Globalisation has brought me a far better quality of life and lower cost consumer goods than my parents could ever dream of
Tailwheel, it's a very good observation in so far as we do live a more 'affluent' lifestyle than our predecessors. But I doubt the next generations will be singing the praises of globalisation and the subsequent deregulation of credit markets that have caused this. There are plenty of charts floating around showing the near perfect correlation between consumption and credit growth. Particluarly salient for us in OZ, with one of the highest private debt levels on the planet.
Globalisation may have helped us leverage off cheaper foreign labour and materials to live better, but in doing so we've reduced ourselves to no more than a FIRE economy with a few quarries. At the same time, those same countries like China and previously Japan are the ones who we're now indebted to.
With mining being 5% of our GDP and now effectively wagging the economic dog in this country, it's obvious we're now starting to repay the piper - check out retail. Floundering, not because of the internet red herring, but because too much money is being spent servicing private interest costs. I hope the 15+ year binge was worth it for all of us!