“It’s been a while! I’m happy we’ve got the day to catch up” said Pichai, smiling, that he’s finally meeting with his friends from university.

“Yeah, you’ve definitely grown into what you always said you wanted to be, starting your own tech company. And I gotta say it seems to be really successful!” Joe said as the two friends hugged. “Fancy seeing you at a mall though, I always imagined our reunion at the Peaking Willow tavern, you know, the local one in our old neighbourhood.”

“We used to go there so often!” Karla said lousily, “But I love the experience of going to new places and learning new things.” She is eager to taste the flavours of foods from other countries and see what fashion is like from places across the seas. “There are new restaurants including all sorts of foreign cuisines, brands, and music.” “I’m just excited to check it all out.”

“Ugh, here we go again. Always looking for what’s out there rather than what’s in our own country.” Joe said with distaste. “Just a week ago a brand called Pinch of Salt bought out our local mini-mart and now old Bill’s stuck at home! The place we used to get our trading cards from, the place we bought our first sodas, gone.”

“And it’s not just that, but jobs will be lost, there will be less local manufacturing and less exports, so we’ll be replaced by foreigners. It’s just not the future that I envisioned.”

“Sure, it’s tough, but old Bill got a healthy sum of money, so he’s got excellent quality of life choices.” Pichai said, and continued with a calmness in his voice and confidence, “our old neighbourhood is getting a new fashion sense from a new brand. New jobs will be created, which means new opportunities will be present for the next generation. We will have to compete with foreigners and locals either way. It’s up to us to educate and train ourselves in order to compete.”

“Fair enough, Pichai” said Karla, “but what about the tariffs put in place by our government? More imports than exports means that we would experience a trade deficit, leading to inflation. How would that be managed?”

“It’s true that this could happen, but we could balance that by depreciating our exchange rate, which means our currency would be momentarily weaker, or we could increase taxes, to further strengthen our government financially.” Pichai replied with enthusiasm.

“How can you be so happy about this, Pichai?”

“Because the world is changing, we are a part of it too!”

Economic nationalism or globalism? High trade tariffs or a lenient free trade market? These are all within the realms of your decision making with Hegemony! Choose the policies you want to fight for, convince the other players to vote for them or simply overpower them with your influence. Define your strategy and see how it plays out with Hegemony: Lead your class to victory.

Exercise your political intent and see how it plays out with Hegemony: Lead your class to victory.