests America borrow as much as $50 billion -- at today's low interest rates -- to fund improvements in roads, bridges, ports and other public infrastructure.

Each of these proposals deserves to be fleshed out more.

And Friedman had 500 pages to do just that.

So why didn't he?

___

(c)2017 The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, Fla.)

Visit The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, Fla.) at www.jacksonville.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.