I start every semester off using this as my last pre-class song. This Rolling Stones song is great for the opening chapter of most books that focus on “what is economics.”
Dee-1 — Paying Sallie Mae Back
Dee-1 has a big announcement for his fans, he’s finally paying Sallie Mae (his student loans) back. This is my favorite video to play before we start discussing human capital markets because student loan providers are viewed as evil, but they are filling a role in the market that traditional lenders aren’t willing to service.
Sesame Street — Cookie Monster Wants It
The Cookie Monster is working on self-control, but he may not know about discounting. This clip would be really good to introduce discounting and time preferences even though Cookie Monster isn’t getting anything for waiting.
Johnny Cash — One Piece at a Time
Johnny Cash works out how he was able to build an entire car during his time at the assembly plant because he would steal the parts one piece at a time. He had a bit of trouble when it was time to register the car with the state because it came from so many different years.
Thanks for the clip Jim Bang!
Brothers Osborne – It Ain’t My Fault
Introduce correlation vs causation using this music video from Brothers Osborne. In the story, the singer describes a bunch of events from a previous night of drinking, but reiterates that it wasn’t his fault. While his presence was correlated with a bunch of events, he insists he didn’t cause those events. He then goes on to list the causes of each event for the night:
Relevant lyrics:
Blame the whiskey on the beer
Blame the beer on the whiskey
Blame the mornin’ on the night
For whose lyin’ here with me
Blame the bar for the band
Blame the band for the song
Blame the song for the party that went all night long
But it ain’t my fault
For more country music videos that display economics, check out EconGoneCountry.
Old Dominion: Break Up with Him
When I get to the chapter on sunk costs, I always play this music video before class starts. I typically use relationships in the behavioral portion of the class because most students can relate to the idea of sunk costs in terms of old relationships.
Brad Paisley: American Saturday Night
This is one of the better “lyrics” music videos made by a YouTube user for Brad Paisley’s American Saturday Night. I use this song as my pre-class music for the international trade chapter. I use this as an introduction to start talking about why we have preferences for items from certain regions of the world and why we don’t just make them all here?