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Economics at the Movies: Castaway Revisited

Geoff Riley

27th August 2011

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The Tom Hanks movie Castaway provides many clips useful for teaching aspects of the basic economic problem - scarcity of resources, basic needs and wants to survive, an inability to access an NHS dentist are among many of the important issues you can raise. Hanks is forced to live a life without specialization - having been thrown from his life as an international executive for FedEx.

Our clip today doesn’t use the movie itself, instead we use this super FedEx spoof advert from 2003 in which our hero returns to civilisation and return a package - just what was inside that box?

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Geoff Riley

Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for nearly forty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD and Revision conferences in the UK and overseas.

@tutor2uGeoff

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