"Levelling the Playing Field" as devised and put together by Thomas Friedman in his book The World is Flat, in my opinion, is a wonderful thing. It creates room for innovations and opportunities that would not have existed had these flattening forces not come together.
A family friend of our's decided to branch out his business and started 'ProgressYou.com', a website that offers math education programs to interested students. He devised a knowledge based business , the instructors , mostly Indian(placed in India) , gear up late at night to start educating students in the US (there is a 10.5 hour time lag). Due to this setup, there is an advantage to students who can afford affordable tuition rates and there is an advantage to the instructor as she gets paid for imparting knowledge in her spare time. This idea has created a lot of jobs...the instructor's, the marketer's( credited for the design of the website), the advertiser's, who gain from advertising to the student crowd, and the American based software company's, whose software is used in the process.
In this era where the only thing that seems to be constant is change , the Globalized concept of free trade makes it possible for countries and businesses to co-dwell with each other by increasing the size of the economic pie, thus making it beneficial to all in the long run.What are your views on the concept of free trade, do you think that if easy access was not possible into new ventures between countries and businesses, we would be where we are now? Today's generation is totally dependant on economies of scale through trade in the free world...am I just being overly cautious about how I need to prepare for the new world or are my thoughts there already?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I strongly agree that change is good. I believe free trade could have either positive or negative effects depending on how we look at the big picture of "flattening". America is used to being a country that develops very quickly and is "ahead" of other countries, so to speak. With the results of world flattening, we may need to rethink this outlook. Other countries now have equal opportunities to be successful. Regarding the issue of free trade I think that as Americans we need to be prepared for things to change, such as the market which is being flattened along with everything else. Americans need to be smart with the way they educate themselves and prepare for their careers. Free trade brings countries closer together, which makes things more competitive, but if we stay on our toes and prepare ourselves for this we will benefit in the end.
I believe that Free Trade is a good thing; of course I would love to live in a world where I could dominant my profession and not have to worry about job security. However, the truth of the matter is that we don’t live in this type of world; there is always a something new on entering the market whether it makes a person’s job easier or makes it harder, you have to know how to use it to your advantage. In regards, to free trade of services not all services can be traded, so for a generation like ours who is aware of globalization and the possible affects we have options to take part in it or to find professions that can not be a part of free trade. I personally don’t mind it, I feel that if constant change is what is needed to keep our economy evolving then I would have to agree that change is good.
I agree with the previous two comments that free trade is beneficial for the economy and has tremendous effects when it comes to "flattening" the world. Now that other countries are quickly gaining the equal oppurtunities that we take for granted the world of business has become even more competitive and job security can't be guranteed. Yet, for all the downside that free trade seems to cause it forces us to be more focused and competitive, developing us into greater innovators as we are forced be more competitive. Change is good and we can't escape the change that the world is undergoing so it's best to do everything we can to embrace the change already upon us.
Post a Comment