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

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