Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization.Cheap oil, the lubricant of quick, inexpensive transportation links
across the world, may not return anytime soon, upsetting the logic of
diffuse global supply chains that treat geography as a footnote in the
pursuit of lower wages. Rising concern about global warming,
the reaction against lost jobs in rich countries, worries about food
safety and security, and the collapse of world trade talks in Geneva
last week also signal that political and environmental concerns may
make the calculus of globalization far more complex.
