Tom Friedman Again

I admire NY Times columnist Tom Friedman. He always seems to write about topics I am interested in. I just wish he were more careful about his prescriptions.

Take today's column (Who Will Succeed Al Gore?). Unlike last week, at least today he wishes Bush had done something to "reverse our coming Social Security deficit". This implies he knows that Social Security is not in deficit today. I just wish he were more humble and not assume that there will be a deficit, but at least characterize it as a likely deficit. But only God knows if there will be a SS deficit.

The unasked question is, why is Al Gore not running for president? My guess is that the Clintons promised him their combined support to run for president in 2016, as long as he did not challenge Hillary for the 2008 Democratic nomination, and he accepted that deal.

I agree with Mr. Friedman that we need "greener" technology and industry. But when he uses "distributed solar power" for the army as an example, I disagree.

The most important thing we can do to strengthen our military and ensure that it stays the most technologically advanced fighting machine on the planet is simply to keep it out of stupid wars (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq) and use the money saved to research and develop nuclear fusion power generation and/or thousands of nuclear fission power plants across the nation. Then, we will starve our enemies of today of the funds which they are using to threaten and terrorize us, and our GDP will grow so far and so fast that we could increase R&D throughout all of our industries and government. In such a setting, our military could not help but to become smarter and more powerful, since a strong economy generates more government revenue, and that revenue can in turn purchase more R&D for the military and more technology for fighting future defensive wars.