Let's Make Money

This documentary reveals how investors pursue profit in the global economy despite the social costs. Against scenes of nearby poverty, a German manager discusses cutting costs at an Indian factory because countries even poorer than India will produce the products cheaper. Growing cotton in Burkina Faso is shown to be ruining the soil. Ironically, it doesn't even make its own people money because of import restrictions in developed nations. A former World Bank employee says he was basically an economic hit man, pressuring developing countries against their self-interest to export cheap raw materials. The film shows hundreds of empty upscale housing units built around golf courses in Spain, a country not known for golf, where the locals could not afford to live. With no connecting narration, the video comes across as more of a grouping of segments than a coherent whole. The totality of the presentation makes a compelling case for the existence of global economic inequities, but its shortcomings will limit it to serious students of the global economy.—Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA