How Trading Shapes Our World

You've heard that a butterfly beating its wings in the jungle can change life halfway around the globe. Each time you shop or act as a consumer, you are that butterfly. This program helps students see some of the "butterfly effects" of their consumer choices - and in the process, helps build a deeper understanding of market economies.

When you buy a T-shirt, a car, or a cup of coffee, you send messages to a complex web of people all over the world. The marketplace of buying and selling is far more than a convenient way to get the stuff we crave - it shapes personal freedom and drives material progress.

Viewers meet Jasmine, owner of a small green frog. She would rather have a laptop computer, but can't afford one right now. Watch as she turns a frog into a laptop computer . Then we meet Randall, one of 20 million people worldwide shopping for a shirt on any given day. Amazingly, he and the 19,999,999 others can find a shirt they want to buy.

Who's behind the remarkable system that supplies shirts, as well as food, shelter, and most other desire of daily life? What drives countless strangers to serve your needs and wants? Learn what a shirt teachs about life in a consumer society.

Learn:

• What it means to be a consumer.
• How "going shopping" puts you in a trading network.
• How trading for goods and services creates wealth.
• The unseen role of markets and trading in your life.
• How poverty relates to markets, money, and trade.
• Why consumers make a "profit" when they shop.
• Economic concepts such as zero sum game, externality, and creative destruction.
• Why trading is a win-win, but there is pain in the gain.
• Why "natural resources" come more from the mind than the ground.
• How trading is used to reduce carbon emissions.

24 minutes.

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