Recess — Stickers as Money

Colorful stickers have become de facto currency on the playground. TJ can’t buy things because he doesn’t have any stickers even though his friends have them. Because of the increase in demand, the local shop owner doesn’t even have any stickers left.

TJ decides to start working in order to earn more stickers to buy things. When he gets tired of doing labor for stickers, he turns into a managerial role and begins delegating tasks to other kids who needs stickers. When TJ collects nearly all of the Monstickers on the playground, the kids aren’t able to actually purchase anythings. Eventually, Monstickers become obsolete and the playground converts to Lick ‘n’ Stick Alien Stamps and the Monstickers become useless.

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Magi – The Adventures of Sinbad — The Trader from Balbadd

Sinbad travels to a popular city with goods from a country which is not only highly secluded, but up until this point has refused to trade with other nations. Sinbad, being the only one able to establish trade with them, sets up a shop in this popular city, knowing that his goods will sell quickly. Within the hour of setting up shop, a merchant comes by and buys out his entire stock and sells them for a higher price. Realizing his mistake of setting a low early price, and eager to try to learn more about the economy, Sinbad finds the merchant again in a bar and asks for his help. This clip shows the interaction between the two, as the merchant teaches Sinbad about how his mistake heavily put him behind, and how to avoid such a mistake in the future.

Since Sinbad was the only one who is able to get sell these products from the highly secluded country, he was a monopoly firm in the area. He was bested when the other firm arbitraged his product.

Clip and summary provided by Michele Killoran.

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Superstore — Life of an Insurance Plan

When Mateo gets sick, Jonah comes up with an insurance fund to help cover employee medical bills because the store does not offer health insurance. The team members join the plan because it only costs $20 each month, but Jonah has promised to pay previous medical bills. Jonah and Amy quickly find out each team member, especially Sandra, has a lot of pre-existing conditions and they realize that they can’t cover everyone’s costs at one time. The two try to break the two groups apart, but the members in the pre-existing condition group will have to pay significantly more to cover all their costs.

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Superstore — Is Insurance a Pyramid Scheme?

Mateo comes down with an ear infection and Jonah comes up with an idea to create a store insurance policy. Originally, the store raised money for medical bills by putting a donation jar out for customers to donate spare change. When Jonah realizes that takes a lot of work, he proposes creating a pool of funds from the employees and have them contribute monthly to cover someone’s bills. Unfortunately, he’s created a semi-pyramid scheme that requires individuals to donate money to help one individual.

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Superstore — The Cost of Healthcare

After a coworker comes down with an ear infection, the team members decide to try and raise money to help cover the costs of medicine. Jonah decides to come up with a group health plan where each member donates money from their check and then covers the medical costs of store members whenever the become sick. Amy sarcastically points out that this is basically what health insurance is meant to do.

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Home Improvement — Asymmetric Information

Tim decides to hide a blow torch from his co-host, Al, in order to teach a lesson to his young children watching at home. Unfortunately, Al doesn’t know that the blow torch has been hidden and he believes he has lost the item on live television. Asymmetric information occurs when one party has more information than the other party in a transaction. When one party has more information, they are better able to make decisions and make take advantage of the unknowing party.

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The Simpsons — Bank Run

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!

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The Simpsons — Prohibition

Springfield residents are clamoring to re-enact prohibition in town, but the City Council feels like the positive externalities outweigh the costs associated with alcohol. The County Clerk finds an old law for Springfield ordinance that actually outlaws alcohol. The new Duff Zero (alcohol-free beer) isn’t as popular as the original and the Duff factory has to shut down.

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Law and Order — Selling a Kidney?

This is a series of clips from the show Law and Order where the detectives uncover a doctor operating a black market kidney ring. The detectives debate throughout the episode of whether kidneys sales should be prohibited and if there is an efficient way to allocate kidneys in the market.

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Yes, Prime Minister — Leading Questions

How a survey questions is asked may produced biased results, especially if the surveyor is trying to elicit a particular response. Besides the issues of responders trying to answer questions that they believe the researcher is asking, biased surveys can be used to show support both for and against the same topic. In this sketch comedy piece, Sir Appleby gives examples to his friend about various questions that could produce an opinion of supporting AND opposing conscription.

H/T to Chris Neill for the suggestion!

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