If oil hits $200, globalization becomes localization, author says

Globalization, basically international trade and the transfer of jobs to lower-cost centers, shifted into fifth gear during the recent economic expansion, with record hemisphere-to-hemisphere business.

Moreover, while economists expect trade to rev-up again as the global economic recovery starts, one economist is arguing that globalization's second wave will be short. Author Jeff Rubin, former chief economist for CIBC World Markets in Toronto, expects oil prices to hit $200 per barrel in the next economic expansion, throwing globalization into reverse, and sparking a re-birth of 'localization,' or locally-produced goods.

Rubin argues as much in his compelling book, "Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller – Oil and the end of globalization." (New York: Random House, $26.)