November 8, 2016 • 51 mins
Taxing things like alcohol, tobacco and gambling is big money and has been for a long time. But are these "sin taxes" keeping people from indulging or are they simply a way to raise revenue? Learn all about sin taxes in today's episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to stuff you should know front House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there too, So
this is you should know. How you doing come fine?
(00:24):
How are you doing good? You know this one? Um,
we did a podcast in June twelve, Should we have
a fat tax? Sure? I remember that was now that
I look at the timeline of uh and I'm sure
we'll cover this now about Mayor Bloomberg in New York
in twelve. That was in May when he wanted to
(00:45):
ban the sale of soft drinks over sixteen ounces in
New York City. Uh. And we released in June twelve,
So that had to have been the impetus, right, Uh, baby,
it was probably something to do with it. But the
difference with his two thousand and twelve push was that, um,
he was just trying to ban it. There was no tax.
(01:06):
It was correct. You can't have this tubs, you know, Yeah,
like you're drinking yourself to an early death with the sodas.
There's that very famous commercial that he had where like
this this uh, very large man is drinking like a
big gulp and Michael Bloomberg steps into the frame, smacks
(01:27):
it out of the guy's hand, shoves him, turns to
the camera and smiles, and he's missing a front tooth.
What I'm just kidding. It's pretty believable, though. I was
with you until the tooth part, and then it was like,
what kind of monster would be missing in front tooth
at h uh? Yeah, so, um Bloomberg did try to
(01:50):
ban that, which, like you said, is different than a
than a syntax. But um, yeah, by the way, we're
not saying s Y and T a X. It's high
end space T A X. That's right. And this article paints, uh,
one of the broadest political brushes I've seen from our
articles in a long time with this sentence. Syntaxes are
(02:13):
often considered a favorite tool of liberals out to impose
a nanny state on freethinking individuals. Conservatives often to post
syntaxes on the grounds that they amount to greater government
intervention in people's lives. Now, let's all read some iron
ran It's it was just a pretty like it wasn't nuanced. No,
(02:33):
it's pretty pretty unnuanced. Remember those big plastic bats that
you would get with the whiffleball when you're like two,
so you're learning to practice baseball. It's like being hit
with one of those. Yeah, there's no mistaking it. It's
just weird one of our articles because I think that's
sort of the the old party line that people believe.
It's just like all liberals just want to do is
(02:54):
control your life. Well, I think the author very clearly
sees it that way and slipped it in. I guess yeah,
But he also slipped in, but not all liberals think
this way because John Stewart thought it was ridiculous. Than that,
it's kind of funny. I don't remember John Stewart doing that.
Um do you do you remember him coming out against it?
(03:16):
I don't remember, but that doesn't surprise me. He said
it was draconian and would not have the proper outcome.
And John Stewart's pretty smart guy. Well yeah, if he
thinks that, then I do so he's probably one too,
and we'll talk a lot about this. But syntax is
uh to me. The proposed outcome isn't necessarily like what
(03:39):
um ends up happening A and maybe not even what
they're after in the long run. Jerry's still out on
that you know, like you talked to some people and say, oh, no,
they're effective. Other people say no, they're not effective, and
some people say sometimes they're effective. I think the third
group is probably right. Yeah, sometimes, so we should probably
tell people which talking about with a syntax. Syntax is
(04:02):
a type of text that is levied against a usually
a good of some sort that society in general says,
we don't really think you should have too much of that.
As a matter of fact, we'd all be happier if
you would not use that. So we're going to have
our government, or go along with our government levying a text. Yes,
(04:27):
the next size text, which is a sales tax on
one specific type of good. Um. For example, with a
syntax something like tobacco or liquor or gambling, something that
society tends to think of as advice. Yeah, and so
they're saying, there's a couple of things that are being said.
With the syntax, it's saying, well, we want you to stop,
(04:49):
so we're gonna hit you in your pocketbook. Yeah, that's
a good argument. You can argue both ways. Um. And
then secondly, and I think this one's a little more legitimate. Um,
that is costing the rest of us money in the
form of higher insurance rates, Like you're abusing your body,
(05:11):
we're having to pay for community hospitals. That cost of society. Yeah,
there's a cost of society. So if you want to
do this to yourself, you're gonna have to pay more
for it, so that we can use that money for
things like health care systems to fund UM, to fund this,
to offset the social cost that you are creating. Yeah,
(05:34):
And a lot of times there is something specifically earmarked
for a specific syntax, like we're gonna take the money
in our state from this new cigarette tax and put
it toward this healthcare measure. UM. And I think that
they like to do that more because people might get
behind it more if they're not, just like it'll just
(05:55):
go in the government coffers And uh, I don't know
how much faith there is the public at large that
the government spends the money wisely. Well, that's that's I mean,
that's a big part of it. Like if you are
not taking the money from a syntax and directly using
it to offset the social cost of whatever that vices
(06:16):
or whatever, if there is one, UM, then you're scamming
the general populace and you're using your shaming like a
segment of your populace for that, for that to that
end to scam everybody. Yeah, or which is not cool.
Let's let's say you're not, um, want to drink soda much,
but every once in a while you like to get
(06:38):
out there and have a big, tall, giant, big gulp.
Then you're paying that tax. And some people might say, well,
that's not really fair because you're not contributing to any
social epidemics. Right. Um, we're gonna get into all this,
but we should point out that Bloomberg, um, he lost
that war. He uh, the soda industry they you know,
(07:01):
they're not just gonna say that sounds like a great idea, mayor.
They fought hard. They mounted a campaign and ad campaign,
they mounted a legal challenge, and the Court of Appeals
eventually struck it down in June. So later that year
he said, all right, New Yorkers, you don't like to
be pushed around, Let's go to Berkeley, California. Yeah. Well, okay,
(07:22):
So Bloomberg is a billionaire, right sure, And he's a
billionaire who is exceedingly liberal. He's a very liberal billionaire. Um,
and he his foundation in two thousand and ten and
said we're going after soda. We've not just we the
Bloomberg Group, but the World Health Organization said soda texas
(07:44):
probably the most effective strategy of government can undertake for
improving the diet of the general population. UM, there's mounting
evidence that what are called ss D s sb's sugar
sweetened beverages are they lead to increased weight gain and
other um co morbid health outcomes like diabetes and are
(08:09):
basically they're they're becoming the central focus of a lot
of um negative publicity. A lot of people are saying
these things are are around the nexus of a lot
of really bad chronic health conditions. It's these sodas right,
and so much so that there was this really great
(08:30):
Guardian article that was written by Tina Rosenberg and she
puts it, soda is on the verge of becoming the
liquid cigarette. And in part because of Bloomberg and his
his foundation, what would that make the East cigarette? East
cigarette is the new cigar? Uh? Yeah, soda is one
(08:52):
that it's easy to go after because UM, childhood obesity
and kids that you about stories about kids like going
through like a leader or a two leader of sugary
sweet soda a day in these you know, just ridiculous
amounts of sugar intake that any reasonable person would say, like,
you can't drink that much sugar right well and expect
(09:16):
to like not have like huge consequences. The UK has
a sugar text on the books that's proposed to take
effect next year, and I was reading a BBC article
on it and they had like this little pole thing
comparison thirty five grams of sugar and a can of
Coca cola. Thirty grams is the maximum that the UK
(09:39):
suggests it's children or people eleven years or older have
a day. And so if you drink one cannon coke,
you're automatically having more then you're supposed to have in
one day as far as like a normal diets concerned
and who just drinks one can of coke? You know, Well,
so what we're do you really Well, I don't even
drink and we've talked about this before. I rarely ever
(10:01):
drink soda, that's true. You're drinking water right now, yeah,
And it's just it's not an effort to not drink
sugar water. It's just sort of the way I was raised.
We didn't have a lot of sodas in the house,
drank a lot of water. I still love water. It's
good stuff, that's right, it is. And as a sweater too,
that's what I need water. Yeah, so I can sweat more.
(10:24):
It's just a system. It's called the closed loop. He's swallowing. Yeah.
Uh so, I feel like about eight minutes ago, I
said something about going to Berkeley. Um. So Bloomberg went
to Berkeley later in fourteen after he was rebuffed in
New York and said, New Yorkers don't like to be
shoved around. Let's go out west where all these Berkeley
(10:46):
hippies will surely be down with this kind of thing.
And let's uh, instead of trying to ban it, let's
try and get a syntax an exercise tax i pose
and uh. He was very successful there. There was um. Obviously,
the the uh soda industry they're tried to fight back
as well, to the tune of about close to two
million bucks uh in a campaign against it, But voters said, yes,
(11:09):
we like the syntax uh, to the tune of how
much is it a penny? An an ounce ye that
could be substantial. Coke used to be what like a dollar.
I don't even know now, it would be a dollar twenty,
that's right, you know, I mean, yeah, that could be substantial,
especially if you're talking two leader, three leader. It's getting
into the area where you would start to see an
(11:33):
impact from it. Yeah, that's the way to do it. Though,
I gotta say, instead of just like you know, a
flat tax across the board, they're literally saying, like, the
more you drink of this stuff, the more you will pay. Right,
It's a negative. It's a disincentive to buy that product,
which again society or the government or somebody has deemed unhealthy. Right,
(11:55):
And in that case, uh, in Berkeley at least, you
know that what they need to do is look at
this stuff long term. But in the short term, um,
over five months after the tax, they saw that, um
this is the American Journal of Public Health. They found
that low income and minority residents of Berkeley drink less
soda than before, but in San Francisco nearby consumption went
(12:19):
up by four percent. That's a pretty significant study. Yeah,
five months though, Like, well, that's the problem. Like, look
at it long term, I think is what the because
maybe initially people will stop and then they'll go back
to it. Maybe right, But why did San Francisco's go
up for people like leaving Berkeley to go get their
soda thicks? Maybe, I mean, that's entirely possible. I don't know.
(12:43):
I don't think you would. The money you would spend
going back and forth to San Francisco is unless you
just went and bought like a truckload of cases of soda. Yeah.
