That Used To Be Us: What Went Wrong with America - and How It Can Come Back
Contents:
From the cotton gin to the super conductor, America educated citizens up to the level of the most modern technology of the time, so they could exploit it. Have the world's best infrastructure. Immigration Policies that encourage the world's best and brightest to come to America T he Right Mix of Regulation to encourage capital creation while also protecting society from predatory practices.
Government-sponsored research and developmen t, which helped spur huge advances in transportation, communications, technology and biotechnology. Recently Viewed Your list is empty. What to Read Next. At the Times , he has won three Pulitzer Prizes: His second book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization , won the Overseas Press Club Award for best book on foreign policy in Exploring the World After September His fourth book, The World Is Flat: A revised and expanded edition was published in hardcover in and in The World Is Flat has sold more than 4 million copies in thirty-seven languages.
In he brought out Hot, Flat, and Crowded , which was published in a revised edition a year later. His sixth book, That Used to Be Us: Michael Mandelbaum , the Christian A. The realization that seventy-eight million baby boomers will cause the costs of Social security and Medicare to skyrocket. Tough decisions need to be made, sensible arguments. The armed forces as the bastions of civic idealism. Great examples of small businesses that work and their challenges.
A compelling case for a third party. The authors leave us with hope! Very disappointed that the book did not have a bibliography. No links or even a notes section. Not enough emphasis on the fact that our natural resources are limited and have a major impact on the economy. Supporters from both parties will have something to complain about, which is a good thing. Stats can be misleading especially when referring to other countries; references would have helped the readers look further into it.
In summary, an excellent book. The book really worked for me. As an engineer it touched upon many subjects that are near and dear to my heart. The authors did a wonderful job of laying out their premise and provided a satisfactory route to address such problems. Authors like Thomas L.
Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum remind me why I love reading so much. You may not agree with all their strategies but you will appreciate the wisdom provided. I highly recommend this book! For me, four stars means it is an excellent book I completely enjoyed. Five stars mean it is not only excellent, but that it is a rare and important book that everyone should read.
I want to give this book 6 stars that means not only excellent because this is important and urgent -- drop whatever you are doing now and read this book NOW! Tom Friedman's "The World Is Flat" book had a tremendous impact on our culture, but it presents a defeatist tone.
What I really liked was the clear and lucid presentation of the current situation that America is in. Section 1 is a humbling presentation of evidence of how far America has fallen behind along with history of how America came to be in a position of strength in the first place. This fundamental change in the workplace is the reason that unemployment remains high while the economy is growing. Education is the single most important key to reasserting greatness, but it is going to take the political will to act now, and then it will take a couple decades to see the result.
Chapter 9 - the War on Math: Chapter 10 - the War On Physics: Section 4 is about politics. It is a searing critique of how the current political system is deadlocked and unable to accomplish even basic legislative tasks while "The national debate is consumed by absurd distractions such as establishing beyond a doubt that the president was born in the United States. Meanwhile nobody is concerned about the big long term picture. The book then ends on a positive note with a lengthy discussion of what can be done. Bright energetic people still find America is the best place in the world to launch a new venture.
America still has advantages, and there is every reason we can hold on to that. We will need to get the public debate centered on right things, the things that matter. From a historical perspective we are changing from a resource-rich economy, to a knowledge worker driven economy, and an education to support this is more important than ever.
Continuing to do what has worked in the past will not do. Do I have any critique of the book? The first half was a page turner, toward the end it dragged on a bit. This can be forgiven; the scope is large. If I could get everyone to read the first half, it would be enough. The clear, well researched, lucid presentation of our current situation, cutting through the political rhetoric and disinformation, is invaluable.
As an America, I feel this might be our best, last hope.
And sure, the U. Twenty-five years beyond that, it had become a national joke. Science literacy a topic that really hits home. They describe picking out ideas from both the left and right parts of the modern American political spectrum. I found most of the material in the book to be practical, with great ideas for people on a personal level, on up to a national level.
Thomas Friedman has been pushing a consistent thesis for the past several years. Partnering with Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign policy professor at John Hopkins University, Friedman and delivers a set of useful policy principles for any American administration. They call for higher taxes and more regulation, but also cuts in current entitlements. While Friedman and Mandelbaum avoid the China scaremongering of other authors, I believe they miss an important point. China has more than four times the population of the United States.
Because of this, the country only needs to be one quarter as productive as American in order to surpass it in terms of aggregate GDP. Given the fact that China needs only to import technology from the west to accomplish this, rather than inventing new technologies, this seems inevitable. That said, the authors do make a good case that America needs to set its policy house in order. The infrastructure in the United States is getting old and nobody doubts our education system is a mess.
Oct 11, Chris rated it really liked it. Once you get past all the cliches and bumper sticker slogans, Tom again has a good book.
