"He's right that we need to reboot -- but the irony is that it's his generation (and his mentality itself) that is forcing this."

I grew up just a few miles away from where Friedman grew up, just a few years later. Friedman and a lot of his neighbors in his generation were early in urging their fellow Americans to have environmental concern and to be aware that America is just part of the world. I have good evidence for this, because my fifth-grade class made a time capsule in 1969 to be opened in the year 2001, with predictions of that year.

Perhaps Friedman's elementary classmates and my elementary classmates were part of a minority in America, but maybe people who share those concerns are still part of a minority in America. Anyway, these days it's easier for more Americans to see what is going on in the rest of the world, and there is plenty to learn from.

P.S. People in Friedman's generation and mine will be retiring at substantially older ages than our parents did--that's already a settled change in the Social Security law.