Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 482: The Evolution of Crime

Transcript

Episode 482: The Evolution of Crime · Words & Numbers

0:00
Next on words and numbers, Trump sues the BBC.
0:03
Listener comments. The Oscars move to YouTube.
0:05
And the evolution of crime. All this and more coming up on
0:09
Words and Numbers, a Civil original production.
0:12
Check us out at civil.com. That's civl.com.
0:16
Hi, I'm James. And I'm Anthony and.
0:18
This is words and numbers, aunt. It's not exciting in your world
0:26
this week. We got a bunch of listener
0:29
comments on actually on a couple of episodes.
0:32
I want to hit them one at a time.
0:35
Can can I jump in here and say that I was really pleased at how
0:39
little hate there was in the hate mail?
0:42
Yeah, I don't know what's up with that.
0:44
Our listeners aren't doing their job.
0:46
But yeah, they're being nice to you, to us.
0:48
Well, they're always nice to me when they write hate mail. 99%
0:52
of the diamonds to you. Actually they write me directly
0:56
about you, but this? This first set of comments is on
1:03
our episode in which we discussed Australia banning
1:07
young people from social media. My cousin John Lamberson, who
1:13
you will remember is John Lamberson of the infamous llama
1:17
poo that he tried to sell me. And for those of you that missed
1:20
the story, it's several episodes back but it ends up with me
1:25
somehow finding myself in the position of paying money, actual
1:30
money, for llama poo that was then put in my car and driven 3
1:35
hours away. But all of that is another story
1:39
my cousin John writes and he says neither of you touched on
1:43
the main issue. We don't need government making
1:46
the rules banning young people from social media.
1:49
We need parents to be parents. Parents need to instill values
1:53
and discipline instead of letting social media take their
1:56
place. I think that's absolutely right
1:59
and it's a perfect free market answer to the problem.
2:03
I agree, but we all know it's not going to happen.
2:06
I read something today at which kind of gets into this.
2:10
The average 13 ish year old girl spends 7 hours a day on social.
2:15
Media 77. Wow.
2:19
Now how can you parent that away?
2:23
Yeah. You can make a dent, but at some
2:26
point your children are out from under your, your, your line of
2:30
vision and it has ever been. So I'm, I'm not making excuses.
2:36
I'm not saying it's a terrible thing, just that, you know, if,
2:41
if your wave of the arm answer is parents need to do a better
2:44
job. Well, yeah, sure, but many or
2:48
even most of them won't. And we're still left.
2:52
With the same problem, so you know I I don't know what to say
2:56
about that. On the same topic, listener
3:00
Jordan Woodhams, who's president of the Libertarian Party of West
3:04
Australia, wrote saying. You mentioned Australia's under
3:08
16 social media ban, but you've been talking about the intent of
3:13
the law rather than the effect. In order to keep people under 16
3:19
off social media, the government has to determine, and this would
3:24
be at the point that a person is interacting with a browser who
3:28
is under 16. So the effect of this law is to
3:32
require everyone to prove their age.
3:34
Thus, the bill is a back door for requiring Australians to
3:39
have digital I DS. I think that's right.
3:44
That's scary. That thought never occurred to
3:46
me. I, I look, I think that's right
3:50
and I think once you get to digital ID, it's a short step to
3:54
get to digital everything else, including a currency, but.
3:59
Right. These things, whether we like it
4:02
or not, are around the next corner.
4:05
They. Are absolutely going to happen.
4:09
You're probably right. I don't like it, but you're
4:12
probably right. And if I look at my own
4:14
behavior, well, but if I look at my own behavior, I embrace it.
4:19
You know, wall to wall. I'm all about whatever the
4:22
latest electronics thing is that makes my life easier or fine,
4:26
I'll do it. And if the government can see
4:28
what's going on, I don't care. And I don't, I don't mean the I
4:32
don't care and I don't have anything to hide, although I
4:34
don't have anything to hide. I mean the I don't care in the
4:37
sense of virtually everybody else is on there as well as a
4:41
sea of anonymity. I think everybody has something
4:45
to hide. I honestly do.
