Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Creative Destruction


1. In a free market, what happens if a price is too high, a product doesn’t work, or service is lousy?


2. Why do you think Mr. Cheung started making more things for the tourist trade?

3. What motivated telecom companies to bring cell phones to developing countries? Did they know about the difficulties faced by boat drivers, butchers, and egg farmers?

4. How does the rapid rollout of cell phone technology illustrate Adam Smith’s principle of
the “invisible hand”?

5. Who benefits from new technologies like cell phones? Who loses out?

6. Should government have banned cell phones in order to protect the jobs of people who made and repaired landline phones? Why?

7. “Many would say that this [cell phone technology] revolution did more to give the average person power and to reduce poverty than any government program.” Do you agree? Why/why not?

8. If goods and services can be improved or made at lower cost, does it matter whether the cause is technology or trade?

9. Rather than trying to preserve obsolete jobs, what are some other ways we could help workers whose skills are no longer in demand?

10. Why does competition lead to inequality of outcome? Is that a bad thing?

11. What examples are given in the video to show that the average person – not just the rich person – is better off now than 25 years ago? Name 2 other examples?

12. What are some of the ways in which poor households in the U.S. are better off now than the average household was in the 1970s?

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