Warm up
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]What industry do you work in and what is your role? [/responsivevoice]
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]What are your responses in your role / position? [/responsivevoice]
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]Can you describe to the function of your workplace / company? [/responsivevoice]
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]How many departments, how many offices. National or International? [/responsivevoice]
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]What are the minimum requirements for employment ie Education or Experience? [/responsivevoice]
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’? [/responsivevoice]
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]What is the process for changing job roles ie Interview? Test? [/responsivevoice]
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]Current projects? Deadlines? Opportunities? [/responsivevoice]
- [responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]Anything of interest happening? [/responsivevoice]
1.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]Think back to your American history class, and you might remember being taught the differences between federalism and anti-federalism. On one side were the Federalist Founding Fathers, led by statesmen such as Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, who believed in a strong central government. On the other side were the anti-Federalists, led by Patrick Henry of “Give me liberty or give me death” fame, who believed in a weak central government.[/responsivevoice]
2.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]Today, nearly 250 years later, we might think of this ideological rift in terms of centralization (a strong central authority) versus decentralization (a more distributed system). In fact, I would go as far as to say that the push-and-pull of these two forces is the great contest of our times. And I believe decentralization is winning out.[/responsivevoice]
3.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]The global trend toward decentralization really got a boost six years ago when the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Brexit was about redistributing power from a bloated centralized authority, Brussels, and returning it to London. Admittedly, the U.K. has faced a number of expected challenges since it officially departed the EU in January 2020, including a slump in trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), but I believe these issues will be ironed out over time and the country will be stronger for it.[/responsivevoice]
Russia And China Show The Folly In Extreme Centralization
4.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]The truth is that the world is a safer, richer, more transparent place when power is distributed across a greater number of actors, not fewer. Consider what’s happening in Eastern European. Russia’s efforts to take over Ukraine are a highly centralized move, one that will ultimately fail. In the meantime, Moscow is paying the price because of stiff international sanctions.[/responsivevoice] 5.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]And then there’s China. As of last week, one out of every five container ships across the world is waiting to dock at a Chinese port, with the worst yet to come in terms of global supply chain disruptions, all because of the centralized Chinese Communist Party’s hardline approach to containing the virus.[/responsivevoice] 6.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]The economic and financial impact has been significant. Shanghai-listed stocks have sold off to two-year lows, and the country’s manufacturing industry, as measured by the purchasing manager’s index (PMI), have contracted in the last two months.[/responsivevoice]
[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]What is your opinion on “big government”?[/responsivevoice]
7.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]What’s more, the Chinese yuan just had one of its worst months on record against the U.S. dollar, plunging as much as 4.5% at its low. It’s largely due to the actions of these two highly centralized countries that the world is experiencing the highest rates of inflation in decades. In March, global food prices hit a new all-time high going back to 1961, which I’m sure everyone reading this is feeling.[/responsivevoice]
Progress Is Made Possible Through Decentralization
8.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]Meanwhile, here in the U.S., decentralization still holds, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. That’s thanks to Founders like Patrick Henry, who fought to include a Bill of Rights that, as the name implies, conferred certain liberties to individuals and states that the federal government could not take away.[/responsivevoice] 9.[responsivevoice voice = “US English Female” buttontext = “”]Americans also enjoy separation of powers, as well as checks and balances, so that no single government branch can make all the decisions. A good example of this type of decentralization in action was when a federal district court judge recently struck down the White House’s mask mandate on mass transit, including commercial flights.[/responsivevoice]
Phonetic Chart
