Commanding heights episode Essay

Commanding heights: The New Rules is the third film in the series and is about the 21st century economy. PBS sponsored the film under the direction of Michael Sullivan to inform the public about the economic situation. They speak about how the economy adapted to what is today. How the world nationalized third world countries allowing exchange and investment. Episode 3 addresses the current and future problems of a globalized world. That’s the structure of the film. The film clearly, thoroughly, and excitingly explains this through historic facts and stories told by citizens who lived during the changes. This is not an economics lesson but rather a high dramatic event that impacts peoples lives. Commanding Heights shows that it is people who create the ideas, it is people who accept or reject them, it is people who profit or suffer by them. The series travels to the locations where events happened, and in many cases, interviews the people who made them happen, from Bill Clinton to Milton Friedman to workers in various countries. Episode three encompasses that along with globalization and an open free market and period of peace and advancement of technologies and ideological views will happen. A global economy ill introduce a path to peace and prosperity for rich and poor nation alike. The New Rules of the Gamin 1992, things looked bad for the U. S. economy: Western Europe was assembling into a powerful economic alliance (the European Union) to compete with America, Japan’s economy was unstoppable, and the U. S. was in the worst recession in decades. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a trade agreement between the U. S. , Canada and Mexico that lowered, but did not eliminate, many trade barriers between the three countries. In large part, Bush wanted to get NAFTA approved to strengthen the U. S. economy against Japan and Europe. The negotiations for NAFTA began under his term. NAFTA became an issue during the 1992 elections. Bush wanted NAFTA 100%, Perot wanted it cancelled, and Clinton wanted NAFTA, but with important amendments added to force Mexico to raise labor and pollution standards so they would have to compete on more even footing with American workers. Clinton won, and his plan was put into action. The labor unions gave Bill Clinton the support he needed to win. NAFTA led to a huge increase in the amount of trade between the three countries. Likewise, each country ad significant GDP growth that was directly attributable to the freer trade. The biggest growth was in Mexico, in wealth and employment. The impact on the U. S. was that 400,000 American Jobs were lost to more competitive workers and factories south of the border, American unions sustained major and lasting damage to their political influence and membership, and the gap between rich and poor Americans grew wider. As in previous cases, deregulation and freer trade benefitted a whole economy in aggregate while severely hurting a small percentage of people and massively benefitting some companies that are able to take advantage of the new rade policies. In the global economy, annual trade in tangible goods and services is worth $8 trillion while trade in currencies is worth $288 trillion. U. S. workers in both public and private sectors have trillions of dollars invested in work-related retirement portion of American workers’ pensions is invested overseas. Thus, most American workers are significantly invested in the global economy. After NAFTA, Clinton pursued other important trade liberalization policies across the world. One of his major accomplishments was strengthening the global free market in the aftermath of Communism’s collapse. In 1994, Mexico faced political and economic crisis, and the country came to the brink of defaulting omits foreign debt. There was real fear that the country, left to its own devices, could fall into chaos, and millions of refugees would head north into the U. S. Clinton had crisis meetings with his advisors over the issue and decided to give Mexico a $50 billion loan. It worked to stabilize the country, Mexico repaid the money ahead of schedule, and the U. S. looked like a benevolent actor to the world. However, many critics considered Clinton’s actions to be a prime example of moral hazard: By bailing out the Mexican government, the U. S. was in essence bailing out thousands of private investors who had put money into the country without properly weighing the risks. The bailout signaled the private sector that it could make similarly bad future investment choices without fear since the U. S. would again rescue them. Critics feared this would make sovereign debt crises more likely. â€Å"Globalization† is defined as the free flow of goods, services, capital, and labor across national borders. China has a number of â€Å"Free Trade Zones,† which are small geographic areas in which companies can build factories to build and export nything with very few restrictions. The Zones are exempt from China’s otherwise strict business and export laws. Seaports and airports are usually located very close tour within Free Trade Zones. At long last, Japan’s economic bubble burst in the 1990’s and the country slid into a major recession that it never really recovered from. American fears of Japan someday â€Å"taking over† the world economically were quickly and permanently dispelled. In the beginning America was behind Japan and Europe in trading and economic growth, thus NAFTA was created to allow trading between North America. The United States were now able to trade freely with Canada and Mexico, providing great economic growth for all three countries in North America. When trading borders opened up Tijuana became a massive manufacturer of televisions for the United States, Northern Mexico was able to open up many Jobs giving opportunities to Southern Mexicans. This created an economic boom in North America leading to a surge that would be able to compete with other Countries, because this would allow us to buy cheaper goods. In the end although it hurt American Jobs because Mexico’s goods were cheaper, Both Bush and Clinton wanted NAFTA to succeed in order to put labor and pollution laws into effect in all the countries involved.