“Americans are ignorant of the lessons of history and that’s why their country is going down the tubes. The lesson of economic history is clear: there is no flat playing field in the world and there never has been. There are rich nations and poor nations. There are winners and losers.”
So much for Thomas Friedman’s beloved myth that “the world is flat” thanks to advances in communication and patently useless technologies such as wind and solar power, biofuels like ethanol, and other costly, wasteful nonsense.
What matters is whether the cost of the electricity to power our televisions, our computers, and everything else is affordable, whether the cost of gasoline doesn’t bankrupt a family’s budget, and whether everyone in that family who can work can find a job. Nations will the greatest amount of energy are the most successful nations.
Martin Sieff is the Chief Global Analyst for The Globalist Research Center, a former United Press International Managing Editor for International Affairs, and widely published where it counts, such as The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the National Review. It is his quote with which I began this commentary and it is his new book, “That Should Still Be Us: How Thomas Friedman’s Flat World Myths are Keeping Us Flat on Our Backs” from which I took the quote.