Baker offers much more significant explanations for the decline in manufacturing jobs in the last 10-15 years.

This is an opinion piece that borders on being a 'Hit Piece' on Thomas Friedman. Author Dean Baker delivers several 'Strawman' attacks, and they're so frequent throughout the article that the bigger problem for me is the framing of the entire piece- an attack on Friedman as an individual rather than attacking his arguments without being emotional and sensationalist.

This points out just how little curiosity some folks at the NY Times can have and still keep their jobs. Friedman is not this ignorant of a man which really shows just how badly captured our press is in the US. Either by carrot or stick, this was a total whitewash attempt meant to divert dissent away from policy choices our so called "leaders" have made over the last 40-50 years. It's too bad incomplete poorly researched stories like Freidman's didn't get edited and scrutinized at the Times before it was published so other's wouldn't have to point out just how misleading they truly are to the general public.