4:47
And I think you should be fully allowed to do it.
4:50
There are all kinds of things, just none of anybody's damn
4:52
business. And this sort of thing really
4:56
worries me because I know it will be abused beyond all
5:00
recognition. How do I know that these things
5:04
are always abused? The government right now can
5:08
listen to you through your television, whether your
5:12
television is even turned on. Yeah.
5:14
And for people who think that you may be a conspiracy
5:18
theorist, I will. I will say I have a a dear
5:22
friend who some years ago worked and I don't mean for a little
5:27
bit, I mean for multiple decades for the federal government in a
5:33
particular capacity. And this person says that back
5:39
in the 70s, eighties, the government had the ability to
5:47
monitor computers, such as they were at the time, wirelessly
5:52
from outside the building. If that kind of technology
5:57
existed in the 70s or 80s, imagine what they have now.
6:03
Well. There's a public source.
6:05
A public CIA source you can all go and find on YouTube named
6:10
John Kiriakou. And, and he talks about the this
6:14
sort of thing that the things that the CIA can and in fact
6:18
does do that are wholly unconstitutional.
6:22
And yet there is no oversight of any kind.
6:25
So of course they do them. It's not whether they can do it,
6:30
it's if they're doing it to you. And maybe nobody cares about
6:36
what you're up to and nobody's looking, but that doesn't mean
6:39
they can't tomorrow just 'cause they feel like it.
6:42
And I find that's rather unnerving.
6:45
And while I can, I can say, look, I don't have anything to
6:49
hide, I just do sorts of things I do.
6:53
At any point in the future you could get a far left or far
6:58
right government that decides that some of the things that I'm
7:01
doing that are innocuous are hereby illegal, and now all of a
7:06
sudden I am doing something I need to hide.
7:09
Yeah, I I'm worried about the entire thing.
7:13
Privacy has been lost for a very long time.
7:16
People just don't realize it fully yet.
7:20
Let me switch gears to a different episode.
7:23
I believe this was last week we talked about Valero and Phillips
7:26
66 shutting down petroleum refineries in California because
7:30
of owners regulations. One of our listeners, Jonathan,
7:35
wrote, and I'm not going to say his last name because he
7:37
indicated the e-mail that it might not be a good thing for
7:42
his employer to know that he was writing us.
7:45
He says, look, I'm a I'm a chemical engineer.
7:47
I've been working in the fuels business for many years.
7:51
Refineries produce more than just gasoline.
7:54
For example, liquid propane, jet fuel, diesel, home heating oil
7:59
and Petro chemicals for plastic production.
8:02
I like to point out that electric vehicles wouldn't be
8:05
possible to build without the lightweight, cheap plastics that
8:09
the petroleum industry helps to create now, he says.
8:14
When it comes to petroleum, California is essentially an
8:18
island. The state has been blocking new
8:21
railroad and pipeline connections in and out of the
8:24
state for decades. The Jones Act prevents Gulf
8:28
Coast refiners from shipping fuel to California through the
8:32
Panama Canal. So it ends up being cheaper for
8:36
California to import the fuel from South Korea than to ship it
8:40
from another part of the US. And for those interested, we,
8:43
you and I have talked for many years that we should do an
8:46
episode on the Jones Act. Let me just read you the
8:49
definition of the Jones Act or description.
8:52
The Jones Act, it's a law. It's been on the books for good
8:55
Lord, century maybe goods transported between US ports.
9:01
So that's goods transported from one place in the US to another
9:06
place in the US on via ship must use American built, American
9:12
flagged, American owned, and American crude ships.
9:17
All of which makes it prohibitively expensive.
9:21
So consequently, you don't get goods shipped from one part of
9:25
the US to another part of the US by ship, even if otherwise that
9:29
would be the cheapest way to do it because of the Jones Act.
9:33
Keeps the truckers in business. Yeah, it does.
