This weekend between Ray Wang’s problems with United Airlines and Dennis Howlett’s irritations with British Airways on his way back from Australia, a set of Twitter and other conversations ensued which drew comparisons to Singapore Air, Emirates Air and other well-run international carriers. And it hit me how regulators everywhere still protect airlines from foreign competition. There are complex “third country operators” rules around the world and terminology like fifth and eighth freedom rights.
If that is protected, look at healthcare. Recently Fareed Zakaria on his CNN show and his Time column showcased universal healthcare in places like Switzerland and Taiwan. Most friends I have talked to refuse to acknowledge the US healthcare system is even broken. And if the Supreme Court strikes down key provisions of Obamacare, the conversation about health care reform will be muted – again – for several years even in the face of growing global benchmarks.
In other industries, business executives will use the “our country is so different” excuse. Talk to any telecom executive about bandwidth and cost in Japan or S. Korea, and they will brush it off as “the US is so much larger in area”. Yes, but our cities are not, so why not compare major cities?
Banking, Education – I could go on about how much all our global horizons have expanded in the last few years.
It’s almost like two universes. The flat world in which global benchmarks are increasingly available to consumers and citizens, and the rocky world where politicians, unions, and executives hide in their caves and try to keep convincing us to accept what we are being dished out.
