That article is the equivalent of.... Last week I visited Nevada for the first time and was completely awe struck by the amazing infrastucture. The quality of life is so great in Nevada that masses of people from all over the globe want to be there. This is evidenced by the fact that as I walked down the strip over 100 different nationalitees were represented. People were laughing and playing everywhere and didn't seem to have a care in the world. Washington D.C. had better take notice or it might be replaced by Nevada as the nation's capital. The author of such a statement has taken a one week Las Vegas Strip experience and portrayed it as being typical of the rest of the barren wasteland that makes up the majority of the state. Those laughing and playing are doing so because they are on vacation, while the actual residents are no where in sight and are really no different than residents of any other state. Similarly, Friedman has visited a part of Beijing that was intentionally spruced up at massive expense to impress the world for a couple weeks, and then acts as if this is what "China" is. They've got 2 billion people, pay them extremely low wages, and the government can redirect funds at will to build whatever structure it desires. Somehow this is supposed to be an example for the world? I haven't read much of this guy's stuff, and now thankfully, whenever I see his name, I can save myself the time.