Globalisation

Ikea, founded in 1943 as a small company in southern Sweden, has become a global player, the company now owns sales outlets in 41 countries around the world. In 2013 the catalogue of the furniture retailer had a yearly circulation of 211 million units and appeared in 62 different languages. 46 million tourists visit New York every year and the volumes of the Harry Potter books have been translated into 70 different languages, Volume 1 of the series is the most commonly produced (29 million copies). Each year, approximately 700 million Bibles are printed, parts of which have been translated into more than 2000 languages.

The fast food chain McDonald’s was founded by a pair of brothers in 1940 in the USA and now has over 32,000 branches in 118 countries.

The distance which a person can travel in the same period of time has risen from an average of around 10km in 1850 to 10,000km now. For example: If a person in 1850 could travel an average of 10km in 3.5 hours, in 1985 they could have travelled 10,000km in the same time.

Although there has been cross-border trade for many years, the number of exports has increased greatly over the last 50 years. From 1960 to 2010, global merchandise exports increased by more than 1,300 percent.

To send a letter from Europe to America took about 40 days. The post was carried across the Atlantic on sailing ships. Depending on wind conditions, the crossing could be a few days shorter or longer.

In May 2013 there were 135,000 searches for the term „globalisation“.

Globally seen, 32.5% of the population had access to the internet. The distribution is very uneven. 2/3 of these 32.5% live in so-called "developed countries". These include, according to the UN classification, North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

At the beginning of 2013, the UNO was the world’s biggest international organisation with 193 member states.

The open source internet encyclopaedia exists in 286 languages (as at February 2013).

India. In 2005 over 1000 films were produced in India. Around 700 were made in the USA.

It took around 4 years for the number of internet users to reach the 50 million mark. By comparison: the radio took around 40 years to reach the same number of listeners in the USA.

Global influences cause changes in everyday life. A tendency to return to local level can be observed as a response to the pressures of globalisation. The term glocalisation relates to the connection between globalisation and localisation.

ATTAC stands for „Association pour une taxation des transactions financières pour l´aide aux citoyens", in English „The Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Benefit of Citizens”. The abbreviation NATO stands for „North Atlantic Treaty Organisation“ and is a military alliance, WTO stands for “World Trade Organisation” and creates the rules for international trade. NGO stands for Non-Governmental Organisation.