If that's the case, then you got you know, there
are other issues in your life. Consider like even just
the people who live near the border close enough. Yeah,
where on the way home they're stopping or during their
day they're stopping in San Francisco, just on the border
(13:05):
getting a coke. That would raise consumption in San Francisco. Uh,
Coke and the other companies might say, hey, um, we
need to divert all the stock that was gonna go
to Berkeley over to San Francisco and maybe spend a
little more on advertising there. I could raise consumption. I
guess so. But you make a very valid point. I'm
(13:25):
not disagreeing with you. That jury is very much still
out on whether soda taxes actually do work in the
long term, And then even more is we'll see whether
they have the impact and effects that are supposedly desired. Yeah, well,
let's take a little breather and we will go uh huddle,
(13:46):
not puddle, huddle, huddle, pittle from all all the water
we've been thinking. Uh, people say that about their dogs,
like he pittled. I think that's just a cute way
of saying he beat it right, takes a stay out
of it a bit a little. But also I think
the peddle. I think a pile is just a little squirt. Yes,
but it's usually also a company with like a I'm
(14:08):
nervous or I'm scared or something, so I'm peddling. Well
that's a weird segue. So we'll go uh pittle and
talk about a little history of this when we get back.
(14:47):
All Right, we both got excited the book Pittle piddle
a little bit. Jerry mopped it up, piddled it a little. Yeah,
she was so um scornful though. Yeah, that's all right. Uh, alright,
so history WI, this is nothing new, And this is
a stat that I didn't know for about fifty years
in the late eighteen hundreds to early nineteen hundreds, until
(15:09):
n of our revenue in the United States came from
taxing booze and beer, smokes wine. I feel like we
talked about then in the customs episode tariffs episode. Did
we do a tariff episode? We talked about tariffs in customs. Yeah. Yeah,
(15:31):
I'm pretty sure that it's a large share of your
taxes though, coming from syntax, right. And as a matter
of fact, the first tax on a domestic product levied
by the United States was on It was a syntax.
It was a tax on whiskey or on distilled liquor,
the famous whiskey tax that led to the even famous
for whiskey rebellion, which led even famous her to the
(15:53):
Whiskey Hangover Whiskey Rebellion hangover. Uh So, in nineteen thirteen,
that all change when the United States said, you know
what we should do. We should people are making money now,
we should tax their income because the more they make,
the more successful they are, the more that we can
get until they get to a point where they can
get away from paying taxes. Sure they're so rich, and people, wait,
(16:17):
how does that work? They went, Oh, you wait, they said,
forget the supply side, We'll go to the demand side
to tax. And from that moment on, the United States
never collected a scent in Texas from another company. Again
the end so um. But the point is syntaxas are
(16:38):
most major source of government revenue up until right, which
is a little ironic, I guess considering our history as
a country. Yeah, it is. But what's weird is it's
it's the syntax actually goes back really far. There's a
lot of governments and throughout history that have collected syntaxes um,
(17:02):
for all sorts of different reasons. Um. And then they
also used to take the form of something called sumptuary laws. Yes,
so sumptuary laws were basically rather than taxing. It was
kind of like what Bloomberg was trying to do by
just outlowing outlowing so it all together, but rather than
necessarily being a moral thing, usually sumptuary laws were meant
(17:26):
to keep class distinctions intact. Yeah, like you know, the
word sumptuous expensive looking. It was a way to restrain extravagance. Um.
And like you said, uh, And they use Elizabeth the
First in this article, which was a good example because
she was big on those. And you know, it's kind
of like I don't want how am I going to
tell the difference between my subjects if they're dressing all
(17:50):
fancy now and thinking they're all that. Yeah, I don't
want to accidentally talk to a commoner pretty much. Uh,
And I looked into these a little bit. Apparently they
were not very ready enforced. Um. If they were, it
was usually because of a specific complaint that someone would
bring against, like their neighbor or something. They're wearing fancy shoes. Yeah,
pretty much. It wasn't like super police. But they made
(18:12):
a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Hey, that's
just good old fashioned ingenuity. Um. When you open it, it
it moves. But apparently that when these young men would
enter London, they would sometimes their swords would be measured,
and if their swords were too long, they would break
them because that was a sign of extravagance. If you
(18:35):
had some big, flashy sword. It's not a euphemism, right,
you're talking about a sword. I don't think, so weird
and gross. So even in this country, the sumptuary laws
um almost made an appearance. I think in the puritan
(18:55):
Um codes there may have been some sumptory laws, but
in the Ated States itself, George Mason during the Constitutional
Convention said, hey, let's get some sumptuary laws. They've been
done for centuries already, they work. Let's just keep it going.
But Mason's aim wasn't to um keep class distinctions. He
(19:16):
wanted to basically say, hey, here's how you guys conduct
yourselves the way we say where the US government. Don't
flashy because don't be flashy, don't be um, don't waste
your money, don't drink too much. So so rather than
saying like we're going to tax your whiskey, you who
produced whiskey, We'll just go and say you, you know, you,
(19:41):
member of the public, you can only have like a
pine of whiskey a day, and anything beyond that you
will throw you in jail for That would be a
sumptuary law. But the the other guys in the Constitutional
Convention said no, no, no, no. I think one of
them very famously said, um, the law of necessity is
the greatest sumptuary law. Meaning if you tax people, they're
(20:02):
not going to be able to afford it anyway. Plus you,
the government, get the money, So why be a jerk
and just outlaw it. Just throw a big old tax
on it, and everybody wins except for the poor loser
he's having to cough up this much more stuff to
to kill himself. Yeah, forget laws up with taxes which
(20:24):
had been you know, like we talked about a long
history and in the seventeen sixty four we uh, we're
subject to a sugar tax, which kind of had a
twofold purpose. One was, Hey, anything that we can do
to make the king richer great, uh and be you know,
we know what you're doing with that sugar. You're making
(20:46):
rum and you're getting too drunk, and we don't like
that either. So instead of a sumptuary law there, let
me just tax your sugar. And do you remember we
talked about swilling the planters with bumbo? Yeah, like that
was just election day. People used to drink in the
United States. Yeah, not like now, No, not like now.
(21:07):
I know I was being facetious, but that is true.
People like everyone was drunk back then. Yeah, there was
written no reason not to be. No, it was a
hard life for everybody. You weren't driving around, no, you
were you were in like weird pants. Yeah, there's a
lot to You had a lot of reason to drink. Yeah,
you could just get on your horse, and your horse
(21:27):
knows where to go, skipper, skipper knows where to go
it was a weird neighbor hors. So do these syntaxis
actually work? Is the question? Well, yeah, that is the
big question. So um, oh we don't know, you. I mean,
it can work for sure. We actually with with this
(21:49):
is I thought this was a very Um this article
confused me here there because it seemed to be making
its own argument rather than reporting the arguments, which I
found like hard to follow. And then secondly it just
kind of wove all over the place right as far
as that argument went. But I think what I'm getting
(22:12):
is with the soda tax, that specific kind of syntax,
which is the syntax doujure of the century right now. Um,
and I've just said the syntax of the day of
the century, which is a little weird. Um, the jury
is very much still out like a few countries of
(22:33):
tax soda, but they also tax like mineral water and
diet soda. So there's no way to study whether that
actually works. As far as like health outcomes and things. Yeah,
I mean there's a few different ways to say whether
or not it works, because there's threefold It's like, can
we improve health outcome, can we raise money? Yes, in
that case it always works. Right, and UM and C
(22:57):
or three started with three p o um man, this
is falling off the rail. Uh and see does it
help the public at large? UM. In the case of Mexico,
they a couple of years ago imposed to soda tax
um because Bloomberg spending ten million dollars. That surprised me,
(23:18):
but that was a good place to do it because apparently, UM,
Mexico was nuts for sugar sweetened beverages. Yeah, and sort
of junkie food and sugary beverages. I think it has
a reputation for sure as being a problem. And I
think in two thousand and six there was like a
nationwide health report basically like a study of Mexico and
(23:39):
they were finding like it was on its way to
becoming like the fattest country in the world. And UM
they were like, well this, this is definitely opening our eyes.
And that kind of planted the seed for Bloomberg's a
group to come in and a few years later and
spend ten million on a campaign against soda. I've seen
I mean, have you been to Mexico. I've seen it,
(24:00):
you know, in person, Like it was a notice. It
was noticeable to me the amount of people drinking soda
just right out there in front of people. They weren't
even trying to hide it. I'm kidding of course. Um
so is when I guess Bloomberg was successful there, they
had to pay so per leader tax and an eight
percent tax on junk food and apparently both of those
(24:23):
consumption of both went down a lot because of that tax. Um.
But like I said, so wait, there's one there's one
thing that consumption can decrease as a result. Right, What
they don't know is the long term health outcome, because
that's just one thing that can lead to poor health
in your future, is a sugary drink. Well, so that
(24:46):
to me smacks of like soda industry like obfuscation, well
in a way, but it's true. It is true. But
apparently in Mexico, the battle that's being fought by the
soda industry is, um, hey man, don't don't don't text us.
That's that you got it all wrong. Text the cheeseburger people,
(25:08):
get them. Uh, and the cheeseburger people like what we're
standing over here being quiet the pork rind people right.
Um No, they were saying, teach kids to like get
out and exercise more it's calorie and calorie out right,
So who cares if our drinks have high calorie Tell
these little kids to get off their duffs and get
(25:28):
out there and start playing the hopscots or something. The
thing is is, um diet is more responsible for obesity
than exercises. You can exercise with your heart's content, and
if you don't change your diet, you're never gonna lose
any weight. It's diet that that leads to a change
in obesity. And again, obesity is kind of the central
(25:49):
focus of this whole cluster of co more big chronic
illnesses that include things like UM insulin resistance and type
two diabetes UM. And if you can change the diet,
then you can conceivably cut down on these chronic illnesses.