9:36
There's a funny story. We we have talked about the
9:38
following, but it was several years ago and I'll I'll try and
9:42
do it from memory. A funny unintended consequence
9:46
of the Jones Act. There's a if I remember
9:49
correctly, there is a footnote to the Jones Act that says that
9:55
you can you can transport port to port, not on an American
10:01
flagship, if part of the part of the distance you were the goods
10:07
were traveling was by land. So you could go from ship to
10:13
land, land to ship, ship to another part of the US, and you
10:18
get around the Jones Act. And you have to take everything
10:21
off the ship and put everything back on the ship.
10:24
And that's what happened. In fact, when we talked about it
10:27
on the episode several years ago, we put in the show notes an
10:29
aerial picture of this place in Canada where there's a train on
10:35
a track and the track is like 200 feet long.
10:38
And what happened was the ship would come up, all the goods
10:41
would be loaded on to the train, the train would run to the end
10:44
of the 200 foot track and come back.
10:46
All the goods would be back on the ship, and the ship would go
10:49
about its business, thereby fulfilling that loophole
10:53
requirement of the Jones Act. Do you imagine the incredible
10:57
waste? One other listener still on the
10:59
same topic, Pete Smoot, writes and says you didn't mention that
11:03
there's a huge contingent here in California who see refinery
11:06
Closings as a feature, not a bug.
11:10
They want to wean California off fossil fuels, especially
11:13
gasoline. Raising prices of gas and making
11:16
it less available is a huge success in the group's eyes.
11:20
I did a little math, James. Do tell.
11:25
If, if you could wave a magic wand and completely nullify all
11:34
of the all of the the sectors, industrial sectors in California
11:39
that use fossil fuel, just wave a magic wand and all of that CO2
11:44
goes away, you would reduce global CO2 output by less than
11:51
1%. This is not whatever pain
11:54
they're putting Californians through here.
11:57
This is having zero effect on global CO2 output.
12:01
I'm OK with that. And that's all I have.
12:04
We're happy to announce that civil members can join me and
12:06
James for a new lecture series, Words and Numbers Live.
12:10
Words and Numbers Live is a member only series in which
12:13
James and I talk about issues in politics, philosophy and
12:17
economics. We take a deeper dive and then
12:19
invite listeners for a live Q&A session.
12:22
You can also submit your questions for us at
12:25
wordsandnumberspodcast@gmail.com. In this next session, which
12:29
starts Thursday at 5:30 PM. Eastern, we examine inequality.
12:34
To participate in this exclusive series, subscribe to
12:37
civil@civil.com. That's civl.com.
12:41
When you log into civil.com, you'll find an archive of our
12:45
past lecture series, as well as the collection of all our
12:49
episodes of Words and Numbers and announcements about upcoming
12:52
lectures in our new Words and Numbers Live series.
12:55
Subscribe to Civil for $5 a month or $50.00 for an annual
12:59
subscription. I will take up far less time
13:02
than you, but when is that not true?
13:05
I've got something fascinating yet.
13:07
You're going to love this. You might recall, actually, we
13:10
talked not too long ago about how the BBC kind of got caught
13:15
with its hand in the cookie jar editing a Donald Trump video to
13:20
make it seem like he said something that he didn't exactly
13:23
say. You remember that?
13:24
Right. And that this, the CEO and
13:27
somebody else lost their jobs, didn't they?
13:29
Yeah, I know there's been bloodshed at in the HR
13:33
department at the BBC, but here's where it gets
13:36
interesting. Because Donald Trump couldn't
13:38
let well enough alone. And he is.
13:41
This was a wing, Donald. Just be quiet and go with it.
13:44
What? Not no, no, this is this is
13:46
actually quite fascinating. He's decided to sue the BBC for
13:50
$10 billion, the sitting president, Yes, the city
13:55
president. And he filed this lawsuit in
13:58
Florida because you can't file it anywhere else because almost
14:01
everywhere else in the civilized world only gives you a year to
14:05
file a lawsuit. But Florida will give you 2 on
14:09
on this. So alas, it's it's in Florida.
