The Virgin Of Guadalupe: Summary

The Virgin of Guadalupe

In Chapter 10 “The Virgin of Guadalupe” the book talks about how differencing with the flattening of the world. How China has past Mexico in exports to the United States. How they have also started even making statuettes of Mexico’s patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe. How countries are advancing or getting left behind by the flatting of the world. How governance, infrastructure, and education are helping countries succeed in todays world. Even though every country is going in the same direction they are all doing with many different speeds with China being at the top. To be successful in a flattening world countries have to make and ship items cheaper than other countries. China has now past Mexico in
exports to the United States to put them second on the exports list to the U.S. behind Canada. China even started exporting the statuette of Mexico’s patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe. When China can make them and ship them all the way across the Pacific more cheaply than Mexico can produce them there selves, then that is when we can realize we are living in a flat world. Another item China has started was Egypt’s colorful lantern called fawanis.
A fawani has a burning inside of it and Egyptian school children traditionally carried them around during Ramadan which is a tradition that dates back centuries. For centuries a small low-waged workshop in Cairo had manufactured them until the last few years.
This is when the Chinese-made ones began flooding the market. They were made with a battery powered light instead of a candle and they were plastic instead of metal that had shape edges. This also made them safer for the children to be swinging around. People with ties to the Egyptian fawani industry believe that China has a clear advantage over Egypt. With its superior technology, China can make mass quantities at one time which helps to keep prices relatively low. As the world flattens countries are advancing or getting left behind. China is the wolf of all the ten flatteners. The entry of China into the world market is the most important for developing countries and for many developed countries. The reason is because China can do high-quality low-cost manufacturing better than any other country and it can also do high-quality higher-cost manufacturing. With China and the other nine flatteners coming on so strong, other countries need to start living up to there potential
also. Another important factor in having a successful country is with developing and reform retail of the governance, infrastructure, and education. One country that has done so is Ireland. Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union behind Luxembourg. After almost going under, Ireland got the courage to change. The government, main trade unions, farmers, and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity by slashing corporate taxes to 12.5 percent, moderating wages and prices, and aggressively courting foreign investment. In 1996, Ireland also made public colleges basically free, which created an even more educated workforce. Because of the higher educated workforce nine of the top ten pharmaceutical companies, sixteen of the top twenty medical device companies and seven of the top ten software firms hae operations in Ireland. Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers said “What attracted us was well educated workforce, good universities close by, and an industrial and tax policy which is consistently very supportive of businesses, independent of which political party is in power.” He also said “they are competitive, want to succeed, hungry, know how to win. With Ireland keeping their labor laws flexible, some jobs have gone, but new jobs keep coming in. I myself agree with what this chapter is saying. Look at how China has pasted Mexico in imports to the United States. Think about one thing, how can China make an item and have it sent all the way across the Pacific to U.S. cheaper than Mexico can drive an item across the border? Its like I stated early China can mass quantities of an item which makes the cost relatively lower. I say give five years if that and China will pass Canada in the most imported item to the United States. It makes sense that if you have flexible labor laws then more companies will want to open factories in different countries. The results are clear that countries need to start playing offense to attract new jobs instead of playing defense to try and protect the old jobs. If ten countries that are flattening the world would work together with the undeveloped and underachieved countries instead of trying to be on top though I do believe that we could turn this back into a more globalized world instead of a flatten one. This might even bring prices in every economy down and make it an even playing field for every country out there.