I have finished the book by Friedman. He redeems himself, in my opinion, toward the end of the book, although not entirely. He talks about the sad state of our education system, or the product it is churning out, but doesn’t go far enough in explaining how bad things really are. He does talk about the lack of motivation in today’s kids and their parents, but stops short of blaming it on society. In other words, he takes too soft a line for anyone to really stand up and take notice. There are reports that American kids are falling way behind their Asian counterparts, and I admit these could be biased to try to scare people, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes to know there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. I’ve mentioned countless times how European schools, high schools, go so much farther than we do in preparing kids for college. Friedman mentions this, explaining how the competition to get into college is stiff because they are state institutions. My only experience has been with people that have actually gone to college, I have no idea what the quality of education would be like for someone that doesn’t aspire to get into a tertiary school. Mr Friedman advocates mandatory schooling of two years in college here in the states. The only problem with that is, making it mandatory does nothing to compel more students to excel, or parents to get their kids to excel. Secondary schools in Europe teach much more than they do here, because more is needed to go on to the college level, or rather more is needed to compete with everyone else that aspires to get into the schools. I knew two students at UofA, from France and Iran, that said the first two years here are a breeze because they had everything in high school before coming here. Of course he also talks about the lack of students, American students, getting into the hard sciences. The schools, and the country, were still ok, because they just recruited students from abroad, and they would stay. Now however, according to Friedman, the access to information is leveling the playing field for schools and students in other countries, which has resulted in better educations in foreign countries, so the students don’t have to come here because they can get the quality education at home. This is going to result in a huge deficit in intellectual resources here in the US, which will keep the US from holding onto it’s share of the prosperity in the world market. The way he sees it, capitalism has already gone worldwide. Although he doesn’t say so in so many words, his explanations of how companies are operating worldwide describe capitalism on a global scale. The author doesn’t talk about the integrity of companies working on a global scale though. He says there will always be some that use global resources for dishonorable ends, but he minimizes it too much. There is so much to say about this book I could go on forever. I had thought about reading it again after I obtain a hard copy, but it will probably never happen. There are too many things to read, I already have four or five definitely in the queue to read, and more being added all the time….