14:12
And the BBC has said that it will vigorously defend its
14:16
interests, which means, near as I can tell, they're not exactly
14:21
interested in settling. They know they're wrong.
14:24
They've admitted. But here's where it gets
14:27
fascinating. What's going to end up happening
14:29
if everybody, if nobody blinks in this game of chicken, is that
14:36
Donald Trump will have to take the stand and swear on a Bible,
14:42
or maybe a Trump Bible for that matter, to tell the truth.
14:46
And then he will be asked questions about the January 6th
14:49
insurrection. Oh, how?
14:52
Interesting. Which the United States Congress
14:54
has been trying to get done since January 7th.
15:00
And of course he won't pay them any mind and tells him to go #
15:04
sand. But if he wants to sue the BBC,
15:07
this might be the cost to him. Wow.
15:11
So the interesting thing to watch now is just how much that
15:16
possibility bothers him. Because if you see this suit get
15:20
dropped quietly or settled for peanuts, you'll know.
15:26
You'll know exactly why. And I'm looking forward to doing
15:31
what I usually do, sitting on my chair and watching the news.
15:35
Which of course, that brings us to the foolishness of the week.
15:39
And when I say the word Oscars, you should already be thinking
15:44
foolishness, right? The Oscars are just silly.
15:48
I for the love of God, I have no idea why anybody listens to this
15:53
nonsense, watches it. I have no idea why they watch
15:56
the Emmys, the Golden Globes, any of the various Music Awards
16:01
that are out there. Because this is simply a group
16:05
of people gathering together to pat themselves on the back and
16:09
then turn that coverage back towards us so we can all pat
16:16
them on the back. Grow up.
16:20
You're an actor, you're not that important.
16:22
You say words, people film them, and then everybody moves on.
16:26
Nobody thinks you're smart. Nobody thinks you're clever.
16:30
But. But here's where it gets fun.
16:32
Because the Emmys starting in 2020 or the Oscars starting in
16:35
2029 will no longer be on broadcast TV.
16:39
They will be on YouTube. Really.
16:41
And I don't know. What that means to anybody, I
16:45
don't know if that's a demotion or a promotion.
16:48
I know YouTube is alleged, is alleged to have paid in excess
16:53
of nine figures to get to get the thing.
16:57
And I think we've talked about this before.
17:00
There are more people watching YouTube now than than are
17:02
watching broadcast TV or cable TV for that matter.
17:07
So, well, OK, I hope it's a gigantic flop and nobody tunes
17:11
in, and I I suspect that might actually happen.
17:15
But the comments are going to be great.
17:17
How much you want to bet they shut off the comments?
17:20
Oh, how do you not turn off the? Comments.
17:23
Oh that would I would I would watch it just for the comments
17:26
if they left it open. That's the price of ignition
17:29
right there. That would be even better than
17:31
just keeping Twitter open in the background.
17:34
Notice they still. Call it Twitter.
17:36
Anyway, the Oscars, What can you do?
17:43
So this is where you look at me and want me to start the
17:45
episode. Well, you you allegedly have an
17:48
interesting thing to say about something.
17:51
Well, I kind of do, and they're half formed thoughts and they
17:55
fall partly into my space, partly into your space.
17:59
So I thought I just threw them out and we'll see what happens.
18:04
And the people should realize that yes, we are exactly this
18:09
unrehearsed. I was driving to work this
18:13
morning and for whatever reason, I was start, I was thinking
18:17
about victimless crime. And I'm going to restrict myself
18:23
to victimless crime here because it there's, there's all kinds of
18:26
given where this conversation goes, there's going to be all
18:28
kinds of problems with violent crime and crime with victims and
18:33
all of that. So just let's just focus on
18:34
victimless crime for a moment in I posit A hypothesis that it is
18:43
socially desirable when you given that you have victimless
18:48
crime laws, right and libertarians are going to say we
18:52
shouldn't even have victimless crime laws.
18:54
But let's assume we start from there.
