The World isn't quite flat; use your location to your advantage

Globalization isn't a force to be reckoned with. As the World has shrunk in size due to the lowered cost of shipping, the Internet, and formerly 3rd world countries investing in their infrastructure, suddenly companies no longer joust with just their local competition, but are pitted against firms in Argentina, Indian, Mexico, China, Lithuania, etc., where the labor is significantly cheaper for a variety of reasons. Outsourcing, whether it be manufacturing, software development, call centers or even tax form processing, has been the rage for the last decade. Writers such as Thomas Friedman have expounded on this phenomenon at length, and most authors on the subject have a philosophical/socio-political agenda such as the evolution of US labor laws, the enforcement of WTO labor laws in our trading partners, the idea that the US has to retain its status as the knowledge leader in emerging technologies, or other issues of the day.