In The News

Globalization Must Be Embraced: IBM's Elix

David Nason June 20, 2006
By adopting global integration strategies immediately and together, multinational corporations could ensure that globalization continues unimpeded. And that would force governments to collaborate and respond to globalization, according to Doug Elix, head of IBM’s sales and distribution arm. He suggests that globalization of business is inevitable, and he emphasized that point with a visit to...

Don't Fear the Future

Gordon Brown June 19, 2006
With growing consumer markets in Asia and the developing world, globalization provides Europe and the US with ample opportunity for economic growth and product innovation. However, many in wealthier nations advocate for “protectionist” agricultural strategy and take an isolationist stance to global trade to secure domestic employment in the labor sector. Gordon Brown, UK chancellor of the...

Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow

Keith Bradsher June 16, 2006
Currently, China uses more coal than the US, the European Union and Japan combined. China’s global-warming gases such as carbon dioxide will “probably exceed that for all industrialized countries over the next 25 years,” note journalists Keith Bradsher and David Barboza in “The New York Times.” These emissions have widespread impact, increasing global temperatures and releasing harmful sulfur...

Web Ads Present New Front in Hacker Wars

Riva Richmond June 15, 2006
“Pay-per-click” online advertising, how many websites charge customers, is a new target for computer hackers. Illegal software, which can be surreptitiously attached to private PCs, generates false clicks in massive numbers. The potential for false accounting could place advertisers in financial conflict with servers like Google and Yahoo and could be used by rival companies to attack one...

The Dirt Road to the Information Superhighway

Jens Glüsing June 15, 2006
Admittedly, Microsoft’s inexpensive, pay-as-you-go “Flexgo” personal computers might not be the most efficient way to introduce computer technology to the developing world. However, as evidenced by the explosion of mobile phones in such areas, affordable technology can always find a vast market in developing and underdeveloped regions. As US economist C.K Prahalad pragmatically puts it, “the...

Saudis Cite Market Forces for Lower Crude Output

Bhushan Bahree June 12, 2006
At a June 1, 2006, meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Caracas, cartel members attested to having trouble finding buyers for their crude oil exports. While such oil-producing countries as Saudi Arabia and Iran accumulate a massive inventory of crude, reports suggest that demand for oil is actually going up, according to the New York Mercantile Exchange. Some cartel...

Globalization: It’s an Inflation-Busting Superhero

Neil Reynolds June 6, 2006
Individual choices contribute to the speed of globalization: World trade accounted for 10 percent of gross world product in 1960 to 30 percent today. Foreign visitors increased, from two per every 100 people in 1960 to 15 per 100 in 2005. More than one third of the world relies on cell phones, and a billion people use the internet. Over the past 30 years, inflation has also decreased, and it is...