South Park — Medicinal Fried Chicken (NFSW)

Cartman and the gang head to KFC after soccer practice only to find out it’s been converted into a new medicinal marijuana shop. Cartman convinces his mom to drive him to a nearby town for KFC, but that show has closed as well. Cartman learns that Colorado has recently passed a bill that bans fast food in low-income areas, but it turns out KFCs were only built in low-income cities, so there are effectively no more KFCs in the state. The state government has essentially set a price ceiling for KFC in low-income areas at zero dollars. One of the predictable side effects of these price controls is a black market for the item. Items with price ceilings also tend to have inefficiently low quality. The banning of fast food causes Cartman to enter the black market to feed his KFC addiction. In later scenes, Cartman is upset because he catches a dealer cutting the KFC gravy with Boston Market gravy. When the dealer suggests he can take the gravy back, Cartman notes that no one wants fried chicken without gravy, implying the two items are complements.

Thanks to Thomas Jandora for the clip reference

2018 0

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.

2017 0

College Humor — Apartment Hunting is the Worst (NSFW)

This comedy series shows a series of examples of associated with price ceilings for apartments in New York City. It shows not only the predictably inefficiently low quality of these apartments, but also the wasted resources that are involved when there is a shortage of apartments.

2017 0

John Stossel — Rent Control in New York City

John Stossel explores New York City’s decision to implement rent control throughout the city. He covers many of the predictable outcomes associated with inefficient policy controls. Ask students to identify issues as he progresses through the video. While the references are a bit dated, there aren’t many videos that hit the outcomes as closely as this one does.

2017 0

NYC Debate — Rent is Too Damn High

Many have seen Jimmy McMillan as a meme, but so few have gotten to see him in the NYC debates. McMillan argues that rent in New York City is too high and should be regulated by the government. This is a good clip to use before a discussion on price ceilings and the normative argument of prices being ‘too high’.

2017 0