Protect Your Income From Globalization

By Sean Anderson

Economic globalization is occurring rapidly. Countries in Eastern Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa are undergoing rapid economic development. Growth in these geographic regions is expected. Why wouldn't companies seek out the lowest cost centers? Low cost centers exist just hours away from countries like Germany in places like The Czech Republic and Estonia. Why pay fifteen Euros an hour in Germany when employees accept two Euros per hour right down the road? These companies are even growing with the charitable help of the "West". If you want you can get online and make an interest free loan to somebody who may replace you in the next five years.

Globalization can be seen everywhere. Even in traditionally well protected service sector jobs like IT and Accounting. A lot of IT jobs have already slipped into the clutches of countries like India and the Philippines.

What does this mean?

The service sector jobs are going to become increasingly less skilled, and the skilled service sector jobs will become outsourced. College diploma's will start looking bleaker all the time. They will hang on the wall they as a reminder of your Note Payable from student loans, not the promise of a prosperous job. The reason is that technology and globalization are breaking down educational, cultural, social, political and economic barriers. The problem is not that the barriers are being torn down, this was inevitable. The problem is the rate with which it is happening. The people in prosperous countries will not have time to make adjustments.

Fifteen years ago people didn't have Indian IT personnel, fresh coffee beans from South America, and handcrafted masks from Africa. Now people even have entire rooms dedicated to an Asian or European theme. It is great to have this type of diversity in the home, but this diversity has saturated our culture in a short fifteen years. Imagine the effect when this shift of goods becomes a shift of wealth. The top tier in the world will suddenly be asked to live a more conservative lifestyle. The result will be instability in economic markets, and shifts of power.

In a rapidly evolving and globalizing world it is important for nations to have a population that is rapidly adapting. The super power nation of today will fall by the wayside if their people cannot adapt to these changes. It sounds dramatic, but it is not naive to expect nations in similar standing as the United States to see an overthrow of government. Failure and prosperity are both on the horizon for every country despite it's current economic standing.

Currently the U.S. stands to lose the most. This can be seen in the weakening dollar (Canada's dollar is now more valuable than the U.S. dollar), the export of white collar jobs, the growth of low paying service sector jobs and in many other aspects of American life.

The future survivors will have either moved to other countries to exploit the difference in the standard of living and maintain a job or will use the internet to protect themselves from the sliding prosperity currently held. The internet is the one median transcending borders and culture. Prosperity here can be achieved everywhere. Those who master the internet master the global economy won't have to worry about. They will use a global tool not a global location to determine success. Don't view globalization as an enemy close, embrace technology and get ahead of the shift.