Archive for November, 2006

{ November 14, 2006 @ 9:30 pm } · { Blogroll, FSEM100J }
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So tonight as I was procrastinating doing all my work I was, of course, on Facebook. However, as I was looking on the newsfeed, I saw an interesting group that one of my friends joined called “I wish I were your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves.” When I scrolled down to the wall postings, I saw this website that everyone kept posting and told people to join. I was curious so I went to the URL. When I got to the site, it explained this game called LOST. Basically, it is a project by a group of students who wanted to see if seven million people could be connected. In order to see if this was possible, a person has to be invited by seeing a certain URL for the game starting with www.lost.eu that is followed by a few characters like www.lost.eu/51f3. The only way to lose in this game is if by the seventh day that one has joined, they have received no points. To gain points, you must invite people. For every person that one invites, they receive one point and for every person that those people invite, one receives a half point. Whoever has the most points when the group has reached seven million is the winner and wins a certain monetary amount.

            Now what does all this have to do with globalization you ask? Well seven million people is quite a large number. This group originated in
Europe and is already all the way to the states. Imagine just how many people this will reach by the time seven million are contacted. Already in its third week of existence, people on all six populated continents have joined. According to one graph on the website, membership has increased exponentially, as it should. The real question is how fast will the group reach seven million people?

            The concept of the group has a lot to do with the theory of six degrees of separation. Meaning, that everyone in the world can be connected through six people. I certainly think that this is a plausible idea. Especially now that we have technology such as the internet that so many people have access to. However, there still are many places in the world that have limited or no internet access such as Africa and parts of
Asia. Yes, these places may be hard to reach, but they are coming closer and closer to becoming more developed countries.  

            Anyways, I think that this group serves an interesting purpose and I think it will be fascinating to follow the numbers. Also, I think it will be interesting to see if the group continues to grow exponentially or if it will hit a plateau before it reaches the coveted seven million members. So here is my cordial invitation to you all to join; all you have to do is click on this link www.lost.eu/51f3 and set up a username and password and you are set! Just don’t forget to invite other people and check occasionally to see how this globalization experiment is coming along.  

“Made in the USA”

{ November 1, 2006 @ 11:30 pm } · { FSEM100J, Uncategorized }
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All four of the companies mentioned in recent articles in the Wall Street Journal in their series “Made in the U.S.A.” are maintained in the US because each company fills a niche that is hard for foreigners to copy.

For example, the Bobcat Company finds that it is easier to stay in
North Dakota where its roots are very strong and the workers are very loyal. Also, the domestic location of the business enable it to ship replacement parts in a very short period of time that foreign companies could not even dream of.

The same concept is true for the Schantz Organ Co that uses manual labor to produce all of its products. It would certainly be difficult to transport large and cumbersome organs from countries abroad. Another reason why the Schantz Organ Co remains in the
US is its highly skilled work force. It takes many years for a person to become an expert worker in the different types of work that need to be accomplished to produce an organ. Not only are workers highly specialized, but they take on “responsibility for an entire chunk of production.” However, as with the Bobcat Company, deep community ties are a strong factor as to why the company stays in the
US.


Warsaw, IN sees the same type of influence in the orthopedic replacement field. This small town community buzzes with activity from the many companies that are congregated all in the name of artificial body parts. The power that the area generates over the field from the concentration of companies is another of the reasons that it remains in the
US. Another important reason is the amount of regulations that
America has on artificial parts and the reduced hassle of buying the parts from an American company that abides by the regulations.

This leads one to thinking of the quality of goods. A company that focuses on quality and stays in
America because of its reputation is Viking. The appliances that Viking produces are “cult object[s].” People will pay higher prices for products from Viking because of its name and therefore, Viking can afford to sell for more. Another way that Viking cuts costs in order to stay in business in
America is to custom make each product in order to eliminate any costs incurred by stocking warehouses.

 These four enterprises are all proof that globalization does not necessarily mean that all factory jobs in the
US will be eliminated. The companies mentioned provide hope for a desperate country that is rapidly loosing jobs overseas by providing examples of effective measures that will make their companies prosper. This all proves that it is possible to keep the jobs that many feared were lost.