Section 1 asked about the Indonesian standard of living; specifically, "Is four dollars a day really that bad if you live in Indonesia?" Let's go to the CIA Factbook for some perspective.
The GDP per capita measures the Gross Domestic Product, divided by the population. (This is the measure most economists prefer when comparing living conditions or use of resources across countries.)
The United States has a GDP per capita of $50,700, ranking us 14th in the world. Compare that with Indonesia at $5100, ranked 158th out of 229 countries.
A Nike worker who works five days a week, 52 weeks a year (no vacation!), for $3.70 per day, makes $962 a year. This is the average GDP of the tenth poorest country in the world. Even by Indonesia's standards, a Nike factory worker is paid one-fifth of the average wages in a very poor country. In short, $3.70 a day is a very, very low wage, whatever measuring stick we use.
Meanwhile, Section 7 looked at the effect of bad press and a tarnished image on Nike's stock price. They discovered that around 1998-1999, when there was a lot of news coverage of Nike's Indonesian factory workers, their stock plummeted.
And today? When the mighty researchers of Section 7 were online looking into Nike's business practices? Well, let me just point out that today's class met from 2:00 to 2:40 pm. Here's how Nike's stock did today:
(Corrolation does not imply causality, but it was still an awesome coincidence!)
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