Teaching Economics with Media
Bart must have recently seen It’s a Wonderful Life because he incites a bank run reminiscent of the old classic. The banker tries to explain that the bank doesn’t actually hold everyone’s money, but its instead loaned out to the town. You can see the original clip here on Econ Media Library as well!
With things headed in the wrong direction economically, George tries to head to the bank to convince the town members that they shouldn’t withdrawal all of their money from the bank at once. He quickly recognizes that a bank run would cripple the local economy and he does what he can to prevent it.
One of the main characters just changed the value of the international currency to be zero which has the effect of causing all money to be worthless. The clip focuses on the president of the galactic federation and his aides discussing what to do about the sudden lack of money when the aides realize that without any money they won’t get paid and that they refuse to work for nothing. The president comes up with a solution that involves blowing his brains out with a handy space pistol.
Thanks for the summary and clip Ben Kupp!
Chris’s grandfather gives him a rare dollar bill for his birthday, but Chris doesn’t know about it at the time. The entire episode follows this dollar bill through the city of Quahog and shows the variety of people that interact with the same dollar. The concept of the velocity of money focuses on how many times a single bill can circulate throughout the economy. When a dollar is creator, assuming it isn’t leaked through the money system, it’s value is much more than the actual dollar amount at which it’s printed.
This clip is 10 minutes long (out of a 20-minute episode). There are some parts that may not be suitable for the classroom, so please watch in its entirety before showing in class.
Thanks to Michael Coon for the submission! Check him out on Twitter!
A Business Insider correspondent travels around New York City with 100g of gold and a single Bitcoin to see how easy/difficult it is to conduct transactions using these alternative currencies. Even though gold is universally agreed currency, no one is willing to accept it. Bitcoin is a little more popular, but some local places didn’t accept it as payment.
You can see the original article here. Thanks to Jodi Beggs for the tip.
Billy, played by Eddie Murphy in Trading Places, works through the process of why pork belly prices are declining during the Christmas season.
Cousin Eddie takes his savings and buries the money in metal coffee tins in the desert. When Clark Griswold losses all of his cash in Las Vegas, Eddie decides it is time to dig up the money to help Clark out.
Thanks to Adrian Fohr for the clip and description!
The group pools their money together and realize that the exchange rate is in their favor. While $1.83 isn’t much to Americans, this could be a lot of money in a different culture. This clip could be used to teach purchasing power parity or a light-hearted introduction to exchange rates.
Ron White describes how he tried to buy a beer using actual money, but by the time he got to the front of the line he finds out that the vendor requires him to pay for his beer with coupons. Ron then has to go stand in another line in order to get coupons (for cash) so that he can then trade coupons for a beer.
Homer is looking forward to eating the last peanut and goes to toss it in mouth, but he misses and it falls behind the couch. He starts digging under the couch and finds a $20 dollar bill and is initially upset about not finding the last peanut. Homer then goes through the thought process of how money could be exchanged for goods and services and now he can buy many peanuts.
Thanks for the clip Lauren Dempsey!