Inside the Global Economy

History's lessons are rarely learned the first time, and sadly must be repeated over and over again. Economics is a case in point. I was bored to tears during my Economics 101 course in college; today my daughter January is suffering the same torture. So, needless to say, when Inside the Global Economy showed up in the mailbox, I didn't exactly start salivating. Fortunately, I was only sent one of the thirteen episodes. Protectionism, the second episode, is primarily a lecture by Nariman Behravesh, Senior Vice President and Research Director at DRA/McGraw Hill, on how protectionism--whether through imposed tariffs, import quotas, voluntary export restrictions, or other forms of regulation--affects various creatures along the economic food chain. The bottom-feeders (that's "we the consumers") take it in the shorts (surprise!) price-wise, most often, while the government generally seems to get more than its fair share (surprise again!). I found out that Economics hasn't really changed all that much since I went to college: there's still the Adam Smith cum Milton Friedman school of free trade and then there are the legion of controllers and tweakers who want to dicker with the economy (Alan Greenspan, the [expletive deleted] who will personally cost me about $100 a month extra in house payments next year, comes to mind). And, of course, economics is still more boring than watching paint peel. But, a big part of the fault here lies with the filmmakers. 1977's The Age of Uncertainty, hosted by the urbane and erudite economist John Kenneth Galbraith, was an excellent overview of the history of economics and contemporary economic theory which featured sparkling writing and wonderful graphics. The Protectionism episode--except for some token video "case studies" of French farmers protesting and American officials smiling and signing documents limiting Japanese imports--made little use of the video medium, and even the graphs looked fairly rinky-dink by today's standards. Other episodes include: Trade Policy, Multinational Corporations, Fixed vs. Floating Exchange Rates, and The Evolving World Economy. Colleges may want to add this (although it basically replaces one talking head--the teacher's--with another--the video presenter's) but public libraries should skip. (R. Pitman)