Economics at the Movies - Billy Ray Valentine learns commodities

A classic clip to show whenever a student asks you about commodities!

Randolph Duke: We are ‘commodities brokers’, William. Now, what are commodities? Commodities are agricultural products… like coffee that you had for breakfast… wheat, which is used to make bread… pork bellies, which is used to make bacon, which you might find in a ‘bacon and lettuce and tomato’ sandwich. And then there are other commodities, like frozen orange juice… and GOLD. Though, of course, gold doesn’t grow on trees like oranges.

Clear so far?

Billy Ray: Yeah.

Randolph Duke: Good, William! Now, some of our clients are speculating that the price of gold will rise in the future. And we have other clients who are speculating that the price of gold will fall. They place their orders with us, and we buy or sell their gold for them.

Mortimer Duke: Tell him the good part.

Randolph Duke: The good part, William, is that, no matter whether our clients make money or lose money, Duke & Duke get the commissions.

Mortimer Duke: Well? What do you think, Valentine?

Billy Ray: Sounds to me like you guys are a couple of bookies.

Randolph Duke: I told you he’d understand.

BMW - Bavarian Monopolist at Work [24 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Cyclical and Structural Economic Issues Facing the UK [23 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Presentation on Elasticity of Supply [16 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Presentation on the Price Mechanism [16 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Price Elasticity of Supply [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Income Elasticity of Demand [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Price Elasticity of Demand [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Blogs on Markets and Intervention [10 May 2012]
Made in China - but not quite so cheaply…... [7 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Monetary Policy and Inflation Glossary [5 May 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Monopoly Price and Output [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Surplus [4 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Maximum Rents in Housing [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Brazilian coffee buffer stock hit by falling prices [29 Mar 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: EU Imposes Further Price Cap on Mobile Phone Companies [29 Mar 2012]
Life in the Slow Lane - UK Growth in 2011 Lags the Euro Area [28 Mar 2012]
Price of Stamp increases to 60p [27 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Government launches New Buy Loan Guarantee Scheme [12 Mar 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Focus on India - World’s Cheapest Computer [26 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - Foods that Make Billions [15 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - The Joy of Stats [14 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - Monty Python Money Programme Eric Idle Sketch [11 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - Freakonomics [9 Jan 2012]
Beyond the Bike - What is the value of life in Africa? [19 Nov 2011]
Pasty Prices - Something to Chew Over [19 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Time of Use Pricing for Energy [2 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Economies of Scale and the Kinect [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Google Maps to Charge for Usage [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Price Discrimination in the E-Book Market [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Is the Sun Dipping on Solar Subsidies? [27 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: University fees and elasticity of demand [24 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Economists attack food price speculation [24 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Tesco Behaving Badly - Price Anchoring [17 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Homework Assignment on Market Prices [2 Oct 2011]
Economics at the Movies - Too Big to Fail [28 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: The Supply and Demand Rap! [28 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Exercise on Equilibrium Market Prices [27 Sep 2011]
Putting the “discrimination” into price discrimination! [26 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Exercise on Market Demand [25 Sep 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Economic Growth and Inequality [14 Sep 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Value Added in Production and GDP [11 Sep 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Up in Smoke [2 Sep 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Seabiscuit and the Depression [31 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Local Hero - Valuing our heritage [30 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World! [29 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: The Cove - Trade in Dolphins [28 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Castaway Revisited [27 Aug 2011]
Page One - a movie about the New York Times [26 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: A Beautiful Mind [26 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Wayne’s World & Product Placement [26 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Plastic Surgery - Need or Want? [26 Aug 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: Baltic Dry Index and Global Weakening [19 Aug 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: The Price of Football [2 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies - The Game of Chicken [18 Jul 2011]
Economics at the Movies - Utility of Decorative Pillows [18 Jul 2011]
Tech & Pop Culture in Teaching Economics [17 Jul 2011]
A2 Micro: Price Discrimination [19 May 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Monopsony Power in Markets [19 May 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Perfect Competition [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Minimum Efficient Scale [18 May 2011]
AS Micro: What´s really behind the oil price rise? [10 May 2011]
AS Micro: Rising Global Food Prices [2 May 2011]
AS Micro Revision: Public and Private Goods [21 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Costs and Profits [16 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Prices [15 Apr 2011]
Information Failures: Tesco and Second Hand Cars [3 Apr 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Relative deflation [2 Apr 2011]
AS Micro Revision: Banana Prices [1 Apr 2011]
OCR F585 June 2011: Data Charts [30 Mar 2011]
Keeping Track of UK Macro Objectives [18 Mar 2011]
Timetric: Mortgage Lending and Mortgage Rates [14 Mar 2011]
AS Macro Revision: Investment Spending [12 Mar 2011]
Information Failure: The UK Illicit Drug Market [28 Feb 2011]
Ways to watch movies - cross elasticity of demand in action! [3 Feb 2011]
EU Economics: Hopes for a low carbon future in Europe [3 Feb 2011]
Economics at the Movies - Margin Call [23 Jan 2011]
Shorting the market - the vultures target HMV [23 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: How might rising food prices affect food retailers and manufacturers in the UK? [16 Jan 2011]
A Motorbiking Triumph [13 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of a period of rising world food prices [4 Jan 2011]
Behavioural Economics - Public Policy and Behavioural Change [30 Dec 2010]
HMV on the brink? [9 Dec 2010]
OCR A2 Economics F585 (Feb 2011) - Price Volatility [8 Dec 2010]
Orange, iPads and the Lock In effect [29 Nov 2010]
Growth and Strategy at Domino’s Pizza [27 Nov 2010]
Energy Oligopoly - Price Investigation is Launched [26 Nov 2010]
Agflation - a new food price crisis in 2011? [18 Nov 2010]
Watch out for the £7 chocolate bar! [9 Nov 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Four Yorkshiremen and Happiness Economics [31 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - The Dark Knight and Game Theory [30 Oct 2010]
The Market for Potash [30 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Bank Run Scene from A Wonderful Life [30 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Wedding Crashers and Free Riders [29 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Our Daily Bread [28 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Couscous [27 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - The Vanishing Bees [27 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Austin Powers and Inflation [23 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Reggie Perrin’s inebriated speech and economic growth [22 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Hudsucker Proxy and Consumer Demand [21 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - For the Love of the Game [20 Oct 2010]

ECONOMICS TEACHER RESOURCE NEWSLETTER

Join over 6,000 other Economics Teachers in the UK and around the world who receive the tutor2u regular Economics Resource Email Newsletter. Get special offers, first news of latest resources, teaching ideas, conferences and workshops + loads of great ideas for teaching economics from our blog authors.