TOM FRIEDMAN'S FLAT WORLD, LEXUS AND OLIVE TREE

As the July edition of the Washingtonian Magazine notes, Friedman lives in "a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million, on a 7½-acre parcel just blocks from I-495 and Bethesda Country Club." He "married into one of the 100 richest families in the country" - the Bucksbaums, whose real-estate Empire is valued at $2.7 billion.

So the next time you read a piece by Tom Friedman telling us how wonderful job outsourcing is or how great it is to pass Big Money's latest trade deal that include no labor, wage, human rights or environmental provisions - just remember: Tom Friedman, scion of a billionaire business empire, is just doing right by his own economic class.