Friedman's key question in this chapter was "Will free trade benefit America as a whole when the world becomes so flat and so many more people can collaborate, and compete, with my kids?"

p. 262 - Friedman referred to David Ricardo, English Economist (1772-1823) whose theory says, "if each nation specializes in the production of goods in which it has a comparative cost advantage and then trades with other nations for the goods in which they specialize there will be an overall gain in trade, and overall income levels should rise in each trading country."

p. 263 Free trade policy not enough, it "must be accompanied by a focused domestic strategy aimed at upgrading the education of every American so they can compete for jobs in the flat world."

p. 264 Lump of Labor Theory - Only one lump of laborers in the whole world and that lump may have more members from one nation than others. This assumes that everything that is going nto be invented HAS been invented. Lower end service and manufacturing jobs move out of thriving nations to other nations leaving thriving nations with high unemployment percentages.

But this lump of labor is not a good theory since the shift of the lower end service jobs to other countries actually forces new, more specialized jobs to emerge. The jobs needed in America then move vertically. This means that needs for education are changing. The economy continues to grow because now other countries have more income to spend which boosts our sales since we are trading with them.

__________________________________________________________

I found this link that I thought complemented this chapter on education. I found it in the eSchool News paper. There are many who endorse this program and Bill & Melinda Gates are at the top of the list. --ssandova
http://skillscommission.org/pdf/exec_sum/ToughChoices_EXECSUM.pdf