George's Marvellous medicine. Roal Dahl

A very simple plot, a kid's story, quite childish, yet the way Dahl delivers it is highly amusing and entertaining. It was a great 'medicine' for a day in which I was exhausted and a bit frustrated.

A kid, George, is tired of the bulling attitude of his grandmother, a horrible old lady who keeps shouting horrible and irritating things to him. He decides to cure her (or to blow her up) with a concoction he makes out of anything he finds in the house and the farm (soap, deodorant, make up, animal's pills, shoe polish, etc), everything boiled up in a huge pot.

Grandma at first starts literally fuming, then grows and grows to be taller than the two-story house. He also gives it to the animals who equally grow like mad. His dad, when comes back home, gets excited as they may become rich by growing their full farm (mom was not so happy though). But the 'medicine' is over.

George tries to make it again, but doesn't remember all the ingredients. After a lot of fruitless attempts they finally reach some results... but this new medicine has a different effect. They give it to grandma who starts becoming smaller, and smaller, and even smaller, until she disappears from sight.

They give up, they will not find the medicine to become rich, but at least... they have got rid of grandma who became so small they coud

The World is Flat. Chapter 10: Developing countries and the Flat World.

Every region, every country has its strengths and weaknesses, but everybody needs reform retail, which is looking at infrastructure, education and governance and upgrading each one "so more of your people have the tools and legal framework to innovate and collaborate at the highest levels".

Here is an interesting way of seeing the world as a group of neighborhoods:

Western Europe... assisted-living facility with aging population lavishly attended by Turkish nurses. U.S., a gated community with metal detector, people sitting in front yards, complaining how of lazy others are, with Mexican labor and other immigrants who make the community function. Latin America is the fun part of town, night-life, no new businesses (except for Chile) all reinvestment is made outside. Arab street is a dark alley, except for a few side-streets like Dubai; the only new businesses are gas stations. India, China and East Asia would be "the other side of the tracks"... a big teeming market, small shops, one-room factories, engineering colleges. Nobody sleeps in this neighbourhood and everyone wants to get to the "right side of the tracks". In the Chinese streets the roads are well paved, no potholes and there are working lights. The Indian roads are not so nice. Africa is where businesses are boarded up, life expectancy is declining, and the only new buildings are health-care clinics.

To thrive on this World, countries need to reform, but not just that, they have to keep on moving. If they just sit down, they are over-run by others. The clearest example is how China has taken the US Market from Mexico with respect to manufacturing and India with respect to services.