By Kerry - What is Globalisation?

Globalization is the way in which the world is getting more interconnected due to increased trade and literary exchange. Businesses such as Walmart are becoming more and more popular and powerful, as this occurs, they bring in more money and can afford to buy more businesses in smaller towns, when this occurs the economy grows but can also have a negative affect on smaller, not-so-well-known businesses.

Some of the factors, which affect globalization, are:

Telephones and Internet. These have created a global village, for example the UK can have call centers in India and everybody in the world can connect with each other within seconds at the click of a button. Especially with social networking sites such as Facebook becoming more popular.

Transport is cheap and quick, therefore goods can be shipped and exchanged all over the world at any time, people can order things online from China and it will be waiting for you within a couple of weeks, never before has this been so easy to do.

People immigrate/emigrate too other countries to work and get paid a higher wage.

Corporations such as McDonalds have restaurants and businesses all over the world. Everybody seems to know the McDonalds logo, whether your 5 or 50.

Cheap materials and labor are what most companies are drawn to when deciding where to set up. However, foundations such as Fairtrade have stepped in to make sure people are being treated correctly and paid the wage they deserve.

Jobs and skills are brought to countries due to globalization, as well as bringing foreign currencies and different cultures, ideas and lifestyles. If Globalisation hadn’t of occurred, we wouldn’t have an understanding of other people lives and values, countries would be much more isolated, we wouldn’t have different foods and clothes. Countries would be far poorer than they are today.

However globalization isn’t always a good thing – it tends to work in favor of rich countries and in spite of the developing ones. Multinational companies can also send small businesses out of trade, as they just cannot cope with the loss of custom, cheap labor and profits. Globalization can also be the cause of recessions and other mass debt, for example; the countries that are part of Europe all suffered a recent crash after the Euro failed, when this happened it wasn’t just one country that was hit, it was every country whose currency was the Euro, it caused mass panic. As one country tries to help another country get out of debt, another country comes closer to debt. Every body owes somebody money.