Teaching Economics with Media
Wanda discusses insider trading in her comedy bit and notes that everyone participates in some form of insider trading. While Martha Stewart may have been sent to jail for insider trading, her cousin who works at Walmart will call her and tell her not to buy certain products because they’ll go on sale next week.
Wanda moved to New York and her family told her to go out and a buy a particular type of gun, one that would end up costing her $400. Falling victim to the sunk cost fallacy, Wanda feels like if she spends $400 on a gun then she needs to make sure that it gets used, even if it means using it on friends that she invites over.
Wanda Sykes describes how she tests her husband when he doesn’t even know he’s being tested. She’s okay with a sink of dirty dishes one or two days, but if it continues for much longer than she’ll extract her revenge (later in the clip she talks about how all the fury comes out when they’re having sex). This tit-for-tat behavior where one party waits for the other one can turn into a situation where both parties are eating off of napkins and no one is cleaning anything.
Wanda Sykes describes how she treats her nephews is much different than how she would treat her own kids. She’s not interested in making sure they eat healthy or go to bed at a decent hour because they aren’t her children. This is a great illustration of the principle-agent problem in that the two agents, Wanda and her sibling, don’t have the same motives.