There were cases where the sub-Saharan african economies according to the book quadrupled in terms of their economies from the year 2000 when the chinese were accepted into the world trade organization. The corruption was i think pretty apparent given the effects on the people that were located close to this stuff but the fact was that it was just the africans willing to be paid a very small amount of money to do this as opposed to other places who had more wealth than were not willing to depart with it.
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The exchange of goods and services has existed since the earliest forms of civilization, from simple barter arrangements at the local town square to Phoenician traders navigating the Mediterranean with goods from Europe and North Africa. Today, however, the scope of exchange is truly massive, with online commerce coming to dominate nearly all segments of retail, and the scale encompassing transoceanic trade routes totaling 11 billion tons in maritime cargoes in 2021. Underpinning all this lies an extremely complex web of producers, shippers, pipelines, warehouses, and commodities traders that include the massive concerns such as Koch Industries in energy and Glencore in metals, with over 100,000 employees each. Billions of dollars have been made and lost in commodities futures, and as volatility continues to disrupt prices of everyday items from gasoline to grain, the trend of ever tighter global trade integration seen since the end of the Cold War may start to unravel as regional blocks choose to have closer and more reliable supply chains.
