Module 7

Ryan Williams

February 28, 2015

Module 7

            Some countries are doing better than others. Why? Well, not every country in the world is the same, so obviously some countries will be able to do better at something than another country. Maybe a country has a really high population. Since they have some many people, a lot of jobs can be filled. Having a lot of people can be bad too. Just because there are a lot of people doesn’t mean that there will be enough jobs for all the people, this meaning that the more people there are, the more jobless people there will be. With less people, they would need to be more specialized. If they are more specialized, they will be able to earn more money. Other than population, there are other things that can also give countries that advantage over others. Natural resources is one. If a country has a lot of natural resources, then that natural resource can be their top export. If it something fairly rare, then they could make a good amount of money off of it.

            Self-directed consumers are consumers who “customize the price, experience, and service he or she wanted.” Basically, the consumer chooses how much they want to pay for something and not be told what they need to pay for it. Companies are using this to their advantage by getting the consumers to think they need more and more expensive things and the more customized it is, the more expensive it is. They are making their products more and more customizable and more specific for each consumer so they can do just that. I would say that I am a self-directed consumer. When I buy something, sometimes I want it be the same as others, but sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, I want it to be as personalized as possible. When I buy a car, I want it to be different, that way when people see it they will either go ‘Wow, that car is so cool!’ or, ‘I bet the dirt around the tires and up to the window has a really cool story.’ Something like that.

            I think that globalization is partially Americanization but partially not. I like the way Friedman put it in the book. “The most popular food in the world is not the Big Mac. It’s pizza. And what is pizza? It is just a flat piece of dough on which every culture puts its own distinctive foods and flavors.” What I think this is saying is that America, in a sense, put a base down, but every country can build whatever they want on that base, but since America put down the base, I see how people could be saying it is Americanization and not globalization. That is probably the best way to put it.