The Impact of Global Production

From World War II through the 1970s, the global economic playing field was dominated by the U.S. Today and into the foreseeable future that same field is populated by new surging nations and competitors in Europe, Asia, China, India, and Latin America. Standard & Poor's expects the 500 companies in its benchmark index to generate more than half of their 2007 sales in foreign countries; over half of the 9.1 million vehicles General Motors produced in 2006 were sold outside the U.S.

The movement of today's goods from dominant cities in the Northern to the Southern hemisphere is being realigned by multiple medium-sized cities in the Southern Hemisphere and in Asia - all meeting the needs of new markets so large that they will dwarf those of the U.S. and Europe combined.

One estimate is that the combined Gross Domestic Product of China, India, Russia and Brazil, taken as a group, will overtake five of the world's most advanced countries (Germany, Japan, Italy, France, and the U.K.) by 2030, and will overtake those plus the U.S. by 2040. This shift will be partly due to the shift in the percent of the global market from developed nations to globally emerging economies and their companies by around 2050. China's middle class is already about twice the size of Canada's entire population. They will become global trendsetters and are expected to buy, for example, 4.5 million cars annually by 2010. India's and Latin America's middle classes are growing rapidly too. India's middle class is projected to represent 50 percent of its population by 2025.