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2. Neoliberalism As Water Balloon
2 months ago
With simple materials found around the house, you too can conduct an experiment to see what has happened to the economy.

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30 Likes

  • adrian Cousins 2 months ago
    Excellent video Tim, have posted to my site: counterfire.org
  • Tim McCaskell 2 months ago
    Thanks Adrian and thanks for the posting.
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  • Nadine S 2 months ago
    This is great, Tim. I have shared it with colleagues at GBC and a few have shown interest in using it.
  • Tim McCaskell 2 months ago
    Thanks Nadine. It's gotten more than 3000 hits in less than a week. Can you imagine how many balloons that would take if I actually ran workshops?

    Tim
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  • Chandra Siddan 2 months ago
    Terrific video, Tim! I am sending it to all my friends!
    Chandra
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  • John Sharkey 2 months ago
    Super lesson Tim! Will pass it along to my lists...particularly to my son and his friends!
    Loved the lab coat!
    John
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  • John Greyson 1 month ago
    bravo!
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  • Charles Sturgeon 1 month ago
    Wonderful! Will recommend using the "class is a different animal" tool in my friends' introductory sociology or political-economy classes. One slight visual problem with the experiment, though: As you pump consumer debt, the safety net squeezes the bottom, and thus the middle classes swell up, as if consumer debt temporarily causes upward mobility from the bottom to the middle :)

    Maybe a more elastic net-like thingy can be used, and as credit is pumped, the bottom section would expand more than the middle, which would visualize how producing debt makes folks poorer?
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  • Tim McCaskell 1 month ago
    Thanks Charles.
    In a class you can get students to explore the limits of the metaphor by researching stats on how class structure is actually changing in specific countries due to neoliberalism.

    In defense of the physics of balloons, I suppose one could argue that those now trapped in the social safety net have less access to credit that those in the "middle class" which seems to expand if one looks at consumption, although it's really only hot air. But I'm not sure I'd go to the wall on that though.
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  • Lara Williston 30 days ago
    Great video, Tim! My professor at U of T shared this with our class. I posted it on my blog to continue the sharing :)
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  • Humberto da Silva 28 days ago
    Great Video Tim. Saw you do this last June sans the labcoat and the apparatus. Much more impact with the props. Great mechanical metaphor.
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