Europe 'The final countdown' [CD] { } ~54.00.00 65823

As its auction model caught on worldwide, eBay went from twelve hundred employees in early 2000 to sixty-three hundred by 2004, all in the period when globalization was supposed to be “over.” Between 2000 and 2004, total global Internet usage grew 125 percent, including 186 percent in Africa, 209 percent in Latin America, 124 percent in Europe, and 105 percent in North America, according to Nielsen/ NetRatings. Yes, globalization sure ended, all right. It was not just the dot-com bust and all the hot air surrounding it that obscured all this from view. There were two other big clouds that moved in. The biggest, of course, was 9/11, which was a profound shock to the American body politic. Given 9/11, and the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions that followed, it's not surprising that the triple convergence was lost in the fog of war and the chatter of cable television. Finally, there was the Enron corporate governance scandal, quickly followed by blowups at Tyco and WorldCom-which all sent CEOs and the Bush administration running for cover ...»