The "Global Economy" - Lesson 1

The global economy is easy to understand. Here is the globe: Here is your money (the "economy"): If you have a job, they give you money for doing it every couple weeks or so. (If you don't have a job, getting one is easy: you just go to a company and ask them to hire you. They'll give you a job. Then you can participate in this column.) So, now you have money, which is good. Because you'll need to buy stuff with it. Like a house, food, a Nintendo Wii gaming system, and so forth. Once you have a house and food and a Wii, you'll need to use the rest of your money to buy many other things. The people who make those things live in China. All of them. Here is China.... Oops. Wrong China. Here is the China we meant to show you.... Most of the things you need to buy are in stores -- like Wal-Mart or Target or Home Depot. But these stores have to buy the stuff you want from someplace, so they can put the stuff you want on their shelves. (When stores buy your stuff first, it saves you a long trip to Asia. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.) So, the stores have to "go shopping" first, otherwise their shelves would be empty. All the stores you go to buy their stuff at the world's largest shopping mall: China. They buy their things in China because China charges the stores less money than, say, Michigan. (Michigan looks like a mitten because it gets very cold there. If Michigan took the mitten off, you could see that it is giving China "the finger" for some reason we're not sure of.) Then the stores bring your stuff back from China and add the extra money they want to make to the price of your stuff. The stuff goes on the shelves, and you are free to pick and choose the Chinese item you wish to buy at a lower price than if the store bought your item from, say, Michigan. This process could save you as much as 50 cents on each item you buy. When you save 50 cents and the store makes 50 cents, everyone is happy. This is why our global economy is the best way to do things. (The hell with Michigan.)