| Lunow | Date: Wednesday, 2011-11-23, 2:01 PM | Message # 1 |
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Group: Administrators
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| With the country's debt growing out of control, Americans by and large are unaware of the looming financial crisis. This documentary examines several of the ways America can get its economy back on the right track. In addition to looking at the federal deficit and trade deficit, the film also closely explores the challenges of funding national entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. - from Netflix
This is a great documentary for seniors taking economics and civics. It is also a great n the surface, this movie investigates the issue of the US national debt. It addresses a number of the themes and issues that we will discuss this year.
One of the biggest challenges facing you is the fact that the "Baby Boomer" generation is about to retire. These people (your grandparents and maybe parents) are expecting to receive a government pension or support known as social security. Well, the bad news is that the federal government has been spending the money that was supposed to be saved to support these people over the past few decades. By the way, some cities (like San Diego) have also done similar things - i.e. spent money that was supposed to be saved for peoples' retirements.
Well, our Unit 2 focuses on the role of demographics (counting people) in the study of the contemporary world. This movie highlights an important concern that we will be facing in the immediate future (5-10 years time) when the "baby boomers" do retire.
This documentary also touches on a bit of American political reality. We are faced with an uncomfortable choice in America. To solve our debt issues, we should be debating raising taxes or cutting social spending (on things like the military and education). Unfortunately our politicians are not really being honest with us and sometimes tell us that they will provide more and better services while cutting our taxes. It defies logic, but we do seem to like being lied to, as we keep electing people (from both political parties) who keep telling us what we want to hear.
Finally, this movie also focuses on some of the economic history of the USA, which provides some decent background for our Unit 6, on Economic Geography. Overall, this movie does raise a lot of questions that we will deal with this year.
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