And again the World Health Organization said, so to text
(26:10):
is the best way to change the diet. So that's
just being fought in Mexico right now, and and it's
actually it's having an effect at least on a reduction
and consumptions. Now, what you're saying is we have to
wait and see whether that reduction and consumption has a
reduction in things like obesity and has a positive impact
on health outcomes, and if that's the case, then Mexico
(26:31):
will probably change, will lead the way for the rest
of the world because everybody's gonna start following suit after that. Well,
here's the thing, though, let's look at uh. Let's look
at alcohol. For instance, we've long text cigarettes and alcohol
in this country to great effect or great revenues at least. Uh.
In two thousand nine, Illinois, the state of Illinois said
(26:54):
all the beer is gonna be one cent more per bottle,
and each serving of liquor is going to be five
cents more, Which I don't know what that means. Uh,
like ounce and a half. I think an ounce and
a half is a serving a liquor. So is that
just for a drink? You're getting a bar showy, they're
not slapping that on a bottle that you buy. I
don't know'd be a lot of dough. I don't know.
(27:16):
Maybe I don't know. I don't know that either. Well,
let's think about it's a fifth. The fifth is like, um,
instead be like a dollar twenty extra for a fifth
because it's a leaders about thirty two ounces, So three
(27:37):
quarters of thirty two would be twenty four right, I'm
pretty sure it is all right, sons, and maybe it
wasn't that much then. Um. But what they found out
was that deaths and this is where the hanky reporting
comes in, UM, deaths associated with drunken driving stop by
(27:58):
and the general population in thirty seven, it for young
people and also went down for uh, people who drink
a lot supposedly Yeah, heavy drinkers. Yeah, a population that
that Everyone was like, that's the what you can tax
it till the cows come home and they're still gonna drink.
So that was drunk driving accidents. And UM, if you're
(28:19):
someone like mathematics professor Rebecca Golden, UM, you will look
at that and say that doesn't prove anything. That's correlation
at best, and you can't prove that that caused the
drop in drunken driving accidents. Well, she actually said also
that there was a larger trend of um, drinking less.
(28:41):
You know that it had to do with the Great
Recession of two eight. People had less money to spend
on drinking, so we're getting drunk less, so we're dying
in drunk driving accidents less. She said it didn't have
anything to do with this tax, But if you want
to support the tax, you can cherry pick a study
like this and say, well, look people, because this is
the third part of that equation, the public at large benefit,
(29:02):
which is fewer drunk driving accidents, um, less domestic abuse
in the case of smoking, less second hand smoke issues. Um.
That's when people are like, wait a minute, I'm the
one smoking, doesn't affect anyone else, Well, yeah, second hand smoke,
or I'm the one drinking. Plus let me destroy my
own body. Everybody likes a pretty smile, not meth mouth.
(29:26):
That's the number one problem with meth. But the problem
with that, I don't know if it's the study or
the tax or what, but that Illinois tax on alcohol
leading to fewer drunk driving deaths. That doesn't mean that
it couldn't work. I think I said somewhere that like
is about the minimum that you want to slap a
(29:48):
syntax on before it starts to have, um, the outcomes
that you're looking for. That's just nothing. Half a cent
on a beer. No one's even gonna notice that, you know,
five cents on a shot. No is going to notice
that it just couldn't possibly have the kind of outcomes
that that study concluded it had. Right, But that's not
to say that it couldn't if the text were raised, right.
(30:11):
And the thing is is there's a there's a sweet spot.
There's a window where too low of attacks isn't gonna
do anything, but too high of attack can have really
negative outcomes too, And we'll talk about those right after
this break, all right. So you tease the fact that
(30:55):
there is a point in time when you're raising these
taxes to try and get more and more people to say,
all right, enough is enough. I'm not paying five dollars
and eighty five cents and taxes taxes on a pack
of smokes. Yeah, and that's I think how much they
pay in New York these days, New York State if
you buy a pack of smokes. I'm not sure how
(31:18):
updated that is, but it's got to be around there, yeah,
Because I mean cigarettes are like twelve bucks there. Yeah,
they're like twelve dollars a pack. Wow, I know that's insane.
I remember friends saying like, I'll never like, I'll quit
smoking once they hit five dollars a pack? Did he?
(31:38):
Because some people say that and they don't know other
people do. Yeah, And like even if it's a two
percent of smokers who say that actually do two percent
reduction in smoking across the country. That's the size of
the United States. That's significant. No agreed, But like I
was saying them, there's that breaking point. And Canada saw
(32:00):
it for real backfire wise in the early nineties, they
were um increasing the taxes on cigarettes. It finally got
to a point where it spawned a black market, and
all of a sudden, people, I think it from the
black market was one percent of sales, and just five
years later it jumped up to And not only are
(32:22):
they is it defeating itself, but they're not. They're not
raising They're getting less money on taxes than they would
have if they would have kept it more reasonable. Right,
Like I think Arkansas ran into the exact same problem
they had. Um they up the tax on cigarettes in
(32:43):
two thou nine. They doubled their tax. Suddenly it was
a dollar fifteen a pack, which was enough that they
were expecting something like um eighties six million dollars in
revenue from tobacco. And they had an earmarked for a
specific health UH initiative, which is good but also bad
when you're like, hey, we're gonna project this much money
(33:05):
for this thing. Yeah. Not only did they um not
make the eighties six million dollars that they were expecting to.
They actually collected ten million less than they had the
year before. Yeah, ta trombone, right right. And the reason
why is because they jack the attacks up too much
and they made it um in the interest of the
(33:26):
smokers to go elsewhere, like just across state lines to
buy their cigarettes, and a black market developed. So there
is a window where syntax can work. But you can't
go too low, and you can't go too high or
else it's gonna not have the intended effects. Yeah, here's
a few stats, um in the United States, apparently a
couple of years ago, Uh, Rhode Island, Nevada, West Virginia,
(33:50):
New Hampshire, and Delaware. We're led the nation in syntaxas
um tobacco at seventeen billion for the country. I'll cohol
six billion casinos five and a half billion Russinos, which
I had never heard of. Made sense though, Russian sina
(34:10):
Russian casina racinos, I guess it would be called because uh,
you know, horse races are doll races with a casino
right were you're you're betting on them, right, Yeah, but
it also has a casino attached Oh is that what
it is? I guess, like, we know you like to
bet on the ponies, but why not throw some black
check over here? Have you ever tried electronic binga uh?
(34:34):
And then video gaming paramutual betting seven hundred million? So, uh,
the United States brings in a lot of dough from
these taxes. And one of the big arguments, um, that
you're gonna hear politically is that or I guess not
even politically is that, Uh it's a regressive tax, meaning
(34:55):
attacks that uh infects a proportionately unfair segment of the
poor population, right, which makes total sense because uh, syntax
is an excise tax, and an excise taxes a sales tax,
and sales taxes almost two to a single one affect
the poor more than they affect the wealthy. Just because
(35:17):
this matters more. Yeah, it's a er share of their
income exactly, you know. Right, Well, we also should point
out to there are texas like luxury taxes on it's
sort of a syntax for the rich, a luxury tex Yeah,
because you're like you text yachts at a higher rate
or something like that. Sure, yeah, this is a different
(35:39):
type of excise tax with the syntax you're especially with
say like tobacco. Uh, studies show that poor people tend
to smoke more cigarettes than the wealthy. So when you
have an excise tax a syntax on tobacco, yeah, you're
(36:00):
definitely instituting a regressive tax because it's being shouldered by
the poor disproportionately in that they have less income, but
also because they smoke more. So some people say tada,
syntaxes are regressive. Other people would say, well, actually, let's
take another look at this. You could say that that's
(36:22):
a progressive tax because it's having exactly the kind of
outcome you want to have by basically making it so
that the people who smoked the most can afford it
the least. So therefore people are going to stop smoking
as much now though we have traped very clearly, and
syntaxes are always in this realm anyway, but now we
(36:44):
can't avoid it any longer. What you're talking about is
the government deciding what what is good for you and
what you should or shouldn't do, and they're doing it
in a sneaky way, like we talked about in the
PR episode when we release from Chicago. UM that kind
of um paternal liberalism where the government's like, oh, you
(37:08):
just listen to us, we'll we'll take care of you.
We're not going to tell you what to do. We're
just gonna make it so that you can't really afford
to do what we don't want you to do any longer. Right,
But as this article points out, it's sort of a
kind of talking out both sides of their mouth because
they bring in the US government brings in ninety billion dollars.
(37:30):
I think that's the the US and states together. Okay,
so federally in state wise billion dollars from syntaxes each year.
That they use that money and UH kind of need it.
Yeah I almost said need but it didn't depend on
it about that sure, UM. And you know they they
(37:53):
say like, we don't want you to do these things.
We want you to smoke and drink less, but well
just not completely though, because we still want to collect
these taxes. Yeah. So that's why I like UM. I
know the UK had a big, a big issue with
UM some of their proposed UH syntaxes on alcohol. They
(38:14):
had one that was a syntax and they also had
a proposal I'm not sure where this went yet, but
UM on minimum alcohol pricing and uh, they flat out said, um,
or you know, most of the public flat out said, like,
there's no way you can have that minimum pricing because
that's clearly gonna affect poor people who drink drink cheap
(38:37):
liquor and go to the store and get you know,
Mr Boston Vodka and that Boston vodka and cheap anymore
because there's a minimum pricing on it, and it's not
gonna affect the fat cat who wants to go in
there and get his uh, what's a nice vodka? Uh vodka?
Hold on, grey Goose, it's not bad, Grey Goose. Sure, Belvedere, Exactly,
(39:01):
they're not walking in their sweating some minimum price on
vodka or probably the tax because they want their martini,
right exactly, No, that's exactly right. So I read this
article from it's called the Wages of Syntaxes from the
Adam Smith Institute, Oh of all places, the capitalism, and
they said, you know, they come out very obviously, very
(39:23):
much on the side of saying syntaxes are ineffective, they
don't produce the outcome you want, they're regressive, and um,
anyone who's saying anything else is just fooling themselves. What
they're doing is trying to collect revenue. Yeah, where are
you following this? I'm very curious. I'm not gonna weigh
in on it. Okay, I'm just staying neutral. I'm saying
(39:45):
some people say this, some people say that, good for you.
