Corporate America gets it, while we the people and our politicians lag behind!
by Charlie Leck
The world really is flat! It is something we little folks are having a hard time accepting. It’s time to recognize reality. America will never be what we knew it to be when we were young.
Remember? Remember the feeling of greatness we had as Americans? My grandchildren will never know that same tremendous feeling. America simply stood at the top of the mountain and there were no competitors for our position at the spot. We were the “king of the hill” and no one could knock us down. No nation could mass produce quality goods the way we could. The entire world was our marketplace. The largest, most powerful corporations in the world were American and they depended on the skill and initiative of the American worker.
Our dollar ruled the world’s monetary system. We set the standard for the evaluation of currency around the globe. As our economy went, so went the strength of the world’s monetary system.
by Charlie Leck
The world really is flat! It is something we little folks are having a hard time accepting. It’s time to recognize reality. America will never be what we knew it to be when we were young.
Remember? Remember the feeling of greatness we had as Americans? My grandchildren will never know that same tremendous feeling. America simply stood at the top of the mountain and there were no competitors for our position at the spot. We were the “king of the hill” and no one could knock us down. No nation could mass produce quality goods the way we could. The entire world was our marketplace. The largest, most powerful corporations in the world were American and they depended on the skill and initiative of the American worker.
Our dollar ruled the world’s monetary system. We set the standard for the evaluation of currency around the globe. As our economy went, so went the strength of the world’s monetary system.
Then, a couple of years ago, Tom Friedman made the remarkable observation that the world had gone flat. Incredible fast transportation and instantaneous communications, including the Internet, had shrunk the world and brought us all on to a level economic playing field. You can listen to an MIT lecture by Friedman here. A description of the lecture, taken from MIT World, is reproduced at the conclusion of this blog.
Our nation no longer dominated in the field of industry and finance. Massive work forces in places like China and India had surpassed us in terms of initiative and energy. Nations in Europe, unified, were proving to be every bit as industrious and inventive as America.
The giant corporations were no dummies. They recognized the trend years and years ago – long before Friedman’s book – and they adjusted their approach accordingly. The large, successful corporations in the world are no longer American companies. They may keep their headquarters here, but they are global organizations and they are as at home doing business in Uzbekistan as they are in America.
The academic world and the corporate world have accepted the fact that the world has gone flat.
The only elements of our society that haven’t accepted the facts are you and I – the common, once-proud Americans. We, and the politicians in Washington, continue to think America dominates and still runs the show.
It’s time to get our heads up out of the sand! The rules of the game must now be rewritten and we must learn to be more cooperative internationally and more open to negotiation rather that dictum. If we are going to keep pace with the rest of the world, we’ve got to get a move on!
This includes every phase of life you can think of, including health care delivery and education. We’re being manhandled in those two areas and there are many others, like transportation, where we’re falling behind also. If you haven’t read THE WORLD IS FLAT, it’s not too late. You’ll see how correctly Friedman nailed this global situation.
If you were a betting man, would you put down money that the next great fuel system for automobiles, which won’t depend on non-renewable energy sources, will come from America? I’d take the rest of the field, as they say.
Welcome to a new world! I’m not pessimistic about it. Quite the contrary! I think it’s going to be exciting and my grandkids, if they think more globally and internationally, will enjoy the ride.
This is how MIT World,a mighty fine web site to look in on regularly, described the Tom Friedman lecture.
Our nation no longer dominated in the field of industry and finance. Massive work forces in places like China and India had surpassed us in terms of initiative and energy. Nations in Europe, unified, were proving to be every bit as industrious and inventive as America.
The giant corporations were no dummies. They recognized the trend years and years ago – long before Friedman’s book – and they adjusted their approach accordingly. The large, successful corporations in the world are no longer American companies. They may keep their headquarters here, but they are global organizations and they are as at home doing business in Uzbekistan as they are in America.
The academic world and the corporate world have accepted the fact that the world has gone flat.
The only elements of our society that haven’t accepted the facts are you and I – the common, once-proud Americans. We, and the politicians in Washington, continue to think America dominates and still runs the show.
It’s time to get our heads up out of the sand! The rules of the game must now be rewritten and we must learn to be more cooperative internationally and more open to negotiation rather that dictum. If we are going to keep pace with the rest of the world, we’ve got to get a move on!
This includes every phase of life you can think of, including health care delivery and education. We’re being manhandled in those two areas and there are many others, like transportation, where we’re falling behind also. If you haven’t read THE WORLD IS FLAT, it’s not too late. You’ll see how correctly Friedman nailed this global situation.
If you were a betting man, would you put down money that the next great fuel system for automobiles, which won’t depend on non-renewable energy sources, will come from America? I’d take the rest of the field, as they say.
Welcome to a new world! I’m not pessimistic about it. Quite the contrary! I think it’s going to be exciting and my grandkids, if they think more globally and internationally, will enjoy the ride.
This is how MIT World,a mighty fine web site to look in on regularly, described the Tom Friedman lecture.
In his latest book, The World is Flat, Friedman describes the unplanned cascade of technological and social shifts that effectively leveled the economic world, and accidentally made Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda next-door neighbors.” Today, “individuals and small groups of every color of the rainbow will be able to plug and play.” Friedman’s list of “flatteners” includes the fall of the Berlin Wall; the rise of Netscape and the dotcom boom that led to a trillion dollar investment in fiber optic cable; the emergence of common software platforms and open source code enabling global collaboration; and the rise of outsourcing, offshoring, supply chaining and unsourcing. Friedman says these flatteners converged around the year 2000, and “created a flat world: a global, web-enabled platform for multiple forms of sharing knowledge and work, irrespective of time, distance, geography and increasingly, language.” At the very moment this platform emerged, three huge economies materialized -- those of India, China and the former Soviet Union --“and three billion people who were out of the game, walked onto the playing field.” A final convergence may determine the fate of the U.S. in this final chapter of globalization. A “political perfect storm,” as Friedman describes it -- the dotcom bust, the attacks of 9/11, and the Enron scandal -- “distract us completely as a country.” Just when we need to face the fact of globalization and the need to compete in a new world, “we’re looking totally elsewhere.” [MIT World Lectures]
