I was watching Trading Places on Comedy Central this afternoon. I've seen different parts of it at different times on TV, probably adding up to the whole movie, or close to it. I'm enjoyed it more than normal this time, because I think I finally figured out how Lewis and Billy Ray were able to ruin the Duke brothers. I probably should have figured it out sooner, but I don't follow the markets (or economics in general), and I can be quite slow at times. You have no idea how many times I had to watch Airplane! before I got the "drinking problem" joke, so I must have some comprehension blind spot when it comes to comedies.
Anyway, I put 1+1 together, and the selling, then buying, and the Dukes being stuck with a bunch of mostly worthless frozen orange juice stock made sense, but I was wondering whether the little scheme screwed over any other investors. Were there other folks who wound up like the Dukes, except they were just got caught in the crossfire? I suppose that's the risk you take in the stock market (and probably why some people enjoy investing), but wouldn't Billy Ray and Lewis' actions be something like insider trading? They knew about the crop report ahead of time and they used information to make a lot of money and bankrupt two evil old bastards. Granted, the Dukes, had their scheme worked, would be guilty of the same thing, but that just kind of makes Lewis and Billy Ray look worse, because they sank to the bad guys' level. Of course, that's part of the fun when it comes to movies, watching the villains hoist on their own petard.
Or maybe their actions just canceled out what the Dukes had planned, and the prices wound up where they would have if both the sides had just butted out. I'm just running in circles at this point.
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You're right of course, but we must never let logic and reality get in the way of a movie or tv show.
For example, how do all those unemployed television characters manage to have such great apartments? And clothes? Why do none of the employed characters actually ever go to work? why are ALL the kids smartasses? Why doesn't anybody actually cook or vacumn or do the laundry?
Ok, now I'm just getting carried away.
sallyp: What is this "vacuuming" you speak of? It has something to do with cleaning? Well no wonder I've never heard of it. As for the people never working, but having nice apartments, they're clearly being subsidized by parental figures, which is always nice.
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