This is a Big Deal

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/friedman-this-is-a-big-deal.html?_r=1&ref=thomaslfriedman

Friedman's main claim is that Obama's action in backing a new deal between the EPA and top U.S. automakers is a great move forward in moving the U.S. up to the level of Europe and Japan in environmental initiative. His worldview is based upon a globalized world, and he believes that to keep pace with the rest of the developed world, the U.S. must move forward toward a more environmentally friendly policy. He begins with a concession, agreeing with many readers that Obama has failed in many of his goals in making the U.S. more green. This is effective because it gains the trust of many of his readers and starts him off on the same side as the readers. By convincing people of the importance of this new plan, Friedman gains support for other green environmental policies. In the third paragraph, he contrasts the 2025 goal for emissions, 54.4 miles per gallon, with a short, emphatic sentence: "The current average is 27.5 m.p.g." This makes the current gas mileage, which many consider less significant than other problems of today, seem like an important problem. By presenting the problem as a serious failure, he gains the attention and concern of his readers. Friedman states his thesis about halfway through the article, after stating the billions of gallons of saving in oil and green house gas emissions. He waits that late to state his thesis because the first part of the article states his concession and the concrete savings the deal will bring, and it brings his readers to his side so that they'll agree with his thesis when he states it. Friedman uses mocking language to criticize the people in opposition to the bill in order to depict them as selfish, incompetent, and stagnant. Phrases like "Naturally, the E.P.A.-haters hate the deal" use mocking words like "naturally" and "haters" to show that the opposition are bigots who prevent change and "ignore the net savings to consumers, plus the national security, innovation, jobs, climate and health benefits." By connecting these changes that almost all Americans want with the deal, he depicts the deal in a positive light while demonizing the opposition. By gaining support for the deal and criticism of the opposition, Friedman makes his readers more inclined to support environmental legislation and deals, which he thinks are necessary for the U.S. to maintain its position in the globalized world.

Globalization above all!

This cartoon by John Backderf shows the negative effects of unlimited globalization controlled by corporate America in the Americas. The title "globalization Über Alles," meaning globalization above all, and the reference to "out benevolent lords and masters" depict globalization as an extreme and totalitarian effort by rich corporates to make a lot of money and exploit the rest of the world. Brazil is Home Depot's lumber yard, Argentina is a source for Whoppers and Big Macs for Burger King and McDonald's, and countries below Mexico in Central America are places for 27, 25, 24, 23, and 22 cents a day wages. These countries and many others have lost their true names and are labeled by what they are exploited for. In addition, China is being towed next to South America because workers there are also being exploited or extremely low wages under inhumane working conditions. Backderf has a negative view of outsourcing, which is shown by labeling Mexico as "Your Former Job," showing that many American jobs have been outsourced to exploited Mexican workers in sweat shops. Backderf also shows that globalization is not for the general good of Americans by labeling "Easily Duped Souther Voters," "Gullible Cowboys," and "Cooperative Gun Nuts" on the map. This creates the image that rich, powerful businessmen are manipulating the citizens of the U.S. to go along with their plans for globalizations, even though globalizations will only hurt people. Backderf also groups the FTAA protestors and the relocated IRS and SEC headquarters on the Falkland islands to show that corporate America has overpowered them. In this new FTAA where globalization is above all, free trade rules and there are no taxes or regulations on corporate actions or trade. 

Like any major change, globalization has both positive and negative aspects. However, it is clear from the cartoon above as well as the article "Let's Admit it: Globalization Has Losers" that globalization has a negative influence on far more people than it has a positive influence on. Although globalization opens up many new opportunities for jobs to people all over the world, it also opens up most areas of the world for large corporations to exploit and from which companies can glean resources. Despite these problems with globalization "über alles," if globalization is controlled responsibly and regulated so that workers are not mistreated and resources aren't exploited, it can be used to connect poor, rural workers to the global economy and help pull them out of extreme poverty, like in the article "Workers of the World, Employed." This impact sourcing, a type of outsourcing, can help people in very poor areas, but it usually takes jobs from more developed areas. It therefore extremely important that the quality of education is increased in developed countries so that people in those areas have more skills to be able to create their own new jobs as Thomas Friedman suggests in the article "How Did the Robot End Up With My Job?" Most of the effort to improve education should be targeted at the poor and lower middle classes, who have little chance of traditional success without a high quality education, and have little chance of getting a high quality education without traditional success, as the article "Super People" asserts.

