Financial Videos for the week

Over the past 24-48 hours I've been watching a couple videos related to finances/economics. I thought I'd share my opinion of them. Here it goes:

1. The first Movie is a fairly hard movie to come by and is more about economics and race than anything: White man's Burden -this movie is a very unique movie which reverses the socio-economic of whites & blacks in America. A black factory owner played by Harry Belafonte ends up firing one of his lesser-educated white subordinates played by John Travolta. Like everything in the universe the firing of John Travolta's character leads to a series of events that puts the black factory owners life in danger. It eventually becomes a somewhat drawn out kidnapping flick. However, one unique thing about this movie is how it completely changes your perspective on economics. For example; all the management jobs at the factory are filled by blacks. All the line working jobs are filled by whites. All the whites live in the 'bad-side' of town and the 'good side' of town, with the large brick houses, is almost completely populated by blacks. The factory owner even has a white older maid who talks very meekly to her boss. The classic scene of the movie is at a charity fashion show where all the attendees are well dressed blacks. In fact all of the models are attractive black women. Then at the end of the fashion show the designer comes out and is surrounded by several, poor, underprivileged, white children and I think one token underprivileged black child for whom the charity fashion show was thrown. An excellent movie for changing a mindset.
   
2. The second movie/DVD I watched was the Frontline PBS series: Can you Afford to retire?
   -This mini-documentary talks almost exclusively about the downfall of pensions. The rise of 401K plans and how corporate America may not be doing their best to insure that baby-boomer's retirement year's are spent golfing & RV's rather than working at McDonald's or Wal-Mart. It appears that the organization that insures the nations dwindling pension plans would most likely go belly-up itself if every corporation began to file for bankruptcy in order to avoid paying their pension obligations to their employees - leaving the employees with nothing. It also touched on the fact that unless you are very well-paid and/or very financially savvy(or have a PF blog maybe... ) - Americans for the most part have no idea what they're doing when it comes to investing their money in a 401k plan. The movie interests me only because I worry about both my parents - who as of last month are both retired (divorced too) and I'm not sure if I'll have to eventually end up taking care of them financially.
   
3. The third and final movie is actually the first in the series from Morgan Spurlock called 30 days: I make minimum wage - This was great to watch and made me appreciate my current living situation. Even more interesting - this show was filmed entirely in my home town! Morgan Spurlock & his girlfriend decided to live in 'the bottoms' of my town. I won't go into all of the details as I'm getting tired from a long day but, basically he and his girlfriend both find jobs paying about $7 a day. They live in an apartment that costs $325 a month and has roaches and ants to boot. The landlord says as a selling point something to the effect of "well the the tenant below you go busted for selling drugs...at least it wasn't something violent...and there's a hospital right down the street". This somewhat gives you a perspective on their experience. At first they have no furniture, and no car. Although Morgan takes the bus, his more cost-conscious girlfriend walks (mind you in not the best neighborhood -but with a cameraman) everyday to work. They do eventually get furniture and some other amenities but eventually his girlfriend gets a urinary tract infection (with no health insurance) and Morgan sprains his arm (also with no insurance) which puts them in a hole it would take them months to get out of. This mini documentary teaches you quite a bit on how inhospitable it is or would be to be forced to survive on a minimum wage salary. it is eye-opening.
   

Ok that's all for now - nighty night.