Globalization is the transfer of goods, services, and technology from one country to another. Countries sign treaties to ease the process of doing business for foreign firms. For example, the US and Canada can allow citizens from both countries to move across borders without a visa. Here is how this action will affect you and me:

We said that globalization is the movement of services and technology. Since Canadians are allowed to enter the US without any restrictions, they can easily start businesses. The Canadians will use knowledge and technology they acquired back home to venture into a lucrative industry such as streaming services. That creates more options for consumers like you and me. As a result, you can choose to subscribe to the Canadian-owned streaming service to save more money or watch new shows.

If you run a manufacturing business, globalization can help you lower production costs. How? You can move your production facilities to a country with more affordable labor. That allows you to produce your goods in one country at half the cost and sell them in the US at high margins. That way, you increase profits.

Globalization also exposes you and me to different cultures. We interact with immigrants from different parts of the world.

Globalization affects nearly everyone on the planet. As has already been explained above, globalization means that there are more consumer products available to more people at cheaper prices. There are some other effects of globalization that are also worth mentioning.

Depending on where you live, globalization impacts the types of jobs that are available. In many wealthier countries, globalization has led to a reduction in manufacturing jobs and a rise in the service and technology sectors. In places that had previously built an economy on producing manufactured goods, this has led to unemployment as many jobs have been outsourced overseas. In their place, service-based economies have sometimes risen. However, many service jobs have also been outsourced in recent decades as well. Sometimes this means that the people who end up doing these jobs work for little pay and in poor conditions. All in all, globalization has caused a massive shift in the type of work available in certain geographic locations.

There are also cultural impacts of globalization. Styles and trends can travel the world in an instant. For instance, there are diehard fans of Korean pop music on nearly every continent who may never actually travel to Korea or even know a Korean person. Meanwhile, the dominance of American pop culture and political and economic influence has led to an "Americanization" of many cultures around the world.

Globalization affects you and me, and essentially, all citizens of the world in five main ways:

1. It gives people more access to an even broader set of products and services

With laws and regulations that encourage greater unencumbered trade between nations, more products from diverse nations end up being available to consumers worldwide. In addition, companies also have access to a greater array of products and services that they need to run their specific operations.

2. It leads to a decrease or abolishing of subsidies and tariffs

This helps promote a more level playing field between nations and businesses. Without subsidies propping up business operations, and costly tariffs impeding trade, free-flowing healthy competition is encouraged. It fosters innovation and efficiency in companies as they strive to offer products and services that consumers and businesses want, at the best price, and when they need them. Therefore, for you and me, this means more product assortment at cheaper prices.

3. It leads to new opportunities for financing

More companies have access to a broader base of worldwide financial markets and capital from other countries. Therefore, as needed, they can secure monies to expand their operations. As a result, this leads to greater production, which means more goods available for consumers such as you and me.

4. National industries (homegrown or home developed) have greater access to foreign markets

Homegrown companies can broaden their scope and access foreign markets to sell goods and services to increase global market shares. The opening up of access to the marketplaces of other countries was more difficult in the past. However, now, with rampant globalization it is easier and is a window of opportunity for companies, and may be a window that never closes. This is important for you, me, and others because as businesses increase their market shares, growth sales, and profits, they can further expand and create jobs and hire more labor in their home country.

5. A greater interconnection among diverse national economies

This can be good and bad. It is good when there is the free exchange of capital and goods and services. All can benefit from this free-flow of monies, products and services. Consumers and businesses have more choice of goods, and such, and can access products never before available to them from other countries. However, the bad can result when serious troubles in one economy spread like wildfire to other the economies associated with it. An example of this is the Greek contagion (economically-speaking) which reared its head a few years back and looks set to cause some turmoil on the markets again.

Globalization is a reality that has been a game-changer for economies, businesses, cultures, and the geopolitical aspect of civilization.

There are two main ways that globalization has affected us at the individual level.  The first way is that we get a much larger variety of products available in our stores for much lower prices.  That's one reason why a DVD player is available for $29 at WalMart.  So this saves us money every month and allows us to buy all types of produce year around.

The second way is that many of our manufacturing jobs and factories have been moved to other countries where the labor costs are cheaper and the environmental rules more lax.  By losing these jobs, it affects tens of thousands of individual families, and reduces government revenue from taxes.

How does globalization affect us?

This a very broad question. In other words, globalization affects us more than we can imagine. In light of this, let me list several ways. Keep in mind that this list is only a small sample.

First, through globalization we gain access to more of the world. For this reason, our worldviews can be broader as we learn about different cultures. Hence, there is an education aspect to globalization.

Second, we are able to get goods from around the world, where once these things were impossible. In addition, we are able to get goods at a better price, since much of what we consume has been produced in different countries where the cost of living is less.

Third, the downside of the second point is that many of ours manufacturing jobs and technical jobs have been outsourced and they may never come back. This causes greater economic hardships for us in the long run.

Fourth, because we are able to drawn people from the world, often times we are able to get the "best," as long as the price is right. For example, think of our universities. Some of the brightest minds come to teach at our colleges.

As you can imagine, the list goes on.