Globalization problems won't go away

ARTICLE: Asia Free-Trade Zone Raises Hopes, and Some Fears About China, By LIZ GOOCH, New York Times, December 31, 2009

Here's my prediction on the ASEAN-China FTA deal: overall a win-win but plenty of bad things will happen.

The larger victory, though, comes in starting the experiment and forcing China to thereupon adapt to the demands unleashed from neighbors.

Like most forms of connectivity, this deal is no panacea. It just forces the next-best set of problems to tackle.

This is Steve DeAngelis' mantra every time Enterra goes through another evolution: "This is our best set of problems yet!"

That is exactly how we need to view globalization's advance--not some magical erasing of problems, but moving on to better problems.

Comments

[Gilbert Garza]

I suppose a best new problem set could be one of a type that we already know how to handle/solve, or at least have reasons to have better expectations of handling/solving than the one that came before. It may also offer more assurance of better outcomes. If it is not any of this then it may still the best new problem set, eventually. Suppose that it is a problem set that is so extraordinary and troublesome that we will not only have to reconsider our standard positions and approaches but we also have to think and do something truly smart (maybe big revolutionary and evolutionary) to respond and maintain our reputation and assure our survival. If somehow we manage to succeed, this not only gets us back on track, it also brings us to a whole new higher level and wider space of possible new problem sets (best, worst, and in between) because, as we soon become aware, we have provided ourselves with major growth and development-- in human resources abilities capacities and understanding, in technologies and resiliencies, and in financial structural and other resources as producers and marketers of smart solution sets for our own and other people’s new and hard problem sets, if that is what we do. If we don’t succeed then we may have another best new problem set, eventually-- if we are still around.