Though many people are oblivious to it, we use goods and services that are produced around the world everyday of our lives. We receive these goods because those producing them benefit from the trade. In fact, both parties are benefactors in the trade. How can this be? It has to due with absolute and comparative advantages.
             Absolute advantage is used when comparing the productivity of one person to another. The person who uses fewer resources to produce a good has an absolute advantage over the other. This person uses fewer inputs to produce some good and therefore is more efficient in producing this good.
             There is yet another way in which we can compare the ability of two people who produce a good. Opportunity cost is what must be given up in order to gain something else. When describing the opportunity cost in a trade between two people the term comparative advantage is used. The person who has the smaller opportunity cost or who needs less goods to produce this item has the comparative advantage in the trade. This is how we can explain a trade where both parties benefit. As long as two people have different opportunity costs no one person can have a comparative advantage for both goods. If your comparative advantage were high for item A then the inverse of that would be true for item B. If you have a low opportunity cost for item B than you concentrate on producing that item because it takes less goods to produce it. This is what initiates trade for item A because by trading it becomes possible to end up at a point outside your production possibilities frontier where without trade you could not have reached
             This principle of comparative advantage explains the interdepence that takes place in the world today. The book uses an example of Tiger Woods and Forrest Gump to show the practical importance of comparative advantage. Tiger Woods should not mow his lawn because he would lose out on the $10,000
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