Homework #5

1. In Chapter 7 Section “The Right Country” Discuss why we as Americans can become part of the “New Middle” base on the following ideas

According to Friedman, Americans have all it takes to produce the job and educate the sorts of people who will succeed in a flat world. These will allow America to shift from old middle to the new middle. Let’s see how come based on this ideas.

• Flexible Free market economy

America has a flexible, deregulated free market economy with tons of experimentation and competition between state and universities. This is a powerful asset in a changing world. In America there is a constant willness to break things up and rebuild them anew.  This gives America an enormous advantage. Moreover, America has not surrender either to economic protectionnists or national security protectionnists which both are trying to put work boundaries.

• Institutional strengths

The U.S. institutional system is very competitive and experimental. There is a real network of search universities which are the pioneers in terms of competitive experiments, innovation and scientific breakthroughs. The U.S. university system is the best, and counts 4000 universities and colleges filled with high IQ people. These people come there and are allowed to innovate. Thanks to this system, many basic university research project such as Web browser, MRI, space exploration devices became real inventions.

• America’s security and regulation of our capital markets.

According to Friedman, America has the best regulated and most efficient capital market in the world. There is an easy availability to find capital to fund new products and innovations. This allow to take new ideas and turning them into products and services and there is no capital market in the world which does that better than the american one. NASDAQ and NYSE illustrate this, where risk capital is collected and assigned to emerging ideas or developping companies.

But the dark side of this system is that there are scams, excesses and corruption, often conducted by personal gain and self interest. Hopefully, some institutions such as the Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC) keep an eye and what is financially done.

• Say anything- do-anythiing

This is the fact that America is the best country to continually be able to start a business even after an eventual bankruptcy. This kind of illustrates the American Dream where the sky is not the limit.

• Quality of American intellectual Property Protection

The quality of American intellectual property protection encourages and enhances people to come up with new ideas. In a flat world, when you come up with a new idea, you want to be able to secure it, because information spread so fast that you don’t want your idea to be stolen. America respects and protects intellectual property better than anyone else, that’s why a lot of inventors come in the U.S.

• Labor laws

Finally, in America, it is very easy to hire or fire someone respectively if the industry is rising or dying. This can be opposed to a inflexible and rigidly system such as Germany, where it is full of government restrictions about employment.

2. In Chapter 8 summarize in your own words each of the 6 dirty secrets, and if you agree or disagree within each secret.

The 6 dirty little secrets are :

1. “The Numbers Gap.”

This refers to the fact that there is a declining number of American students completing degrees in math and science domains. This is a big deal because there is an increasing numbers of students around the world who are completing these degrees. In this flat world, almost all jobs require this kind of degrees this is why it is problematic. Moreover, the students completing degrees in engineering in American universities are often from other countries and they will take the knowledge they acquired in their own countries.

I am partially agree with this secret because more and more students are interested in studying business and you can definitely see an increase in the numbers of foreign students in sciences domains.

2. “The Education Gap at the Top.”

This refers to the fact that, American students are not interested enough in advanced math, science and engineering. There are several reasons for the decline of American students in these advanced degrees domains. One of these reason is that student’s proficiency has fallen in reading and writing as well as in science and math due to the rising number of young Americans watching television and surfing the Internet.

I am not agree with this secret because I think that technologies should encourage students to study sciences especially because it is interesting to know how the technologies we use work and how to improve them.

3. “The Ambition Gap.”

Outsourcing become more and more cheaper and efficient, but the quality and the productivity is huge. There is a real lack of ambition because television, video and online games take over.

I am agree with this idea because television and video games are made to kill ambitions. Just take the example of sitting in the couch watching TV on a sunny Sunday versus going outside and do some exercise.

4. “The Education Gap at the Bottom.”

This refers to the differences in quality of American public schools. Whereas an elite private school provide an education based on innovation and creativity, a public school only provide the basics of life. This is really inequal, depending on either you are born in a wealthy environment or a poor environment. In this flat world, students coming from a public education system have less of a chance for success.

I disagree with this secret because it is only a problem in the U.S. Tons of countries around the world have public schools such as France and it doesn’t kill the chance for students to success in a flat world.

5. “The Funding Gap.”

This refers to the decreasing amount of funding the federal government provides for research in physics, math, and engineering sciences. Funding, as a share of the GDP, declined by 37% between 1970 and 2004 and the effects are starting to show.

I am agree with this secret, because if the government doesn’t provide any funds to research, known that research is really expensive, the innovation is dead and you can definitely see the effects. Think about the space research, how the funds for research decreased over years, not surprising that no one walked on the moon these past years.

6. “The Infrastructure Gap.”

This refers to the technologies infrastructure gap in the U.S. In the global ranking of broadband Internet usage, America has fallen from 4th to 16th. The reason is that most American homes can only access a « basic » broadband described as low speed, costly, and less reliable. This is particulary critical to advance productivity and creativity in every sector of the economy.

I am totally agree with this secret, because for a country such as the U.S. which was the pioneer in the Internet race, it is not tolerable to have such a bad broadband nowadays compared to countries like Japan.

3. In summary; Discuss your overall impression of the book? What did/didn’t you like about the book. What are your thoughts about your future employment in the world.

My overall impression is mixed.

On one hand, I liked this book because I think that Friedman is right. According to him, if you want to survive in a flat world, you constantly need to acquire new skills, because things are going faster and faster. What is learned at school is usefull for a certain time but it becomes outdated quickly. Moreover technologies are part of our everyday life and we have to learn how to deal with it because today, companies give the priority to them compared to human contact.

On the other hand, I did not like this book because I think Friedman is sometimes too pessimistic and his vision is purely american. For sure the world is moving fast but with all the recent problems in the economy, people tend to think more before taking any decisions. People realized that technologies are good to a certain point and that there is a real need in controlling it.