In this clip from the Man Show, Adam and Jimmy prank bathroom visitors by pouring a beer in a toilet along with fake feces and a $20 bill. The hosts try to guess whether the visitors are willing to put their hand in the toilet for $20.
Thanks Matt Rousu for this clip!
In the beginning of the clip Rachel tells Ross that she got her old job back at Ralph Lauren. Ross asks if she is still going to take the job in Paris (which she was offered in the previous episode) since she was hired back at her old job. Rachel says she still wants to go to Paris because when the people at Loui Vuitton found out Ralph Lauren wanted her back they decided to offer her more money. This clip is a good example of opportunity cost, which is the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. If Rachel wouldn’t have chosen, the job in Paris she would have been missing out on more money than if she would have stayed. Since she is taking the job in Paris her opportunity cost is that she will have to leave her friends and family.
Thanks Kailey Werkheiser for the clip and the summary!
In this clip, Tracy has a small debate with her roommate about going out to a party on St. Patrick’s day. While her roommate tries to convince her to go out, claiming that she is doing nothing with her time, Tracy rebuttals and says how she is “about to enter my robots doing track and field events period” as she looks over at her painting she has been working on. This clip displays the concept of opportunity cost. If Tracy decides to go out she could potentially be finding a new possible soulmate but she would be giving up time to work on her painting. If she decided to stay home, she could improve and progress the work on her painting but she would be giving up her potential love she could be finding.
Thank you for the clip and summary James Hetherington!
The song is about a guy that chose to go fishing instead of staying with his wife. It shows opportunity costs because he could either choose fishing where he didn’t know if he would catch anything or stay with his wife which could have been the best thing for him.
Thanks for the summary and the clip Aaron Wolfe! If you’d like to see more country music videos that have economic themes, check out Econ Gone Country.
It takes a lot of courage to propose to your partner in front of thousands of on-lookers and most of the time the answer, at least in public, is a solid “yes,” but this individual wasn’t so lucky. This clip is a good opening clip to use for opportunity costs, which is the value of the next best alternative. For the young lady, she quickly considered life with her partner and realized that the opportunity cost outweighed the benefit.
If you were the young man proposing, what would you rather be doing at that moment than what he’s going through? Instead of purchasing the engagement ring (average of $6000 in the US), what would you have spent that money on?
Thanks to Greg Caskey for the suggestion!
Ted introduces his girlfriend to his group of friends. Ted’s friend Barney quickly realizes that his girlfriend’s personality may be crazy even though she appears to be attractive. Barney then draws out a hot crazy scale graph explaining the more attractive a girl is the higher her crazy personality is seen. This is a fun opening when discussing model building and ceteris paribus.
In this episode, at work Homer is required to participate in an exercise class. He learns that if he is considered disabled that he will not have to participate in the class. He looks up ways to be considered disabled and finds that being over 300 lbs. makes him disabled. He’s now incentivized to become obese and not have to participate in the class when most people try to avoid becoming overweight.
Thanks to Brooke Bauman for the clip!
Stephen Colbert interviews Harvard economist Roland Fryer about his pay-for-learning system in Chicago, Washington DC, and New York City. Fryer discusses the incentive mechanism that his team developed in order to encourage learning across those three cities.
John Spartan (Stallone) wakes up from a cryogenic state to find that the world as he knows it has been “re-programmed” to follow morality statutes. He wakes up from his frozen state confused from all the changes.
Should people be allowed to do what they want so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else? That’s the question of economic freedom being presented in Demolition Man. In a more market-based system, people are free to do as they please even if it means that they’ll become unhealthy or do things that others may determine as weird. In a more command-based economy, everyone follows the same rules.
In the Count of Monte Cristo, our young protagonist decides to use his down time to train. He sharpens his mind *and his body. He studies different disciplines and, in this particular scene, he gives the definition of economics.
Thanks to Adrian Fohr for the clip and the description!