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In 2015, a brand-new musical opened about the most random thing - the Founding Fathers. What people didn't know was that it was genius - it told the story of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father who barely gets recognized as something other than a name in a dull textbook. The musical used rap and pop songs to convey the story of Alexander Hamilton and the rest of the Founding Fathers throughout the founding of the United States of America. After the opening performance in The Public Theater, word quickly spread that this musical is phenomenal, and people flocked in from all over the country to see it. This is where economics starts to come in: the massive scarcity and prices of tickets, the competition to buy tickets, the trade-off of purchasing a ticket. With so many people wanting to buy tickets to see this musical, prices skyrocketed, and even so, tickets became sold out through the years ahead. This is a very good example of the following economic examples: scarcity, trade-offs, prices, money, externalities, and competition.

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Money is the basis of economics. Everybody both makes and spends money, which creates the whole idea of economics. When you produce a product, you have to spend money to make it while paying for your resources and employees, then you gain money when you sell the product. When dealing with Hamilton, the writer, Lin Manuel Miranda, gets nearly $6 million each year from the show because people are spending so much to see it. Even after he left the cast, he still gets a considerable amount of money from the show as long as it runs. The actors, however, don't get as much, but they still get a considerable amount of money. Money is also spent in the making of the show; overall, the lights, music, effects and care of the theater add up to a considerable cost, plus the pay the actors receive and, of course, taxes. Also the cost of a single ticket is pretty high, so overall, the money circulates in large amounts when dealing with Hamilton.

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Prices range anywhere from super high to super low. Some things, such as cars and houses, are so expensive you don't have enough money to pay for it and have to borrow money from the bank. Some things are so cheap, like a pack of gum, that you toss it into your shopping cart without really thinking about it. Since Hamilton tickets are very scarce and the competition is high, the prices have skyrocketed. An interesting thing that, when Hamilton was first a very new thing it was legal, is that companies buy every single ticket and resell them with way higher prices - this is how those companies make their money and it's kind of rough for the consumers who have to pay way more than usual. These kinds of ticket companies are called scalpers.

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There is lots of competition within economics; competition between companies, competition between consumers to buy goods and services. If consumers are all crowding into the stores to buy a certain kind of chocolate, this will be competition because you are in a kind of battle to get to the chocolate first, before it has all been bought. Since Hamilton is a brand-new musical and it's pure genius and talent and is super awesome, everybody wants to see it. Prices have skyrocketed, which narrows down the pool of consumers able to buy tickets, but there's still a competition to buy tickets before they've all been sold. When a new 'batch' of tickets comes on sale, you literally have to be waiting on the website, ready to buy them within hours because if you don't, they'll all be sold and you won't be able to have them. Another big thing is the lottery; every day, you can enter the lottery online in which -- people win and only have to pay $10 (the dollar bill that Alexander Hamilton is on) to get a ticket. This is huge competition because although -- tickets are sold through this, ----- people enter every day.

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A trade-off is giving up one thing to acquire another; if you trade a cow for a horse like in the olden times, that is a trade-off. When I buy a Hamilton ticket, I'm trading money for the entertainment of seeing the show. This is a trade-off, but not the only trade-off I'm making. I'm also choosing to use my money for this instead of other things, which leads me to opportunity cost. An opportunity cost is the next best alternative of using money or time. If you decide to spend your money on a bowl of ice cream at your favorite ice cream place, the opportunity cost is that you could have spent that money on healthy food, or maybe going to the mall with friends. If I decide to buy tickets and go see Hamilton, I could have spent the money on food, or clothing. I could have spent the time that I spent in NYC doing homework or exercising.

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Scarcity is unlimited wants vs. limited resources. Basically, it is when the amount desired is not the amount in stock. Valuable trading cards are valuable  because there's a limited amount and lots of people want them; the wants are greater than the number of cards. Since Hamilton is a brand-new musical and it's pure genius and talent and it's super awesome, everybody wants to see it which makes tickets scarce; everybody wants to see it, making the wants unlimited and the resources limited. Everyone wants to see Hamilton, but there are only 1,319 seats in the theater and only eight shows a week, which means the tickets are limited -  scarce.