Not Business as Usual

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Bummed out by layoffs, corporate scandals, and outsourcing? Chin up, there's good news too. Readers of this blog will recognize a combination of ideas from a couple of previous posts last month in my newest Diamondback column, "Finish Your Homework". Here I acknowledge the threat of international competition in the "flat world" but point out why the U.S. needn't be too worried. Space restrictions required my magnum opus to be trimmed a bit, but I think it still gets the point across. An excerpt:

...several factors stand in the way of either China or India knocking the U.S. off its preeminent perch. Let us not forget the world’s most important and admired businesses today — companies such as Apple, Starbucks, Google, eBay and Goldman Sachs, to name a few — are distinctly American. I would tell my fellow Robert H. Smith School students it is probably unnecessary to bone up on Mandarin (though it couldn’t hurt) and we should not worry about spending our careers chasing after jobs in New Delhi or Shanghai. Nonetheless, one thing is clear: There are a lot of people on other continents out-hustling us Americans. While for now they might only represent a minority of their populations, more of them are springing up daily to take advantage of increased opportunities.

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