I just want to say "Thom Friedman is an ass!"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/opinion/29FRIE.html

Tokyo-So I come to Tokyo to get away from it all, and what do I discover but more bad news for the John Kerry campaign. Not only does the U.S. economy appear to be headed for at least a burst of recovery around election time, but so does the world's second-largest economy, Japan, which should also help buoy the U.S. recovery. It's more evidence, to me, that Mr. Kerry may have to run in the most difficult of all environments, and exactly the opposite of the one Democrats had hoped for: an environment where the U.S. economy is rebounding, and Iraq is reeling.

As I lie awake in my Tokyo hotel, jet-lagged out of my mind and having my Bill Murray "Lost in Translation" moment, I am clicking back and forth between CNBC and CNN on the television. All the news on CNBC seems to be about how Asia's economies are now on fire, and all the news on CNN seems to be about how America's Humvees in Iraq are now on fire.



I've been to Japan probably more times than Friedman. Here's the scoop on Japan:

1. Just like the US, they've had a jobless recovery for years now.

Nobody's getting any big raises, the Nikkei is still below where it was in 89, and, like the US, hiring contract workers is pretty rampant, even at established zaibatsu.

Their government is still running huge deficits, lots of money is going who knows where, the retirement system's going kaput because of a lack of young folks because of a lack of immigraiton & low birth rates, the banks are still suspect.

The stock market's way up, of course, but hey, so was ours.

More of Friedman's stupidity:

I went to a briefing that Wal-Mart put on with its Japanese partner, Seiyu, a local store chain, about opening the first Wal-Mart-like big-box stores in Japan. No one ever believed that Japan's rigid, small-shop economy would tolerate a discount big-box approach like Wal-Mart's, where wholesalers get squeezed and everything from employees' pens to paper gets rationed.


Guess what? Wal-Mart wasn't first with a Superstore.

But really, Friedman's taking {i]Wal-Mart as a sign of "recovery?"

Doesn't that just say it all?