About halfway through “Billions of Entrepreneurs” I began thinking about how sometimes hardship begets initiative / personal drive. Drawing from personal experience of perseverance, persistence, and reminding myself that I do have the power to succeed in the face of life’s adversities, I feel that emerging markets that seek to develop their under-developed limbs may inadvertently be shooting themselves in the foot.

In reading about the new Second World markets I spent quite a bit of time on the G8 and G8+5, thinking about how these few individuals have great influence over millions of lives. It’s reasonable I believe for them to get more criticism than applause, especially when the issues facing them don’t exactly have easy answers… and the problems only stack up.

In Maddison, I was surprised by the sprinting effect that the scientific revolution has had through the centuries. Maddison begins by comparing the last thousand years of income, mineral usage, energy consumption, etc between the Western Hemisphere and the Eastern, and the difference sharpens with the scientific revolution. Not only did it leapfrog the West ahead of the “rest,” but I began to wonder if that’s also what made it difficult for the former states of the USSR to enter the free-market… being tied down to one particular system for so long, that while was advancing just maybe not at the same pace as the other side, consequently might feel like walking into a social party and feeling a bit awkward and intimidated, because everyone else knows each other and you don’t know where to begin.

When I was selling before teaching, the industry I was in took me to visit other similar businesses across the nation and around the world. We sold the same products, but our markets were different. Thus, one innovation might work in China but not here. For example, the Chinese factory produced something to accommodate their flooding issues. And while that was a smash hit there it was of no interest to my buyers in NYC, even after Hurricane Sandy devastated the area. I was remembering this while reading “RoadMap from Divison to 1 Planet”, particularly the section on integration.

After having read “RoadMap from Divison to 1 Planet”, One of the things I’ve noticed in the last five years is that seemingly everything I was taught in K-12 ill-prepared me for a changing world. Not to say I didn’t learn anything, but the pace outside the school was just moving too fast for my education to keep up… in regards to my own economics, I had to sprint just to grab the tail end, but as soon as I had mastered one thing, like the ipad, it seemed I was already in the stone age. By the time I thought I was ahead I was amazed to discover how many more were still behind like a major company I interviewed with two years ago who didn’t even know how to use Skype, something I now consider basic.

As I was reading “America’s Best Days May Be Behind It” I recalled working in NYC and how (a) it seemed everyone was leaping at the new technological innovation that was coming out, (b) how that technology seemed to get there first before the rest of the country got it, and (c) how the latest new technology was usually a tele-communications device geared towards improving our day-to-day activities rather than improving our health, in terms of medical. After reading the article, I stepped back a second and thought about the juxtaposition of the last 150 years. How as life changed? How has society, cultural views, and focus on technology?

One of the things I’m interested in is how economics and business are connected, particularly in being able to relate my experiences with the topics we are going to learn. I’m very excited about that and also interested in learning about the types of unemployment… I’ve been there and it’s not fun, but it certainly was a learning experience.

Hi everyone, my name is Michael. I used to do sales but now I teach. I’m taking this class as part of my continuing education, but also because I enjoy economics.