Many of us have read the popular book “The world is flat” by Thomas L Friedman . In this book the author gives various reasons how the world has become flat . He also comes up with list of Ten flattens such as Collapse of Berlin wall ,Netscape,Work-flow,supply chaining etc . Many of the chapters are also about outsourcing and how multi national companies are benefiting  from outsourcing , off shoring etc . By reading these articles one will definitely conclude World is Flat . Meaning everyone has a level playing field.

To me world is flat when economy is going great guns , once the world runs into recession as we are experiencing now , world becomes round . When it is round , everyone goes back to their own shell . People on the either sides of globe stops seeing each other. They all want to first survive before they can challenge.

Let us take a few of instances now ,

Top Rounds

1. President Obama has recently announced striping of tax incentives for companies setting up their units outside US. By doing this he believes that companies will start setting up plants in US rather than in India or China .The move is definitely a populist move , may help American workers . But I see this as a going back to round .
2. Recently US administration announced a policy on tightening of H1 B visas for immigration of highly skilled workforce .Again a populist move , to me this is going back to round .
3. Two of the Australian banks have reported to have stopped outsourcing their IT jobs to India .Populist move , may get a few more customers but to me this is going back to round .

One can find many more instances like this during this period , I see nothing wrong in this .Many a times leaders have to balance between heart and brain.Even though the brain is right , heart prevails.

Whenever there is a protectionism , the world toggles from flat to round .