Globalism has changed who we compete with and who we do business with.

Richard Longworth grew up in Boone Iowa. When he visited recently, Dick learned that one of Boone’s leading exports these days was plasma made from cattle's blood. He learned that Boone, Iowa would shut down if France did as it promised and stopped importing American blood plasma.

After Richard left Boone, he became a newspaper man and covered the world for the Chicago Tribune. We talked with him frequently in the past about Russia and the former Yugoslavia…

Dick has been back in the Midwest for a few years now. As Senior Fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, he’s now turned his eye towards the Midwest’s relationship with the world.

Dick’s new book is Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism. We’ll spend the hour talking about it…

Thomas Friedman from the New York Times coined the “World is Flat” theory about globalization. He says we’re all competing against each other and that we’re all on the same footing. If we in the U.S. connect and hustle enough, we’ll be globalization winners.

Jerome asked Dick Longworth if that’s the way the world looks to him when he looked around the Midwest.