by David Sirota | Open Left

Tom Friedman has been the most aggressive and well-known spokesman for know-nothingist free trade, job outsourcing and sending blue-collar kids off to die in wars for oil. His advocacy is a form of loyalty to class, considering he’s spent most of his adult life as a guy who married into a billion-dollar fortune. I say “most of his adult life” because Vanity Fair reports that he’s now “only” a $25 millionaire thanks to the real estate bust brought on by the very boom-bust economy Friedman himself championed. Indeed, the company that created the family fortune he married into is on the brink of going bankrupt.

Maybe Friedman’s fall from the billionaire’s club will make him come to his senses on some of this financial and trade stuff. Maybe – just maybe – he’ll start realizing that the free-market fundamentalism he’s been preaching for so long has some downsides.

Then again, he’s still got $25 million to his family’s name, and a 12,000 square foot Bethesda mansion. So I’m not holding out much hope…