Workers of the World, Employed

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/workers-of-the-world-employed/?scp=5&sq=globalization&st=cse

Although globalization has profoundly changed many areas of the world, it has not yet reached some areas of the "informal economy" in developing countries. One method used to help people become involved in the global economy is called impact sourcing, a process that makes it advantageous for companies to outsource business processes to workers in developing countries, and, like micro financing, it can show that people from rural villages or slums are trustworthy and reliable workers. Impact sourcing is cheaper than outsourcing, and unlike outsourcing, it gives impoverished people without a college education or many prospects to better their situation and young people without much prior job experience an opportunity to better lives. In today's digital world, there is always more computer work to be done, called microwork, and people in developing countries can do it well because of the connectivity of the internet.

Super People

Although this article is not directly about globalization, it does address the increasing world competitiveness in our society. There has been, in the past twenty or thirty years, a Great Academic Leap Forward that has both resulted from and contributed to growing inequality in American society. Children start to work hard for a successful future from a very early age, and being brilliant is just not enough anymore to get into a good college and to lead a 'successful' life. In today's globalized society, students also have to compete with other "Super People" from all over the world, and because colleges and universities want a diverse student body, being foreign is often an advantage in itself. But the greatest advantage of all is simply having money. Rich people can practically buy their children "Super" resumes by sending them to build schools in Bolivia or the like. (Not to say that all this volunteer work is bad; it isn't. High achieving students do a lot of good in the world.). But just like the wealth gap in American society, the gap in education and intellectual capital is growing. While rich kids all over the world are achieving higher than ever before, the quality of education in poor, inner-city schools is the same as ever. The globalized world had led to an even more over-worked and success-driven society in which some people are winners and some people are left behind in the dust before they even know the race has started.

Let’s Admit It: Globalization Has Losers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/lets-admit-it-globalization-has-losers.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=globalization&st=cse

Globalizations creates both winners and losers. This can be seen clearly in the auto manufacturing sector where the American workforce has been greatly reduced while the Mexican, Indian, and Chinese workforces have been increasing because labor in those countries is much cheaper. Instead of trying to create more jobs for Americans in the manufacturing sector by starting wages very low, the focus should be on expanding industries in which the U.S. is ahead now, like service industries such as education, entertainment, digital media, and financial services. Education is also an important part of being a "winner" in the globalized world. Although the U.S. government should not take complete control of private industry, it should help to create more "winners" by, for example, using tax incentives to encourage new companies to create new high paying jobs, providing visas to entrepreneurs, and  making public financing markets easier to access.

Thomas Friedman: How Did the Robot End Up With My Job?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-did-the-robot-end-up-with-my-job.html?ref=thomaslfriedman

Friedman's main point in this article is that the high rate of unemployment in the U.S. today is not only the result of the current recession, but is also due to what he calls "The Great Inflection." By "inflection," he means that the number of workers needed for any one job is decreasing. The cause Friedman provides for "The Great Inflection" is the increasing interconnectedness of the world that has created a constantly growing pool of labor. Wider competition puts more people out of work, but unlike blue-collar jobs that have been outsourced in the past, the white-collar jobs that are put at risk because of wider competition are not being transferred to any one location. More interconnectedness allows the best workers and machines from all over the world to get jobs, while being average or even good, Friedman argues, is not enough anymore. However, new connectivity in the world also makes it much easier to create a new job, so Friedman concludes that the school system must teach and inspire students to be innovators or to make themselves stand out instead of settling for average or good enough.

This is the picture from my last post.