Essay 9, the world is flat

Jaquelyn Hernandez

10/28/2012

IST

Essay 9, the world is flat

            In this chapter of The world is flat By Thomas L.Friedman, Friedman goes into more detail about how the world is becoming flatter. In this chapters Friedman speaks about subjects that prove his theory about the world becoming flat. Friedman speaks about how Dell builds their laptop, if al-Qaeda has a supply Chain, and why the curse of oil is.

            In this chapter I was very amused on how Dell builds their laptops. Dell will never run out of supplies for their computers, they have suppliers from all over the world. Dell laptops can be modified in the company to a customer liking and then sent to the customer. Dell even has an intelligent way of managing their supply links. A customer could be buying a 70 GD HDD but Dell will offer a larger HDD for only a few dollars more. Thus, they are never jammed with too many supplies and they continue with their sell chain.

                Friedman even goes into detail about whether or not al-Qaeda has a supply chain or not. To answer this, the al-Qaeda does have a chain. It is a traditional supply chain to influence other people to join their beliefs. By having this ability the Al-Qaeda can use the flat world to recruit more people and attack using technology.

                The Curse of oil is brought up by Friedman in his chapter. The Curse of oil is when there is an Abundance of natural sources. Because of the large amount of natural resources the culture most likely has less growth economically.  Also, due to the fact that the countries are on such rich natural area most leaders lose their morals and tend to care less about their people and more about money. People become neglected because there is no supply to them, they are only the suppliers.