Jack Chuck just stays at home, Yeah, with his Tetos vodka.
Actually I don't even drink vodka, but I do have
Tito's in the house because you know, you want to
offer it to your friends. It's American, that's right. Sure,
Oh bloody marry I mean now and then oh yeah,
although you got to drink that with Jenner tequila so
(40:06):
much better than a vodka. Have you tried it? Yeah?
And you prefer vodka? Is still huh absolutely really yep.
I'm surprised to hear you say that. Yeah, Titos, uh
Mr Boston not Mr make a blend of both two
thirds Tito's, one third Mr Boston and then spit my friend. Well,
I do have that famous bloody Mary recipe from years ago,
(40:28):
the Caesar. But I've also been called out for not
talking specifically about my red neck crabbed up. People are
writing in saying you can't just say that they want
the recipe. You can't say crack dip and not give
us a recipe. So are you going to Well, I
don't remember, Like I don't go I don't do recipes
because I like to just cook by the seat of
(40:49):
my pants. But I know it's got the k rab
chopped up lemon juice, it's got mayonnaise, it's got Worcestershire
little salt, pepper and paprika and that maybe it. I
just don't remember the exact proportions. And you made you
can monkey with it sure like like mayo, Yeah you do.
(41:11):
You can go lighter on the mayo if you want,
if you want to be a comie, um, Worcestershire. I
don't remember putting a ton in there. Just yeah, a
couple of couple of dashes or no tapoon. Well, I
mean it depends on how much you're making. You know,
if you make a big tub for a party, you're
gonna want more than a couple of dashes, probably like
you know, a quarter cup or something. Who um yeah right, yeah, uh,
(41:34):
wake you up. And I think that's everything. Just as
I say, monkey around with it, get creative, and then
next week maybe I'll talk about my Bloody Caesar recipe.
I think you should that. I didn't even know it's
called the Bloody Caesar until recently. Again, I think it
was the Bars episode. Yeah, because it became clamato and
stead of tomato, that's the difference, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
(41:55):
the clam makes all the differ. Do you like red
beer or Jerry? What's at there? And called that? You
had your michelada Michelada, love him? We call him red
beer and yuma? Oh really? Yeah, that's funny because you
was closer to Mexico than New York. You know, you
think if anywhere they call him a Michelada. In fact,
it's so close to Mexico you can walk there. Oh
(42:18):
is it that g I didn't know humans on the border?
Oh yeah, I mean it's it's right on the border
of Arizona in California and uh in Mexico. It's like
right in that bottom corner. Yeah. You know. The worst
is um if you ever order a Michelloda somewhere and
they don't they have the gall to not bring you
the can of beer as well, Like you just made
(42:40):
you a Michelada eight dollars please, and it's like there's
a shot of beer, not even that because it's still
kind of foamy, and they just try to pretend like
they don't owe you that the rest of that beer,
that that didn't get into the glass. At the same time,
what kind of weirdness is this? It's not okay, So
hold on, I'm of time. If you order a Michellodda
(43:02):
and they don't bring you the can, you tell them
to bring you the can, and then you throw that
can back in their face. That's a little at the topic. Yeah,
I guess you could, especially if you chug the rest
all at once. Jerry did not care for her Michelloda
that because it was um we saw the woman make it.
It didn't have tomato juice. It was just made with
(43:23):
like hot sauce. It's not supposed to have tomato juice,
all right, So Jerry just weighed in. We took the
tape off her mouth, right, and she said that in
Guatemala they make the Michellodda with clamato. Well, that's what
they did in Huma. That was a red beer, basically
bloody mary with beer. So that is not that's different
from Michellodda in my in my experience at the what's
(43:46):
the Triple Crown horse race in Maryland. I don't know.
So there's the Kentucky Derby, Yes, the Preakness. At the Preakness,
they make something like Jerry was just describing where it's like, um,
bloody Mary with beer. They didn't call it a michellotta
what they call it. I don't remember what they called it.
(44:07):
Kevin like it is good. I'll give you that. But
my experience Mitchellott is lime juice, beer and hot sauce.
Well that's what she got and you didn't like it, huh. Alright,
so Josh says Jerry, she liked it. She said it
was awful. The proportions were not correct, and she did
(44:28):
we get charged for that. We did get charged for that,
even though she didn't drink any of it. So I'm
not going to name the restaurant in New York. You're
not gonna shame him publicly, huh. I will say the
lobster tacos were good. I'm sorry, the lobster roll was good.
So that could be anywhere in New York. Was their
crownut there as well? That'll be a slight hint, slight hint. Yeah,
(44:51):
so you narrowed it down to three thousand places to
the west village. Okay, alright, so that narrows it down. Okay.
Uh so, Syn Texas, you got anything else? Uh? No,
he said you didn't want to weigh in on it.
I understand. I respect that. No, because you know, to
be honest, not only do a not one a way
in just because I'm trying not to do that. But um,
(45:12):
you're turning over a new leaf. No. Just for things
that I feel really passionately about, I will, but I
don't feel super passionately about this. I'm being torn every
which way by this. Well, that's what my deal is is.
I don't I can't really speak to it because it's
sometimes it seems like a regressive tax, sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it seems like it might work, sometimes it seems
like it might not. Right, So I think that's where
(45:33):
I lie is ambivalent and confused. Yeah, I'm interested to
see how this how this comes out, you know, with
UM Berkeley, with Mexico, the Navajo Nation, UM instituted, they
instituted a two percent junk food tax and then simultaneously
repeal the five percent tax on fresh fruit and vegetables
and their grocery stores. Yep. So there's a lot of
(45:54):
like natural experiments going on right now that I'm very
interested to see what the outcomes are. People are going
to be audeing the heck out of those places. Well,
there's a lot of natural experiments going on in my
house to buddy. So if you if you want to
know more about this kind of stuff, go and listen
to our fat tax episode. We did want to high
fruit toast corn syrup. There's a great article about syntax
(46:17):
is that we used, called The Wages of Syntax as
it was in the Atlantic by a guy named Band
new Kirk. So go read that too. Brush up on
the syntax tip. And since I said brush up, time
for listener, Matt, I'm gonna call this Josh's choice. Every
one boy, all right. Every once in a while Josh
(46:37):
will send an email and saying, hey, I know this
is your bag, that would you mind reading this one?
And that is exactly what I wrote. Yeah, So this
is uh from Ada, And I don't remember where Ada
is from, but Ada is in high school, oh from Canada.
So that immediately means that Ada is probably smarter than
we are. She well, I mean the course she took
(46:59):
in school is pretty impressive it is. I didn't run
into those until well into college. All right, Hey guys,
I'm seventeen year old from Canada, and somebody caught my
attention to your Polar Bears episode when Josh is talking
about hunting. Uh. He said that people will say, well,
the food you're eating came from the store that was
killed unethically as a counter argument, and Josh found it
kind of fallacious, but didn't know how to describe it. Luckily,
(47:23):
I'm taking the English class and we just finished finished
a unit on fallacies, and I can confirm it is fallacious.
So it would be qualified as a straw man argument
because the counter argument isn't really arguing against your point
that hunting is wrong, but it's arguing a slightly different
and weaker point that food bought in grocery stores could
be unethically killed, which takes your attention away from the
(47:45):
point that you're arguing nice. It could also be an
ad hominen to quoke sure that right? If my Latin
not as rusty as I thought, to quoke q you
o q u e u quake quoke quick quick, I
didn't take Latin. I didn't need or you two y
(48:08):
o U T O O not the band um. If
you say that hunting is unethical killing, and then the
person is saying, well, you participate in the unethical killing
of animals by grocery shopping. Another example of this kind
of argument be one person telling another that they shouldn't smoke,
but the person says, well, you smoke. Just because the
other person doesn't practice what they preach, it doesn't change
(48:30):
the fact that it is wrong and good stuff. The
reason that you might not have been able to identify
this is because fallacies like this are used so much
in media today and they're not accepted widely as fair
arguments because they're really not. Hope this helped, Yes, yes
it did. You were delighted keep calling out these fallacious arguments,
(48:51):
and that is from Ada. Thank you Ada. That was
de bravo. Although I have to say we did get
some some good fallacious arguments on the other side. They
had nothing to do with what I was saying necessarily,
but they did explain hunting a little more, which I
thought was pretty great, including one that you read. But
we've gotten some other ones since then as well. There
(49:12):
I'm just like, wow, I want to go hunting, like
slap my own face. It was funny. I was at
the park yesterday with my daughter and there were these
really cool kids, his brother and sister that were probably
ten and eight ish, and they were kind of hanging out.
They had a dog that um that Ruby was playing with,
and they were just being nice sounds talking to them,
and then this other kid came up later and they
(49:35):
were talking to these kids and they're talking about sports.
This kid was saying he played baseball, the cool kid.
I'm not saying your kid wasn't cool. And the other
kids said, you know, I don't do any sports except
for hunting and fishing. And this this other kid looked
at him like he was from Mars. You could just
see the difference in their two upbringing. And this kid
(49:55):
was just like what. He's like, what do you hunt for?
The kid was like deer, and he was like, you
shoot deer? And he was still young enough in in
that you know environment that his family is raising him
in where he was just like, why would you shoot
a deer? Right? Yeah, they're awesome. Yeah, And this gips like, yeah, man,
that's pretty cool. It was an interesting interaction to watch
(50:16):
as an adult. I would have liked to have seen that. Yeah,
because I mean, and you have that conversation as an
adult doesn't usually go that way. It'll go it's pretty interesting. Yeah,
I've been listening in on kids convers just don't do
it in a creepy way, you know, you know, they
say everything you needed to know you learned in kindergarten. Yeah,
I believe it. Uh Ada, Thank you again for that.
(50:37):
That was a great email. Thank you too, Chuck for
the additional anecdote. Sure beautiful. Uh If you want to
send in an anecdote or explain something that we put
a call out for whatever, you can tweet to us
at josh um Clark and s y s K podcast,
two different ones. You can hang out with Charles W.
