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The World is Flat - or is it?

Thomas Friedman wrote the book, "The World is Flat" and being a famous journalist and writer, he gets attention. He may get a few critiques, but mostly he gets praise. After all, would a book with more criticism than praise make money for the publisher?

I think the world is round. I tell you why. What goes around comes around. The saying that "every dog has its days" is as true as when it was originated. The only issue is that we will not know when. Usually it is a very long time, and most of us will not be around to see it happened.

Think about manufacturing. The industrial revolution started in England and factories were built. Now where is the manufacturing capital of the world? China. Before that, it was the United States of America with all the big factories after England. Then these were exported to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and so on. Now, many of them are going to China. Is that the end? If the world is flat, it will have an end point. There is no end point.

Have you heard of some call centres being relocated back to the United States, because of the inability of consumers to understand the language? Outsourcing was due to cost, though management will have you believe otherwise. Unfortunately, management has too many things to worry, and so even if that cost escalated, it does not know fast enough to react. By that time, different players will be in place, and so the whole CYCLE goes again. New vision, new plan, and new location. But who cares?

The world is not flat. It is a cycle of "haven't we seen this before?"

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