Why Globalization is Good (and Bad)

Read two articles on the benefits and pains of globalization.

One article in the Wall Street Journal about how Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman for the Federal Reserve Board, was commenting on some of the downsides of free trade. He was big proponent of free trade, but has recently changed his tune on the matter saying that there are real short term risks. One of those is the loss of certain types of jobs. At the top of the list are (of course) computer programmers. Good list of jobs to avoid I suppose.

On the flip side of this article, I read another article in Forbes entitled "Why Globalization is Good". This one seems to focus more on why globalization is good for other countries though. Some examples

In the 1990s, as Vietnam's economy grew 6% a year, the number of people living in poverty (42 million) fell 7% annually
In Uganda, when GDP growth passed 3%, the number fell 6% per year, says the World Bank.
Per-person income in China has climbed from $16 a year in 1978 to $2,000 now. Wages in factory boomtowns in southern China can run $4 a day--scandalously low in the eyes of the protesters, yet up from pennies a day a generation ago and far ahead of increases in living costs.

India, who lagged behind trade reforms (only starting in 1991), hasn't advanced quite as far. Some results:

77% of Indians live on $2 a day or less, the Asian Development Bank says, down only nine percentage points from 1990.
A third of the population is illiterate.

Comments

gnp said…

In the context of biofuels, people talk a lot about how there is a global market for crude oil - and even a lot of the feedstocks that go into biofuel production (like corn, palm oil, etc). And there's talk of eliminating the import tariffs on ethanol to allow in ethanol from Brazil. Definitely more of an interconnected world than it ever has been.

April 15, 2007 at 7:55 PM

Biofuels May Hinder Anitglobal-Warming Efforts

Read an interesting article a couple weeks back in the WSJ on how biofuels may actually increase carbon emissions in the medium to long-term. Apprently the shifts in land-use necessary to support the production of bio-materials like soybeans, corn, or palm could in fact release more carbon emissions. The time it takes to get carbon-neutral on some of these projects is pretty crazy - 319 years for soybean biodiesel from Brazil (assuming you're clearing rainforest), 93 years for corn ethanol from the U.S. (assuming you're clearing grasslands), 86 years for palm biodiesel from Indonesia (assuming you're clearing rainforest). I suppose biofuels really aren't meant to reduce carbon emissions, but just crazy that they potentially exacerbate the problem so much.

Nine Prescriptions for Building the Duke Entrepreneurial Community

I think Duke can have one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Are we there yet? Well, not yet. But there's a tremendous amount of momentum that I saw build in just the past two years while I was getting my MBA at Duke. While leading Duke's 10th annual business plan competition, the Duke Start-Up Challenge (DSC) , last year, I witnessed a near doubling of participation on campus in just a single year. The interest on the ground was clearly there and building rapidly. But now that I'm an alum, I'm looking back and wondering ... how do we rev-up the Duke entrepreneurial community even more? I read a great article by Daniel Isenberg, a professor of management at Babson, called " How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution " in the June edition of the Harvard Business Review. Isenberg outlines nine prescriptions for governments that want to create entrepreneurship ecosystems in their countries. Although he was focused on governments an

Bloomberg for President?

We can only hope. I read an article in the WSJ about how business people across the country, from entrepreneurs to bankers, are all hoping for Bloomberg to run. The economy thus far seems to have taken an unusual backseat in this years election but seems to be emerging as an important issue. An interesting excerpt: As the economy has emerged as a dominant issue in the 2008 campaign, candidates have struck populist notes, from Republican Mike Huckabee's boast that he is not a "wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street" to Democrat Barack Obama's visit to Wall Street to chastise finance executives for failing to protect the middle class. I can see the approach these guys are taking and I'm sure they have really smart campaign strategists. But I really wonder if this type of message of polarizing the "working man" vs. "big business" really resonates with voters anymore? Is the middle-class really that disgruntled with big business and income dispa

Power Pal

Search This Blog