Chuck Bryant on Facebook and or you can go to
(50:59):
face but dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You
can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to stuff you should know front House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there too, So
this is you should know. How you doing come fine?
(00:24):
How are you doing good? You know this one? Um,
we did a podcast in June twelve, Should we have
a fat tax? Sure? I remember that was now that
I look at the timeline of uh and I'm sure
we'll cover this now about Mayor Bloomberg in New York
in twelve. That was in May when he wanted to
(00:45):
ban the sale of soft drinks over sixteen ounces in
New York City. Uh. And we released in June twelve,
So that had to have been the impetus, right, Uh, baby,
it was probably something to do with it. But the
difference with his two thousand and twelve push was that, um,
he was just trying to ban it. There was no tax.
(01:06):
It was correct. You can't have this tubs, you know, Yeah,
like you're drinking yourself to an early death with the sodas.
There's that very famous commercial that he had where like
this this uh, very large man is drinking like a
big gulp and Michael Bloomberg steps into the frame, smacks
(01:27):
it out of the guy's hand, shoves him, turns to
the camera and smiles, and he's missing a front tooth.
What I'm just kidding. It's pretty believable, though. I was
with you until the tooth part, and then it was like,
what kind of monster would be missing in front tooth
at h uh? Yeah, so, um Bloomberg did try to
(01:50):
ban that, which, like you said, is different than a
than a syntax. But um, yeah, by the way, we're
not saying s Y and T a X. It's high
end space T A X. That's right. And this article paints, uh,
one of the broadest political brushes I've seen from our
articles in a long time with this sentence. Syntaxes are
(02:13):
often considered a favorite tool of liberals out to impose
a nanny state on freethinking individuals. Conservatives often to post
syntaxes on the grounds that they amount to greater government
intervention in people's lives. Now, let's all read some iron
ran It's it was just a pretty like it wasn't nuanced. No,
(02:33):
it's pretty pretty unnuanced. Remember those big plastic bats that
you would get with the whiffleball when you're like two,
so you're learning to practice baseball. It's like being hit
with one of those. Yeah, there's no mistaking it. It's
just weird one of our articles because I think that's
sort of the the old party line that people believe.
It's just like all liberals just want to do is
(02:54):
control your life. Well, I think the author very clearly
sees it that way and slipped it in. I guess yeah,
But he also slipped in, but not all liberals think
this way because John Stewart thought it was ridiculous. Than that,
it's kind of funny. I don't remember John Stewart doing that.
Um do you do you remember him coming out against it?
(03:16):
I don't remember, but that doesn't surprise me. He said
it was draconian and would not have the proper outcome.
And John Stewart's pretty smart guy. Well yeah, if he
thinks that, then I do so he's probably one too,
and we'll talk a lot about this. But syntax is
uh to me. The proposed outcome isn't necessarily like what
(03:39):
um ends up happening A and maybe not even what
they're after in the long run. Jerry's still out on
that you know, like you talked to some people and say, oh, no,
they're effective. Other people say no, they're not effective, and
some people say sometimes they're effective. I think the third
group is probably right. Yeah, sometimes, so we should probably
tell people which talking about with a syntax. Syntax is
(04:02):
a type of text that is levied against a usually
a good of some sort that society in general says,
we don't really think you should have too much of that.
As a matter of fact, we'd all be happier if
you would not use that. So we're going to have
our government, or go along with our government levying a text. Yes,
(04:27):
the next size text, which is a sales tax on
one specific type of good. Um. For example, with a
syntax something like tobacco or liquor or gambling, something that
society tends to think of as advice. Yeah, and so
they're saying, there's a couple of things that are being said.
With the syntax, it's saying, well, we want you to stop,
(04:49):
so we're gonna hit you in your pocketbook. Yeah, that's
a good argument. You can argue both ways. Um. And
then secondly, and I think this one's a little more legitimate. Um,
that is costing the rest of us money in the
form of higher insurance rates, Like you're abusing your body,
(05:11):
we're having to pay for community hospitals. That cost of society. Yeah,
there's a cost of society. So if you want to
do this to yourself, you're gonna have to pay more
for it, so that we can use that money for
things like health care systems to fund UM, to fund this,
to offset the social cost that you are creating. Yeah,
(05:34):
And a lot of times there is something specifically earmarked
for a specific syntax, like we're gonna take the money
in our state from this new cigarette tax and put
it toward this healthcare measure. UM. And I think that
they like to do that more because people might get
behind it more if they're not, just like it'll just
(05:55):
go in the government coffers And uh, I don't know
how much faith there is the public at large that
the government spends the money wisely. Well, that's that's I mean,
that's a big part of it. Like if you are
not taking the money from a syntax and directly using
it to offset the social cost of whatever that vices
(06:16):
or whatever, if there is one, UM, then you're scamming
the general populace and you're using your shaming like a
segment of your populace for that, for that to that
end to scam everybody. Yeah, or which is not cool.
Let's let's say you're not, um, want to drink soda much,
but every once in a while you like to get
(06:38):
out there and have a big, tall, giant, big gulp.
Then you're paying that tax. And some people might say, well,
that's not really fair because you're not contributing to any
social epidemics. Right. Um, we're gonna get into all this,
but we should point out that Bloomberg, um, he lost
that war. He uh, the soda industry they you know,
(07:01):
they're not just gonna say that sounds like a great idea, mayor.
They fought hard. They mounted a campaign and ad campaign,
they mounted a legal challenge, and the Court of Appeals
eventually struck it down in June. So later that year
he said, all right, New Yorkers, you don't like to
be pushed around, Let's go to Berkeley, California. Yeah. Well, okay,
(07:22):
So Bloomberg is a billionaire, right sure, And he's a
billionaire who is exceedingly liberal. He's a very liberal billionaire. Um,
and he his foundation in two thousand and ten and
said we're going after soda. We've not just we the
Bloomberg Group, but the World Health Organization said soda texas
(07:44):
probably the most effective strategy of government can undertake for
improving the diet of the general population. UM, there's mounting
evidence that what are called ss D s sb's sugar
sweetened beverages are they lead to increased weight gain and
other um co morbid health outcomes like diabetes and are
(08:09):
basically they're they're becoming the central focus of a lot
of um negative publicity. A lot of people are saying
these things are are around the nexus of a lot
of really bad chronic health conditions. It's these sodas right,
and so much so that there was this really great
(08:30):
Guardian article that was written by Tina Rosenberg and she
puts it, soda is on the verge of becoming the
liquid cigarette. And in part because of Bloomberg and his
his foundation, what would that make the East cigarette? East
cigarette is the new cigar? Uh? Yeah, soda is one
(08:52):
that it's easy to go after because UM, childhood obesity
and kids that you about stories about kids like going
through like a leader or a two leader of sugary
sweet soda a day in these you know, just ridiculous
amounts of sugar intake that any reasonable person would say, like,
you can't drink that much sugar right well and expect
(09:16):
to like not have like huge consequences. The UK has
a sugar text on the books that's proposed to take
effect next year, and I was reading a BBC article
on it and they had like this little pole thing
comparison thirty five grams of sugar and a can of
Coca cola. Thirty grams is the maximum that the UK
(09:39):
suggests it's children or people eleven years or older have
a day. And so if you drink one cannon coke,
you're automatically having more then you're supposed to have in
one day as far as like a normal diets concerned
and who just drinks one can of coke? You know, Well,
so what we're do you really Well, I don't even
drink and we've talked about this before. I rarely ever
(10:01):
drink soda, that's true. You're drinking water right now, yeah,
And it's just it's not an effort to not drink
sugar water. It's just sort of the way I was raised.
We didn't have a lot of sodas in the house,
drank a lot of water. I still love water. It's
good stuff, that's right, it is. And as a sweater too,
that's what I need water. Yeah, so I can sweat more.
(10:24):
It's just a system. It's called the closed loop. He's swallowing. Yeah.
Uh so, I feel like about eight minutes ago, I
said something about going to Berkeley. Um. So Bloomberg went
to Berkeley later in fourteen after he was rebuffed in
New York and said, New Yorkers don't like to be
shoved around. Let's go out west where all these Berkeley
(10:46):
hippies will surely be down with this kind of thing.
And let's uh, instead of trying to ban it, let's
try and get a syntax an exercise tax i pose
and uh. He was very successful there. There was um. Obviously,
the the uh soda industry they're tried to fight back
as well, to the tune of about close to two
million bucks uh in a campaign against it, But voters said, yes,
(11:09):
we like the syntax uh, to the tune of how
much is it a penny? An an ounce ye that
could be substantial. Coke used to be what like a dollar.
I don't even know now, it would be a dollar twenty,
that's right, you know, I mean, yeah, that could be substantial,
especially if you're talking two leader, three leader. It's getting
into the area where you would start to see an
(11:33):
impact from it. Yeah, that's the way to do it. Though,
I gotta say, instead of just like you know, a
flat tax across the board, they're literally saying, like, the
more you drink of this stuff, the more you will pay. Right,
It's a negative. It's a disincentive to buy that product,
which again society or the government or somebody has deemed unhealthy. Right,
(11:55):
And in that case, uh, in Berkeley at least, you
know that what they need to do is look at
this stuff long term. But in the short term, um,
over five months after the tax, they saw that, um
this is the American Journal of Public Health. They found
that low income and minority residents of Berkeley drink less
soda than before, but in San Francisco nearby consumption went
(12:19):
up by four percent. That's a pretty significant study. Yeah,
five months though, Like, well, that's the problem. Like, look
at it long term, I think is what the because
maybe initially people will stop and then they'll go back
to it. Maybe right, But why did San Francisco's go
up for people like leaving Berkeley to go get their
soda thicks? Maybe, I mean, that's entirely possible. I don't know.
(12:43):
I don't think you would. The money you would spend
going back and forth to San Francisco is unless you
just went and bought like a truckload of cases of soda. Yeah.
