Friedman believes that America has to open up to free trade because it can derive many benefits from participating in free trade with other countries. He believes that opening up to free trade will help the country merge with the new concept of flat world or globalization. The advantages for America operating in free trade are numerous. One of the aspects the author focuses on is the decrease in unemployment. This can be done if the United States opens up the global trade in the agricultural sector. This way many unemployed people will have more chances of finding jobs in this closed sector. The demand for goods will rise and this will be further stimulated by the demand for innovation to increase the production level. The other advantage of opening up to free trade is that it will help reduce the rates of migration from one country to the other. This comes about from the fact that an increase in the employments opportunities will prevent people, especially the youth, from going to other countries to look for employment opportunities. The Americans can further benefit from free trade if they use Ricardo’s theory on the comparative advantage. This theory states that specialization in production of goods with comparative advantage when it comes to its costs and trading it with other states for other goods will increase the income of the country. This is true according to Friedman, who believes that free trade will open up the market and allow the Americans to practice outsourcing and offshoring. The concept of outsourcing is important for any business thinking of getting some services done, but do not have the skills needed internally (Friedman 45).
The companies in international business utilize this activity because it is cost effectiveness and the people doing the work are expertise. Technology makes it possible for outsourcing with the fiber optics and the World Wide Web. Offshoring is another aspect of international business that makes it easier for businesses to deal with the production and operational costs in their host countries. This is the practice of taking the production processes of the company to a different country. Offshoring tries to minimize the costs of production. Friedman makes it clear that the arguments some people have against free trade do not hold. The arguments that free trade will lead to decline because it will lower the wage levels is not true because as the demand for goods and services increase so will the prices of the goods. This way, people will still earn substantial wages. The increased demand for goods and services will require more employees to produce them, hence raise the wages and the demand for labor. He uses China and India as examples of countries that opened up to free trade and are now among the top countries economically.
The idea of taking the right classes in order to learn the right thing is one of the things the author focuses on in chapter seven. College classes help one learn the right things at the right time. Some of the things one does in college to help them learn the right thing is practice how to forge good relationship with others instead of constantly doing transactions. This way one learns to understand the different concepts and applies them while working. The other thing college teaches students is the importance of engaging in solving novel problems. This is a shift from the routine where a person learns to solve common problems. The other important lesson is learning how to face problems and issues as a whole subjects instead of focusing on individual aspects. It is important to adapt to new changes in the setting to help one fit in to the dynamic business environment (Friedman 67). The skill of “CQ + PQ > IQ is used by Friedman to explain how students should use curiosity and passion to learn about new concepts. The ability of a student to think beyond the obvious helps him or her understand concepts and put them into practice. Passion, on the other hand, helps build skills that will enable the person to tackle different problems. Critical thinking is some of the lessons that help one develop a deep sense where students are able to question things and learn to appreciate different aspects of content. Liking other people and learning to get along with them helps one navigate through social networks and careers. Communication skills help the students learn how to relate with other people and get along with them. This is an important characteristic for students to develop. This is because the skill cannot be outsourced from one company to another. The human relation courses are particularly important in helping the students learn how to do their jobs well.
There is an increasing demand for workers who can perform different tasks. This is the concept Friedman discusses in the Tubas and Test Tubes. This idea requires an integration of different talents and abilities that a student has in making decisions. This is something that anyone can do because people have multiple talents. The College of Business can fulfill this goal by nurturing different talents that students have. This can be included in the curriculum by setting aside times to test the different skills students have. This is something they can do by putting in some time for talent show casing, where students with different talents can come up and compete. This should not be part of the course content because students may feel that they have to do it instead of it being a voluntary action. The students can do what they feel they are best at and at the end the COB can identify those with outstanding skills in different areas. Moreover, they can help them build on it by providing resources to help them nurture their talents further. The other way this can be applied in the curriculum is by having competitions held once every month to identify who has skills like persuasion or the ability to convince buyers. This can be done by creating an interclass competition where the class members have to sell goods and achieve a certain goal at the end of the day. This way the school will identify those students with marketing skills and other skills needed in the business world.
The introduction of the iPads and iPods has made the world a really small place and it had made connectivity between individuals easy and convenient. Every day I spent about three or four hours browsing and learning new things. This has made learning interesting as I get to learn new things, interact with students from other countries, and share ideas. This has increased my attention span as I get to concentrate on the class work more now as compared to when I had to go to the library and manually search for content.
I try as much as possible to interact with other people from different parts of the world and in the process, I get to know about the things they go through, the variation in culture, the challenges they face and even their daily routines. This way I get to learn different cultures and new things that I integrate into my daily life to make it worthwhile.
The connectedness via social media provides a platform where people interact and get to know more about each other. I try to balance the time I spend on social networks and most times, I do not believe all the things I see in social networks. The information I get from the articles and postings on social networks help me know current issues and make it easy to understand what is happening outside this city.