I was a huge fan of world is flat but only kinda liked hot flat and crowded. This book is kind of the love child of both but not exactly. Although I don't agree with a lot of his politics, he hits the nail on the head with education and business. For some reason people just don't seem to get that the world and business has shifted for good. You don't need lots of people to make lots of money anymore and as Once you get past all the cliches and bumper sticker slogans, Tom again has a good book.
You don't need lots of people to make lots of money anymore and as a consequence there are going to be less jobs going forward. With technology improving and business forced to learn how to operate lean and mean because of the great recession, businesses don't need to hire especially coupled with the fact there is no demand. They just don't need to hire new people to get the job done anymore. Existing employees, new machines and software are more productive and less costly. So what does this mean for the uneducated and the unemployed?
It is a global economy now - the genie is out of the bottle - the train has left the station - and no business in their right mind is going to pay one person to shine the fork and another to polish the spoon when they can get someone from another labor market or a computer to do them both for less.
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Fair or unfair it is reality. Labor is not only cheap now but intelligent labor is cheap and will continue to be so.
What happens to the losers in this economic showdown will be what makes or breaks this country and unlike Friedman, I'm not as optimistic that a society that feels as entitled as ours will prosper in this new economic reality we find ourselves in. I hope I'm wrong. Sep 14, Paul rated it it was amazing. An important book for anyone who cares about America. The book was written before the election, and we were already falling behind much of the rest of the world.
The authors give their formula for making America great again, and--surprise! The authors are optimistic about America's future, but they didn't give me much cause to be. Our political system is broken and incapable of correcting itself. Their solution is to have a charismatic third-party candidate emerge who will champion their formula. Well, we had essentially a third-party candidate in Trump, and he just brought out America's dark side and tried to set the country back 60 years.
As the authors point out, if we regress 20 years, it puts us 40 years behind the rest of the world because the world--a world we created, the authors are fond of pointing out--keeps moving ahead at an accelerated rate. The book made me fear for my country. But the first step toward bringing about change is to recognize the world we live in and how we got to where we are. Jul 04, Nancy Mills rated it liked it. A very good summary of some of the things that have gone wrong in our country, and how they can be remedied.
Author is somewhat more big-government oriented than I, but his points are cogently expressed and valid, especially his concerns about the expanding national debt and the need to reduce spending. Mar 02, thewestchestarian rated it liked it. Back in the early 's America became obsessed with its rapidly diminishing lead against an Asian country which seemed to be leagues better at business, education, manufacturing and government.
Because it would soon become the number one global economy, it's "Theory Z" management practices received our deep study and admiration. So Back in the early 's America became obsessed with its rapidly diminishing lead against an Asian country which seemed to be leagues better at business, education, manufacturing and government. Somewhere between '93 and '95, however, the metaphorical man behind the curtain of the great and powerfully Oz was exposed as Japan's undisciplined lending practices and refusal to write off the resulting bad debts sent their economy in a famous "Lost Decade.
Nov 21, Alicia rated it really liked it. I thought that this was a very intriguing book. I thought that the picking and pulling a part of the left and the right was fantastic. If we just keep letting party lines get in the way of progress to make out country better, we will not succeed and we will therein create more issues in the future with education, jobs, and overall sustainability. I like the thought process of adding a I thought that this was a very intriguing book. I like the thought process of adding a third party candidate to the election process.
I know that there were two others in this election that ran, but Friedman and Mandelbaum make an argument as to the importance of breaking up this two party system that isn't working as well as it should and challenge the status quo of our current party system. They stress the importance of paying these loans back but it comes at a price which I think is why nothing will be done.
There was a section of the book that struck a really important fact; that both parties, for the most part, run on meaningless issues that have no real substance when it comes to the core issues plaguing our nation- lack of education, the slowing information technology revolution —the fact that other countries are advancing over the US, our deficits, and most of all my opinion our energy consumption. There were a few interesting stories of other countries and their uses of renewable energy and how they are succeeding in their endeavors but we are stuck in this rut which is mainly blamed on big oil companies with their lobbyist in Washington with the ability to halt anything that could threaten their industry.
And the fact that the lobbyists in Washington have far more power than they should in this industry. Overall I really liked this book; there were many more good points made and how to solve these issues. This is another good point that I enjoyed about the book. They stated a problem and suggested a solution. Every American should read this book, all pages of it. They should read it, think about it, talk about it with their friends, and consider world, national, and personal events through the lenses that are framed in these pages.
‘That Used to Be Us’: Tom Friedman’s Rx for America to Get Its Groove Back
They should spend time. America can serve this world as a stabilizer that offers people opportunity, education, and the right to be visionaries. America can serve this world as a place where all live in some degree of peace. It has institutions that bal Every American should read this book, all pages of it. It has institutions that balance the rights of the individual with the very real fact that individuals have been monitored well enough over the last 15 years so that there have been no attacks on American soil.