If that's the case, then you got you know, there
are other issues in your life. Consider like even just
the people who live near the border close enough. Yeah,
where on the way home they're stopping or during their
day they're stopping in San Francisco, just on the border
(13:05):
getting a coke. That would raise consumption in San Francisco. Uh,
Coke and the other companies might say, hey, um, we
need to divert all the stock that was gonna go
to Berkeley over to San Francisco and maybe spend a
little more on advertising there. I could raise consumption. I
guess so. But you make a very valid point. I'm
(13:25):
not disagreeing with you. That jury is very much still
out on whether soda taxes actually do work in the
long term, And then even more is we'll see whether
they have the impact and effects that are supposedly desired. Yeah, well,
let's take a little breather and we will go uh huddle,
(13:46):
not puddle, huddle, huddle, pittle from all all the water
we've been thinking. Uh, people say that about their dogs,
like he pittled. I think that's just a cute way
of saying he beat it right, takes a stay out
of it a bit a little. But also I think
the peddle. I think a pile is just a little squirt. Yes,
but it's usually also a company with like a I'm
(14:08):
nervous or I'm scared or something, so I'm peddling. Well
that's a weird segue. So we'll go uh pittle and
talk about a little history of this when we get back.
(14:47):
All Right, we both got excited the book Pittle piddle
a little bit. Jerry mopped it up, piddled it a little. Yeah,
she was so um scornful though. Yeah, that's all right. Uh, alright,
so history WI, this is nothing new, And this is
a stat that I didn't know for about fifty years
in the late eighteen hundreds to early nineteen hundreds, until
(15:09):
n of our revenue in the United States came from
taxing booze and beer, smokes wine. I feel like we
talked about then in the customs episode tariffs episode. Did
we do a tariff episode? We talked about tariffs in customs. Yeah. Yeah,
(15:31):
I'm pretty sure that it's a large share of your
taxes though, coming from syntax, right. And as a matter
of fact, the first tax on a domestic product levied
by the United States was on It was a syntax.
It was a tax on whiskey or on distilled liquor,
the famous whiskey tax that led to the even famous
for whiskey rebellion, which led even famous her to the
(15:53):
Whiskey Hangover Whiskey Rebellion hangover. Uh So, in nineteen thirteen,
that all change when the United States said, you know
what we should do. We should people are making money now,
we should tax their income because the more they make,
the more successful they are, the more that we can
get until they get to a point where they can
get away from paying taxes. Sure they're so rich, and people, wait,
(16:17):
how does that work? They went, Oh, you wait, they said,
forget the supply side, We'll go to the demand side
to tax. And from that moment on, the United States
never collected a scent in Texas from another company. Again
the end so um. But the point is syntaxas are
(16:38):
most major source of government revenue up until right, which
is a little ironic, I guess considering our history as
a country. Yeah, it is. But what's weird is it's
it's the syntax actually goes back really far. There's a
lot of governments and throughout history that have collected syntaxes um,
(17:02):
for all sorts of different reasons. Um. And then they
also used to take the form of something called sumptuary laws. Yes,
so sumptuary laws were basically rather than taxing. It was
kind of like what Bloomberg was trying to do by
just outlowing outlowing so it all together, but rather than
necessarily being a moral thing, usually sumptuary laws were meant
(17:26):
to keep class distinctions intact. Yeah, like you know, the
word sumptuous expensive looking. It was a way to restrain extravagance. Um.
And like you said, uh, And they use Elizabeth the
First in this article, which was a good example because
she was big on those. And you know, it's kind
of like I don't want how am I going to
tell the difference between my subjects if they're dressing all
(17:50):
fancy now and thinking they're all that. Yeah, I don't
want to accidentally talk to a commoner pretty much. Uh,
And I looked into these a little bit. Apparently they
were not very ready enforced. Um. If they were, it
was usually because of a specific complaint that someone would
bring against, like their neighbor or something. They're wearing fancy shoes. Yeah,
pretty much. It wasn't like super police. But they made
(18:12):
a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Hey, that's
just good old fashioned ingenuity. Um. When you open it, it
it moves. But apparently that when these young men would
enter London, they would sometimes their swords would be measured,
and if their swords were too long, they would break
them because that was a sign of extravagance. If you
(18:35):
had some big, flashy sword. It's not a euphemism, right,
you're talking about a sword. I don't think, so weird
and gross. So even in this country, the sumptuary laws
um almost made an appearance. I think in the puritan
(18:55):
Um codes there may have been some sumptory laws, but
in the Ated States itself, George Mason during the Constitutional
Convention said, hey, let's get some sumptuary laws. They've been
done for centuries already, they work. Let's just keep it going.
But Mason's aim wasn't to um keep class distinctions. He
(19:16):
wanted to basically say, hey, here's how you guys conduct
yourselves the way we say where the US government. Don't
flashy because don't be flashy, don't be um, don't waste
your money, don't drink too much. So so rather than
saying like we're going to tax your whiskey, you who
produced whiskey, We'll just go and say you, you know, you,
(19:41):
member of the public, you can only have like a
pine of whiskey a day, and anything beyond that you
will throw you in jail for That would be a
sumptuary law. But the the other guys in the Constitutional
Convention said no, no, no, no. I think one of
them very famously said, um, the law of necessity is
the greatest sumptuary law. Meaning if you tax people, they're
(20:02):
not going to be able to afford it anyway. Plus you,
the government, get the money, So why be a jerk
and just outlaw it. Just throw a big old tax
on it, and everybody wins except for the poor loser
he's having to cough up this much more stuff to
to kill himself. Yeah, forget laws up with taxes which
(20:24):
had been you know, like we talked about a long
history and in the seventeen sixty four we uh, we're
subject to a sugar tax, which kind of had a
twofold purpose. One was, Hey, anything that we can do
to make the king richer great, uh and be you know,
we know what you're doing with that sugar. You're making
(20:46):
rum and you're getting too drunk, and we don't like
that either. So instead of a sumptuary law there, let
me just tax your sugar. And do you remember we
talked about swilling the planters with bumbo? Yeah, like that
was just election day. People used to drink in the
United States. Yeah, not like now, No, not like now.
(21:07):
I know I was being facetious, but that is true.
People like everyone was drunk back then. Yeah, there was
written no reason not to be. No, it was a
hard life for everybody. You weren't driving around, no, you
were you were in like weird pants. Yeah, there's a
lot to You had a lot of reason to drink. Yeah,
you could just get on your horse, and your horse
(21:27):
knows where to go, skipper, skipper knows where to go
it was a weird neighbor hors. So do these syntaxis
actually work? Is the question? Well, yeah, that is the
big question. So um, oh we don't know, you. I mean,
it can work for sure. We actually with with this
(21:49):
is I thought this was a very Um this article
confused me here there because it seemed to be making
its own argument rather than reporting the arguments, which I
found like hard to follow. And then secondly it just
kind of wove all over the place right as far
as that argument went. But I think what I'm getting
(22:12):
is with the soda tax, that specific kind of syntax,
which is the syntax doujure of the century right now. Um,
and I've just said the syntax of the day of
the century, which is a little weird. Um, the jury
is very much still out like a few countries of
(22:33):
tax soda, but they also tax like mineral water and
diet soda. So there's no way to study whether that
actually works. As far as like health outcomes and things. Yeah,
I mean there's a few different ways to say whether
or not it works, because there's threefold It's like, can
we improve health outcome, can we raise money? Yes, in
that case it always works. Right, and UM and C
(22:57):
or three started with three p o um man, this
is falling off the rail. Uh and see does it
help the public at large? UM. In the case of Mexico,
they a couple of years ago imposed to soda tax
um because Bloomberg spending ten million dollars. That surprised me,
(23:18):
but that was a good place to do it because apparently, UM,
Mexico was nuts for sugar sweetened beverages. Yeah, and sort
of junkie food and sugary beverages. I think it has
a reputation for sure as being a problem. And I
think in two thousand and six there was like a
nationwide health report basically like a study of Mexico and
(23:39):
they were finding like it was on its way to
becoming like the fattest country in the world. And UM
they were like, well this, this is definitely opening our eyes.
And that kind of planted the seed for Bloomberg's a
group to come in and a few years later and
spend ten million on a campaign against soda. I've seen
I mean, have you been to Mexico. I've seen it,
(24:00):
you know, in person, Like it was a notice. It
was noticeable to me the amount of people drinking soda
just right out there in front of people. They weren't
even trying to hide it. I'm kidding of course. Um
so is when I guess Bloomberg was successful there, they
had to pay so per leader tax and an eight
percent tax on junk food and apparently both of those
(24:23):
consumption of both went down a lot because of that tax. Um.
But like I said, so wait, there's one there's one
thing that consumption can decrease as a result. Right, What
they don't know is the long term health outcome, because
that's just one thing that can lead to poor health
in your future, is a sugary drink. Well, so that
(24:46):
to me smacks of like soda industry like obfuscation, well
in a way, but it's true. It is true. But
apparently in Mexico, the battle that's being fought by the
soda industry is, um, hey man, don't don't don't text us.
That's that you got it all wrong. Text the cheeseburger people,
(25:08):
get them. Uh, and the cheeseburger people like what we're
standing over here being quiet the pork rind people right.
Um No, they were saying, teach kids to like get
out and exercise more it's calorie and calorie out right,
So who cares if our drinks have high calorie Tell
these little kids to get off their duffs and get
(25:28):
out there and start playing the hopscots or something. The
thing is is, um diet is more responsible for obesity
than exercises. You can exercise with your heart's content, and
if you don't change your diet, you're never gonna lose
any weight. It's diet that that leads to a change
in obesity. And again, obesity is kind of the central
(25:49):
focus of this whole cluster of co more big chronic
illnesses that include things like UM insulin resistance and type
two diabetes UM. And if you can change the diet,
then you can conceivably cut down on these chronic illnesses.
