Quote

In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears-and that is our problem.

Thomas Friedman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas Friedman
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: July 20
Columnist
Journalist
Screenwriter
Television Producer
Writer
Saint Louis Park
Minnesota
Thomas Loren Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman
Today
Spears
Gates
Bill
Bills
China
America
Problem

More quotes by Thomas Friedman

Image
Iraq may still have a decent outcome...but even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Change your leaders, not your light bulbs.
Thomas Friedman
Image
The great thing about cheap natural gas, again it's cheap, and it provides a cleaner alternative to coal. But it's still a fossil fuel, and because it's still a fossil fuel, it still emits carbon.
Thomas Friedman
Image
We need to become energy independent or at least aspire to that.
Thomas Friedman
Image
The reason that we are becoming less equal is because of the greater requirements, secure requirements, for a good job. This goes back to the '80s basically, this started changing as globalization and the IT revolution merged, and each started to drive the other.
Thomas Friedman
Image
You'll know the green revolution has been won when the word 'green' disappears.
Thomas Friedman
Image
A vision without resources is an hallucination.
Thomas Friedman
Image
The Arab world had a big problem of frankly venal elites. That is why these revolutions happen, because people didn't think the opportunities were being shared fairly.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.
Thomas Friedman
Image
It created a global platform that allowed more people to plug and play, collaborate and compete, share knowledge and share work, than anything we have ever seen in the history of the world.
Thomas Friedman
Image
I don't think a monarchy led by 75- and 80-year-old men [Saudi Arabia] in today's modern world is really sustainable.
Thomas Friedman
Image
The first rule of holes is when you're in one, stop digging. When you're in three, bring a lot of shovels.
Thomas Friedman
Image
We are led by lawyers who do not understand either technology or balance sheets.
Thomas Friedman
Image
No matter what your profession – doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant – if you are an American, you better be good at the touchy-feely service stuff, because anything that can be digitized can be outsourced to either the smartest or the cheapest producer.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Basically all the world's computer parts come from the same supply chain that runs from Korea, down through coastal China, over to Taiwan, and down to Malaysia.
Thomas Friedman
Image
What we do know is that the planet is going from 7 billion people today to 9 billion. More people want to live like us, drive American- size cars, live in an American-size home, and eat American-size Big Macs. What does that mean? It means that energy demand is going to be going up.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Two things are going on at the same time with the flattening of the world: The relentless quest for efficiency is squeezing some of the fat out of life.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Combating climate change requires government policy, and most conservatives hate the idea of more government regulation. Because they hate the prescription, they deny the diagnosis.
Thomas Friedman
Image
The Middle East would always be an important trading partner in just a market sense, like America is a big market for us, Asia is a big market, Europe is a big market. You are going to have hundreds of millions of consumers there, from just a standard market point of view, from a very narrow American point of view.
Thomas Friedman
Image
Just because we can't sell shares in nature doesn't mean it has no value.
Thomas Friedman