This is one of those not-about-Penny posts that I occasionally engage in. Today in my Economic Geography class we finished watching a movie called "Life and Debt." It is about the effects of International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and other policies on Jamaica. The movie is a bit hostile to tourists, but otherwise is a pretty good movie to explain concepts like globalization, free trade, and structural adjustment programs. Basically, if you're interested in learning more about how the lesser developed countries of the world came to be in such dire straits when it comes to debt, this is the movie for you. But this post isn't about the movie, really. I am posting because I had such a good time teaching this stuff to my class. They talked about things! And I'd had them do an assignment to pick out three items that they use everyday and find out how they are made and where (at least one of) the ingredients come from. They were supposed to use the information to talk about how the costs of items are externalized - meaning, yes, we pay $6 for that radio, but that price in no way captures the true cost of the item in terms of labor and environment and health, etc. I was bracing myself for some not so great essays, but they are wonderful! I am riding a high that comes from having taught somebody something, and I just had to write about it.
I am a dork. That is all. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
1 comment:
That's awesome!! Please share one or two of the reports. I'm curious what type of things they discovered.
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