And again the World Health Organization said, so to text
(26:10):
is the best way to change the diet. So that's
just being fought in Mexico right now, and and it's
actually it's having an effect at least on a reduction
and consumptions. Now, what you're saying is we have to
wait and see whether that reduction and consumption has a
reduction in things like obesity and has a positive impact
on health outcomes, and if that's the case, then Mexico
(26:31):
will probably change, will lead the way for the rest
of the world because everybody's gonna start following suit after that. Well,
here's the thing, though, let's look at uh. Let's look
at alcohol. For instance, we've long text cigarettes and alcohol
in this country to great effect or great revenues at least. Uh.
In two thousand nine, Illinois, the state of Illinois said
(26:54):
all the beer is gonna be one cent more per bottle,
and each serving of liquor is going to be five
cents more, Which I don't know what that means. Uh,
like ounce and a half. I think an ounce and
a half is a serving a liquor. So is that
just for a drink? You're getting a bar showy, they're
not slapping that on a bottle that you buy. I
don't know'd be a lot of dough. I don't know.
(27:16):
Maybe I don't know. I don't know that either. Well,
let's think about it's a fifth. The fifth is like, um,
instead be like a dollar twenty extra for a fifth
because it's a leaders about thirty two ounces, So three
(27:37):
quarters of thirty two would be twenty four right, I'm
pretty sure it is all right, sons, and maybe it
wasn't that much then. Um. But what they found out
was that deaths and this is where the hanky reporting
comes in, UM, deaths associated with drunken driving stop by
(27:58):
and the general population in thirty seven, it for young
people and also went down for uh, people who drink
a lot supposedly Yeah, heavy drinkers. Yeah, a population that
that Everyone was like, that's the what you can tax
it till the cows come home and they're still gonna drink.
So that was drunk driving accidents. And UM, if you're
(28:19):
someone like mathematics professor Rebecca Golden, UM, you will look
at that and say that doesn't prove anything. That's correlation
at best, and you can't prove that that caused the
drop in drunken driving accidents. Well, she actually said also
that there was a larger trend of um, drinking less.
(28:41):
You know that it had to do with the Great
Recession of two eight. People had less money to spend
on drinking, so we're getting drunk less, so we're dying
in drunk driving accidents less. She said it didn't have
anything to do with this tax, But if you want
to support the tax, you can cherry pick a study
like this and say, well, look people, because this is
the third part of that equation, the public at large benefit,
(29:02):
which is fewer drunk driving accidents, um, less domestic abuse
in the case of smoking, less second hand smoke issues. Um.
That's when people are like, wait a minute, I'm the
one smoking, doesn't affect anyone else, Well, yeah, second hand smoke,
or I'm the one drinking. Plus let me destroy my
own body. Everybody likes a pretty smile, not meth mouth.
(29:26):
That's the number one problem with meth. But the problem
with that, I don't know if it's the study or
the tax or what, but that Illinois tax on alcohol
leading to fewer drunk driving deaths. That doesn't mean that
it couldn't work. I think I said somewhere that like
is about the minimum that you want to slap a
(29:48):
syntax on before it starts to have, um, the outcomes
that you're looking for. That's just nothing. Half a cent
on a beer. No one's even gonna notice that, you know,
five cents on a shot. No is going to notice
that it just couldn't possibly have the kind of outcomes
that that study concluded it had. Right, But that's not
to say that it couldn't if the text were raised, right.
(30:11):
And the thing is is there's a there's a sweet spot.
There's a window where too low of attacks isn't gonna
do anything, but too high of attack can have really
negative outcomes too, And we'll talk about those right after
this break, all right. So you tease the fact that
(30:55):
there is a point in time when you're raising these
taxes to try and get more and more people to say,
all right, enough is enough. I'm not paying five dollars
and eighty five cents and taxes taxes on a pack
of smokes. Yeah, and that's I think how much they
pay in New York these days, New York State if
you buy a pack of smokes. I'm not sure how
(31:18):
updated that is, but it's got to be around there, yeah,
Because I mean cigarettes are like twelve bucks there. Yeah,
they're like twelve dollars a pack. Wow, I know that's insane.
I remember friends saying like, I'll never like, I'll quit
smoking once they hit five dollars a pack? Did he?
(31:38):
Because some people say that and they don't know other
people do. Yeah, And like even if it's a two
percent of smokers who say that actually do two percent
reduction in smoking across the country. That's the size of
the United States. That's significant. No agreed, But like I
was saying them, there's that breaking point. And Canada saw
(32:00):
it for real backfire wise in the early nineties, they
were um increasing the taxes on cigarettes. It finally got
to a point where it spawned a black market, and
all of a sudden, people, I think it from the
black market was one percent of sales, and just five
years later it jumped up to And not only are
(32:22):
they is it defeating itself, but they're not. They're not
raising They're getting less money on taxes than they would
have if they would have kept it more reasonable. Right,
Like I think Arkansas ran into the exact same problem
they had. Um they up the tax on cigarettes in
(32:43):
two thou nine. They doubled their tax. Suddenly it was
a dollar fifteen a pack, which was enough that they
were expecting something like um eighties six million dollars in
revenue from tobacco. And they had an earmarked for a
specific health UH initiative, which is good but also bad
when you're like, hey, we're gonna project this much money
(33:05):
for this thing. Yeah. Not only did they um not
make the eighties six million dollars that they were expecting to.
They actually collected ten million less than they had the
year before. Yeah, ta trombone, right right. And the reason
why is because they jack the attacks up too much
and they made it um in the interest of the
(33:26):
smokers to go elsewhere, like just across state lines to
buy their cigarettes, and a black market developed. So there
is a window where syntax can work. But you can't
go too low, and you can't go too high or
else it's gonna not have the intended effects. Yeah, here's
a few stats, um in the United States, apparently a
couple of years ago, Uh, Rhode Island, Nevada, West Virginia,
(33:50):
New Hampshire, and Delaware. We're led the nation in syntaxas
um tobacco at seventeen billion for the country. I'll cohol
six billion casinos five and a half billion Russinos, which
I had never heard of. Made sense though, Russian sina
(34:10):
Russian casina racinos, I guess it would be called because uh,
you know, horse races are doll races with a casino
right were you're you're betting on them, right, Yeah, but
it also has a casino attached Oh is that what
it is? I guess, like, we know you like to
bet on the ponies, but why not throw some black
check over here? Have you ever tried electronic binga uh?
(34:34):
And then video gaming paramutual betting seven hundred million? So, uh,
the United States brings in a lot of dough from
these taxes. And one of the big arguments, um, that
you're gonna hear politically is that or I guess not
even politically is that, Uh it's a regressive tax, meaning
(34:55):
attacks that uh infects a proportionately unfair segment of the
poor population, right, which makes total sense because uh, syntax
is an excise tax, and an excise taxes a sales tax,
and sales taxes almost two to a single one affect
the poor more than they affect the wealthy. Just because
(35:17):
this matters more. Yeah, it's a er share of their
income exactly, you know. Right, Well, we also should point
out to there are texas like luxury taxes on it's
sort of a syntax for the rich, a luxury tex Yeah,
because you're like you text yachts at a higher rate
or something like that. Sure, yeah, this is a different
(35:39):
type of excise tax with the syntax you're especially with
say like tobacco. Uh, studies show that poor people tend
to smoke more cigarettes than the wealthy. So when you
have an excise tax a syntax on tobacco, yeah, you're
(36:00):
definitely instituting a regressive tax because it's being shouldered by
the poor disproportionately in that they have less income, but
also because they smoke more. So some people say tada,
syntaxes are regressive. Other people would say, well, actually, let's
take another look at this. You could say that that's
(36:22):
a progressive tax because it's having exactly the kind of
outcome you want to have by basically making it so
that the people who smoked the most can afford it
the least. So therefore people are going to stop smoking
as much now though we have traped very clearly, and
syntaxes are always in this realm anyway, but now we
(36:44):
can't avoid it any longer. What you're talking about is
the government deciding what what is good for you and
what you should or shouldn't do, and they're doing it
in a sneaky way, like we talked about in the
PR episode when we release from Chicago. UM that kind
of um paternal liberalism where the government's like, oh, you
(37:08):
just listen to us, we'll we'll take care of you.
We're not going to tell you what to do. We're
just gonna make it so that you can't really afford
to do what we don't want you to do any longer. Right,
But as this article points out, it's sort of a
kind of talking out both sides of their mouth because
they bring in the US government brings in ninety billion dollars.
(37:30):
I think that's the the US and states together. Okay,
so federally in state wise billion dollars from syntaxes each year.
That they use that money and UH kind of need it.
Yeah I almost said need but it didn't depend on
it about that sure, UM. And you know they they
(37:53):
say like, we don't want you to do these things.
We want you to smoke and drink less, but well
just not completely though, because we still want to collect
these taxes. Yeah. So that's why I like UM. I
know the UK had a big, a big issue with
UM some of their proposed UH syntaxes on alcohol. They
(38:14):
had one that was a syntax and they also had
a proposal I'm not sure where this went yet, but
UM on minimum alcohol pricing and uh, they flat out said, um,
or you know, most of the public flat out said, like,
there's no way you can have that minimum pricing because
that's clearly gonna affect poor people who drink drink cheap
(38:37):
liquor and go to the store and get you know,
Mr Boston Vodka and that Boston vodka and cheap anymore
because there's a minimum pricing on it, and it's not
gonna affect the fat cat who wants to go in
there and get his uh, what's a nice vodka? Uh vodka?
Hold on, grey Goose, it's not bad, Grey Goose. Sure, Belvedere, Exactly,
(39:01):
they're not walking in their sweating some minimum price on
vodka or probably the tax because they want their martini,
right exactly, No, that's exactly right. So I read this
article from it's called the Wages of Syntaxes from the
Adam Smith Institute, Oh of all places, the capitalism, and
they said, you know, they come out very obviously, very
(39:23):
much on the side of saying syntaxes are ineffective, they
don't produce the outcome you want, they're regressive, and um,
anyone who's saying anything else is just fooling themselves. What
they're doing is trying to collect revenue. Yeah, where are
you following this? I'm very curious. I'm not gonna weigh
in on it. Okay, I'm just staying neutral. I'm saying
(39:45):
some people say this, some people say that, good for you.
Jack Chuck just stays at home, Yeah, with his Tetos vodka.