Not an accident…and the world needs such stability. Most of this book analyzes how we got from what we were to what we are, and the authors are, in fact, fair and balanced. They're clear about their conclusions and about their data and their thinking…and every American ought to care enough about our country to read pages rather than line up in front of the media outlet that best echoes their own pre-determined attitudes. In the end, this is also a very hopeful book.
The authors look at us and see that we are, in fact, people who move beyond our situational selfishness to sustainably reach out to one another. We are people who can make plans, and in our own lives, we know that plans take time and effort. The authors believe that we need to deal with four changes in the world: Because of the first 2 changes, we are competing with billions of workers; because of the last 2, our own workers will be hobbled with debt.
None of these challenges will be easy to solve. All will require deep thought well beyond bumper sticker epithets currently thrown out during the 24 hour news cycle. By understanding how we got here, we can think about where we want to go. This book is a beginning point for the deep thinking that we Americans must do. Jan 05, Ellen Christian rated it it was amazing. That Used To Be Us is a call to action.
It's a bucket of cold water meant to wake up Americans and get them to see what's really happened to our country. Friedman and Mandelbaum take a look at four challenges that our country is facing: The authors believe that we have fallen into a trap of complacency and flat out laziness. If your father is like mine, it was always in response to you being lazy or not working hard enough.
If that's the case, you'll sort of understand where the authors are coming from. They feel that we as Americans have grown lazy and used to the problems in our country - like our failing roads and the horrible state of our public school systems. Our country is in a slow decline and it is just slow enough for us not to notice it - sort of like the frog in the pot of hot water.
The authors feel that we need to make a collective effort on a large sale to rediscover some of our most vital traditions and create a new third-party movement to galvanize the country. They offer profiles of individuals who have managed to hang onto the habits of bold thought and dramatic action and suggest a five-part formula for taking America back where it belongs.
I'm a big Thomas Friedman fan. I think he has a lot of interesting things to say and a lot of good ideas. I'm less familiar with Michael Mandelbaum although some of his books are now on my TBR based on what he discussed in this book. Anyhow, I really liked this book. The authors start out with talking about how we've kind of lost our way as a country.
We've had a lot of things such as the recession thrust upon us but we've sort of gotten lazy too. The book opens with a story a Full disclosure: The book opens with a story about the Washington, DC Metro something I know a little bit about having ridden it every weekday for the past couple years and how it's sort of a metaphor for all of the ills that we're feeling and how we've sort of gotten used to it and are at a loss to change things.
Friedman and Mandelbaum start out by talking about several challenges that the United States is currently facing. They use lots of examples to illustrate what they're talking about and they brought up a lot of things that I've never thought about before. One thing that I like about Friedman's books is that I think they're accessible to those that don't have a lot of background in things like economics and foreign relations. On the other hand, I think even those like myself who are sort of economics and poli sci nerds guilty!
Even though I don't agree with every single thing in this book, it definitely made me think a little bit, something good in any book like this! Dec 14, Jason Walker rated it liked it. I'm not sure it is fair to compare US education scores with other countries, I've never been convinced that it isn't the apple and oranges game.
Reading this book I think there are many apples and oranges brought to the front. The United States is not at this time the captain of industry and energy production; it will no longer be the captain of space exploration; and it will certainly never again be the leader in anything other than video games -- in a breath real and in a thought impossible.
T I'm not sure it is fair to compare US education scores with other countries, I've never been convinced that it isn't the apple and oranges game.
That is what this book presents along with a solution. I have read numerous pieces and books by these authors and even gave one title away as a Xmas gift a few years ago. That said my conclusion, slightly different from the authors', is not that the US is failing because of apathy alone, it's because we are completely divided on security and responsibility; the national agenda is a buffoon's race; politics stop more than approved at a Federal level; and there isn't a person wealth salt in D.
Removing the US from the gold-standard was a mistake. How many other things should we cite?
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This book raises dozens of questions and the very adept authors attempt to rationalize and project reasonable answers, but the truth is blinding from the beginning: We need to change the rules and we need to catch up to the rules that changed when we didn't notice. Oct 05, Scott Lupo rated it really liked it Shelves: Thank you to Mindy Kittay for suggesting this book. Overall, this is a really great book that outlines the challenges this nation faces along with solutions that the authors consider the pillars of American society. The four challenges the US faces, in the author's opinion, are globalization, the revolution in IT, our deficit, and our energy consumption.
They do a nice job of summarizing how the US got to this point in history, putting blame judiciously amongst all political persuasions. I generally agreed with their conclusions on both how we got to where we are today and what the potential solutions should be tomorrow because they actually use facts to construct their theories I know, you're shocked aren't you?