The efficient market hypothesis states that any available information about a market is already captured in the market price. Matthew McConaughey, in The Wolf of Wall Street, notes that the first rule of the market is that no one knows what is going to happen, especially stock brokers.
Adam Ruins Everything — Student Loans
Adam Ruins Everything is a half-hour informational comedy were host, Adam Conover, debunks popular myths. Each episode is divided into 3 segments with some common theme. In the Spring of 2018, James Tierney and I sat down to go through all three seasons of Adam Ruins Everything to pick out examples in each episode that could be used in an economics course. If you’re curious about the paper, you can read about it here.
Adam is back to discuss how student loan providers have turned so evil. When traditional institutions didn’t step in to provide loan services to students, the government tried to rectify the situation, but may have made things worse.
Always Sunny — Gas Price Speculation
Mac, Charlie and Dennis come up with another poorly thought out get rich quick scheme by trying to start a door to door gas selling firm. After getting a loan from the bank, they plan on buying a mass quantity of gasoline, waiting for the price to go up, and selling it for profit later on. The gang believes that when the gas prices reach a certain point they would be able to undercut the gas companies and sell the product at a higher price than what they bought it for.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Anyone?
I like to use this clip in my first lecture to show students how I don’t want class to end up? Ben Stein plays the economist that none of us want to be! He somehow takes a really exciting subject and makes it dreadfully boring.