Is it dependence or interdependence!

Suppose the economies all across the globe are coupled together like the coaches of a train, US will act as the locomotive pulling the rest along.  This is how a recent article explained the impact of US economy over the rest of the world.

Though I am not much into stock market however I am able to "guess" that once the dow jones is negative  in the night, generally it will have similar negative impact on nikki, hang-seng, and finally to India. The dependence or rather the interdependence seems to be growing in certain aspect at an alarming rate. When I hear stock market crashing on "global cues", gold price effect, weakening dollar, and so on; I do wonder, are the global economies coupled together so enormously. Few other articles that I have recently read was where people were trying to convince others that we need to decouple from other economy(s) and need to strength the local roots.

Well I must say I am big admirer of that thought process. However still lacks in understanding another relative terms of in this context which is “globalization”. Are we globalize to be interdependent (as the stock market seems to suggest) or should we assume that we still want to decouple from US, China and so on. I am sure that we can talk too much, amateurs like me can write too much, but the fact remains that we cannot be decoupled. Organization now cannot think that, as manufacturing is happening in China, research in US and India, service is being handled at Philippines. So what you will decouple from what. I would say that our local roots require a global support. Like farms in India may require technology developed in US.

We talk about “one” earth, we talk about “global” warming, we talk about “global” peace, we talk about “common” fight against terrorism, and so on, but don’t we realize that what is common in all this. The only thing common in all this is “common”. Now we have a common goal, we build product for the entire globe, we share common threats, etc etc. But yet we find time to talk about “decouple” in the age of globalization.

Sometimes I wonder when politician campaigning in US cities gives loads of speeches about outsourcing and the impact that has on its economy however I am pretty much sure that most of the people listening to the speech buys a “Made in China” product from their local Wal-Mart. Then why so much for hue or cry over it. This is an age of globalization and interdependence, and we cannot deny it.

I use twitter, I blog, I get so much information from various parts of the planet earth but I can say that moving forward I will not do that. There may be a chance (though one in million) that I will do that but will the world around me do it.

You know the answer.