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vol. XVII no. 1 In Dependence.
The global economy has arrived even in a small, sleepy hamlet in central Mississippi. ln May 2003, Nissan Quest the first new vehicle ever to be manufactured in Mississippi rolled off the assembly pine at a new $1.4 billion plant in Carton The sparkling modern facility — stunning in its sudden appearance amid cow pastures and pine trees along Interstate 55 — is at the heart of Nissan's three-year revival plan to significantly expand its North America sales and establish sustainable, profitable growth. In return the state gets 5,300 new jobs for the Canton area, as well as additional jobs for Nissan support operations. Or the plant's historic opening day ore local worker said with pride. 'When I leave work and go shopping. I don't lake off my uniform. This place really is a field of drams."
In communities across America, people are learning the lessons of the global economy by seeing its impact on their home turf. Indeed, foreign companies are creating Jobs in small towns arc cities across the United States, but likewise jobs, both high tech arc blue collar are migrating out of America. The global economy is a two way street, and with all its traffic, the world has gotten smaller. Today, business opportunities and investments come to America's shores, but so do threats such as SARS and terrorism. We are no longer a nation independent from the rest of the world. Decisions, policies and events from around the globe have an Impact on our own business landscape. The rising value of the euro and the undervalued Yuan both affect our ability to trade with other nations. Competition for American products comes from the East and the West. Our dependency on Mideast oil reserves ties us to instability in that region. Since the mid-1980s, with large-scale international borrowing, the United States has been the world's largest debtor nation. We rely on foreign investors to infuse the more than $2 billion we need every working day to pay our bills.
In short, the economy of the United States Is firmly bound to its global neighbors. "The United States is irrevocably linked to all of the world's continents:' says Peter White, head of the Southern Center for International Studies (SCIS). "It's the largest economic and military force in the history of the world. The rest of the world reacts to what we do and say and our leaders don't understand that. We don't realize how big and powerful we are" The SCIS, a nonprofit educational institution has taken on the mission to internationalize the thinking of the American public precisely because "it is critical that the biggest guy know the implications of his actions, "White says.
Just as the SCIS is working to bring the lessons of the world to America, American landmark companies are working to comprehend how to work best in foreign lands. For example, at headquarters in Istanbul, Ahmet Bozer (MIS '83) approaches his job as head of Coca-Colas Eurasia and Mideast division with the philosophy to "think global, act local." His division's business activities encompass 23 countries with a combined population of almost 555 million people who have four- different alphabets and speak nine languages and six dialects.
"Successful and lively communities are essential for our business," Bozer says. "If the living conditions of a society improve, the expenditure capacity increases automatically which brings together the growth of our business. In today's economies, this can only happen as the trade and investment opportunities increase," George Moussios (MS.'86) a Greek businessman living in London, believes "the best global economic policy is the sum of the best rational policies that take account of developments elsewhere:'
Will the Europeans eat our lunch?
The people interviewed for this article point to the declining value of the dollar as the biggest recent impact on the global and U.S. economies. For Americans, a less powerful dollar makes vacationing abroad more expensive and translates into pricier imports. Some economists explain the weakened dollar as a reflection of the magnitude of U.S debts and our reliance on foreign money to finance them. They believe that a decline in the dollar was due and that the drop will encourage American exporters. By pushing up the cost of imports, the weakened dollar potentially could narrow the U.S. trade deficit running at approximately $555 billion.
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