Actually I don't even drink vodka, but I do have
Tito's in the house because you know, you want to
offer it to your friends. It's American, that's right. Sure,
Oh bloody marry I mean now and then oh yeah,
although you got to drink that with Jenner tequila so
(40:06):
much better than a vodka. Have you tried it? Yeah?
And you prefer vodka? Is still huh absolutely really yep.
I'm surprised to hear you say that. Yeah, Titos, uh
Mr Boston not Mr make a blend of both two
thirds Tito's, one third Mr Boston and then spit my friend. Well,
I do have that famous bloody Mary recipe from years ago,
(40:28):
the Caesar. But I've also been called out for not
talking specifically about my red neck crabbed up. People are
writing in saying you can't just say that they want
the recipe. You can't say crack dip and not give
us a recipe. So are you going to Well, I
don't remember, Like I don't go I don't do recipes
because I like to just cook by the seat of
(40:49):
my pants. But I know it's got the k rab
chopped up lemon juice, it's got mayonnaise, it's got Worcestershire
little salt, pepper and paprika and that maybe it. I
just don't remember the exact proportions. And you made you
can monkey with it sure like like mayo, Yeah you do.
(41:11):
You can go lighter on the mayo if you want,
if you want to be a comie, um, Worcestershire. I
don't remember putting a ton in there. Just yeah, a
couple of couple of dashes or no tapoon. Well, I
mean it depends on how much you're making. You know,
if you make a big tub for a party, you're
gonna want more than a couple of dashes, probably like
you know, a quarter cup or something. Who um yeah right, yeah, uh,
(41:34):
wake you up. And I think that's everything. Just as
I say, monkey around with it, get creative, and then
next week maybe I'll talk about my Bloody Caesar recipe.
I think you should that. I didn't even know it's
called the Bloody Caesar until recently. Again, I think it
was the Bars episode. Yeah, because it became clamato and
stead of tomato, that's the difference, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
(41:55):
the clam makes all the differ. Do you like red
beer or Jerry? What's at there? And called that? You
had your michelada Michelada, love him? We call him red
beer and yuma? Oh really? Yeah, that's funny because you
was closer to Mexico than New York. You know, you
think if anywhere they call him a Michelada. In fact,
it's so close to Mexico you can walk there. Oh
(42:18):
is it that g I didn't know humans on the border?
Oh yeah, I mean it's it's right on the border
of Arizona in California and uh in Mexico. It's like
right in that bottom corner. Yeah. You know. The worst
is um if you ever order a Michelloda somewhere and
they don't they have the gall to not bring you
the can of beer as well, Like you just made
(42:40):
you a Michelada eight dollars please, and it's like there's
a shot of beer, not even that because it's still
kind of foamy, and they just try to pretend like
they don't owe you that the rest of that beer,
that that didn't get into the glass. At the same time,
what kind of weirdness is this? It's not okay, So
hold on, I'm of time. If you order a Michellodda
(43:02):
and they don't bring you the can, you tell them
to bring you the can, and then you throw that
can back in their face. That's a little at the topic. Yeah,
I guess you could, especially if you chug the rest
all at once. Jerry did not care for her Michelloda
that because it was um we saw the woman make it.
It didn't have tomato juice. It was just made with
(43:23):
like hot sauce. It's not supposed to have tomato juice,
all right, So Jerry just weighed in. We took the
tape off her mouth, right, and she said that in
Guatemala they make the Michellodda with clamato. Well, that's what
they did in Huma. That was a red beer, basically
bloody mary with beer. So that is not that's different
from Michellodda in my in my experience at the what's
(43:46):
the Triple Crown horse race in Maryland. I don't know.
So there's the Kentucky Derby, Yes, the Preakness. At the Preakness,
they make something like Jerry was just describing where it's like, um,
bloody Mary with beer. They didn't call it a michellotta
what they call it. I don't remember what they called it.
(44:07):
Kevin like it is good. I'll give you that. But
my experience Mitchellott is lime juice, beer and hot sauce.
Well that's what she got and you didn't like it, huh. Alright,
so Josh says Jerry, she liked it. She said it
was awful. The proportions were not correct, and she did
(44:28):
we get charged for that. We did get charged for that,
even though she didn't drink any of it. So I'm
not going to name the restaurant in New York. You're
not gonna shame him publicly, huh. I will say the
lobster tacos were good. I'm sorry, the lobster roll was good.
So that could be anywhere in New York. Was their
crownut there as well? That'll be a slight hint, slight hint. Yeah,
(44:51):
so you narrowed it down to three thousand places to
the west village. Okay, alright, so that narrows it down. Okay.
Uh so, Syn Texas, you got anything else? Uh? No,
he said you didn't want to weigh in on it.
I understand. I respect that. No, because you know, to
be honest, not only do a not one a way
in just because I'm trying not to do that. But um,
(45:12):
you're turning over a new leaf. No. Just for things
that I feel really passionately about, I will, but I
don't feel super passionately about this. I'm being torn every
which way by this. Well, that's what my deal is is.
I don't I can't really speak to it because it's
sometimes it seems like a regressive tax, sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it seems like it might work, sometimes it seems
like it might not. Right, So I think that's where
(45:33):
I lie is ambivalent and confused. Yeah, I'm interested to
see how this how this comes out, you know, with
UM Berkeley, with Mexico, the Navajo Nation, UM instituted, they
instituted a two percent junk food tax and then simultaneously
repeal the five percent tax on fresh fruit and vegetables
and their grocery stores. Yep. So there's a lot of
(45:54):
like natural experiments going on right now that I'm very
interested to see what the outcomes are. People are going
to be audeing the heck out of those places. Well,
there's a lot of natural experiments going on in my
house to buddy. So if you if you want to
know more about this kind of stuff, go and listen
to our fat tax episode. We did want to high
fruit toast corn syrup. There's a great article about syntax
(46:17):
is that we used, called The Wages of Syntax as
it was in the Atlantic by a guy named Band
new Kirk. So go read that too. Brush up on
the syntax tip. And since I said brush up, time
for listener, Matt, I'm gonna call this Josh's choice. Every
one boy, all right. Every once in a while Josh
(46:37):
will send an email and saying, hey, I know this
is your bag, that would you mind reading this one?
And that is exactly what I wrote. Yeah, So this
is uh from Ada, And I don't remember where Ada
is from, but Ada is in high school, oh from Canada.
So that immediately means that Ada is probably smarter than
we are. She well, I mean the course she took
(46:59):
in school is pretty impressive it is. I didn't run
into those until well into college. All right, Hey guys,
I'm seventeen year old from Canada, and somebody caught my
attention to your Polar Bears episode when Josh is talking
about hunting. Uh. He said that people will say, well,
the food you're eating came from the store that was
killed unethically as a counter argument, and Josh found it
kind of fallacious, but didn't know how to describe it. Luckily,
(47:23):
I'm taking the English class and we just finished finished
a unit on fallacies, and I can confirm it is fallacious.
So it would be qualified as a straw man argument
because the counter argument isn't really arguing against your point
that hunting is wrong, but it's arguing a slightly different
and weaker point that food bought in grocery stores could
be unethically killed, which takes your attention away from the
(47:45):
point that you're arguing nice. It could also be an
ad hominen to quoke sure that right? If my Latin
not as rusty as I thought, to quoke q you
o q u e u quake quoke quick quick, I
didn't take Latin. I didn't need or you two y
(48:08):
o U T O O not the band um. If
you say that hunting is unethical killing, and then the
person is saying, well, you participate in the unethical killing
of animals by grocery shopping. Another example of this kind
of argument be one person telling another that they shouldn't smoke,
but the person says, well, you smoke. Just because the
other person doesn't practice what they preach, it doesn't change
(48:30):
the fact that it is wrong and good stuff. The
reason that you might not have been able to identify
this is because fallacies like this are used so much
in media today and they're not accepted widely as fair
arguments because they're really not. Hope this helped, Yes, yes
it did. You were delighted keep calling out these fallacious arguments,
(48:51):
and that is from Ada. Thank you Ada. That was
de bravo. Although I have to say we did get
some some good fallacious arguments on the other side. They
had nothing to do with what I was saying necessarily,
but they did explain hunting a little more, which I
thought was pretty great, including one that you read. But
we've gotten some other ones since then as well. There
(49:12):
I'm just like, wow, I want to go hunting, like
slap my own face. It was funny. I was at
the park yesterday with my daughter and there were these
really cool kids, his brother and sister that were probably
ten and eight ish, and they were kind of hanging out.
They had a dog that um that Ruby was playing with,
and they were just being nice sounds talking to them,
and then this other kid came up later and they
(49:35):
were talking to these kids and they're talking about sports.
This kid was saying he played baseball, the cool kid.
I'm not saying your kid wasn't cool. And the other
kids said, you know, I don't do any sports except
for hunting and fishing. And this this other kid looked
at him like he was from Mars. You could just
see the difference in their two upbringing. And this kid
(49:55):
was just like what. He's like, what do you hunt for?
The kid was like deer, and he was like, you
shoot deer? And he was still young enough in in
that you know environment that his family is raising him
in where he was just like, why would you shoot
a deer? Right? Yeah, they're awesome. Yeah, And this gips like, yeah, man,
that's pretty cool. It was an interesting interaction to watch
(50:16):
as an adult. I would have liked to have seen that. Yeah,
because I mean, and you have that conversation as an
adult doesn't usually go that way. It'll go it's pretty interesting. Yeah,
I've been listening in on kids convers just don't do
it in a creepy way, you know, you know, they
say everything you needed to know you learned in kindergarten. Yeah,
I believe it. Uh Ada, Thank you again for that.
(50:37):
That was a great email. Thank you too, Chuck for
the additional anecdote. Sure beautiful. Uh If you want to
send in an anecdote or explain something that we put
a call out for whatever, you can tweet to us
at josh um Clark and s y s K podcast,
two different ones. You can hang out with Charles W.
Chuck Bryant on Facebook and or you can go to
(50:59):
face but dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You
can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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