18:56
We have them. It is, it is socially
19:01
beneficial. I claim not to fully enforce
19:06
them. And by that I mean I, I, I don't
19:09
mean to not enforce them, but rather that we don't hit them so
19:14
hard that it's, we make it onerously costly for people to
19:19
break this law. Think, for example, of how we go
19:26
about enforcing drug laws. I'm not talking about marijuana,
19:29
but you know, the the heavy stuff and you know, there's all
19:32
kinds of problems. You get thrown in jail for a
19:35
very long time and carry this record with you and all of that.
19:40
And, and here's my argument. People who find ways around
19:49
these victimless crimes are exhibiting some form of
19:54
entrepreneurial talent. There's a problem here.
19:58
There's somebody who wants something and somebody who has
20:01
the something and there's things standing in the way and they're
20:04
going to find a way around this to connect the supply and the
20:08
demand. That's that's all
20:10
entrepreneurial. And I submit that if you are in
20:18
a situation where the only way to get rid of a law is to pass
20:22
another law saying we repeal the first one.
20:26
And given how inefficient government is in doing what it
20:28
does in the 1st place, this imperfect enforcement, coupled
20:34
with the entrepreneurs who are trying to find ways around the
20:37
laws, give us the ability to identify victimless crimes that
20:43
should no longer be on the books.
20:45
And I'll give you a simple example.
20:48
Blue Laws. When I was growing up, we had
20:52
blue laws in Pennsylvania, which were on Sundays.
20:56
There were certain products you were not allowed to buy.
20:59
Stores weren't allowed to sell. Yeah, we had them in Connecticut
21:02
too. Oh yeah, but a lot of some
21:05
places still do have alcohol. But this was things like in
21:08
Pennsylvania, I'm talking about any, almost anything you would
21:12
buy from a grocery store, save for basic foodstuffs, maybe
21:18
bandages, right? Anything else was was off
21:21
limits. So it's going way beyond
21:22
alcohol. And this was something that
21:27
wasn't enforced. All of a sudden somebody got to
21:30
be in their bonnet and decided we're going to enforce these
21:33
things. There was a big push in
21:35
Pennsylvania to enforce this. And then it, it quietly went
21:39
away in my suspicion. I don't know if it's still on
21:42
the books, but my suspicion is that it was.
21:45
We just got to a point where people stopped enforcing it and
21:48
they stopped in for how did we? How do we know that it's time to
21:52
stop enforcing it when you get enough of these entrepreneurs
21:56
finding ways around the law such that the law in effect becomes
22:01
moot? I enjoy telling the story and my
22:03
children are fascinated by this particular story.
22:07
There was one year on Easter Sunday at about 9:00 at night.
22:13
Now look at all the things that lined up here in Connecticut.
22:17
You can't buy alcohol on a Sunday, on a religious holiday
22:22
or after 8:00 PM. I've got the trifecta working
22:27
against me here. And my buddies and I drove up to
22:31
a store who we we knew was run by somebody who didn't exactly
22:36
care about the law. And the first thing you would do
22:41
is you would walk in and you would ask the man behind the
22:43
counter for a bag before you did your shopping.
22:49
And then you would you would take that bag to the cold beer.
22:54
Oh, and I did. I also mentioned that we were
22:56
all 17, which was a touch too young for this too.
23:00
You would take your bag up to the cooler that had chains and a
23:07
padlock on on it, and you'd look at it and you'd say there's no
23:11
way I'm getting into there. But it was arranged in just such
23:15
a way that all you had to do was open the door and the chains
23:18
gave way. And when you closed the door you
23:21
fixed the chains to make it look like it was locked again.
23:24
And you brought whatever was in your bag up to the guy at the
23:27
counter, who then cheerfully rang you up and sent you on your
23:30
way, because why the hell not, right?
23:35
He had to make a living, he was selling something we wanted to
23:39
buy, and he perfectly captured the after 8:00 PM religious
23:44
holiday on a Sunday market. Right there was.
23:47
There was a line in that place, right?
23:50
Because every underage drinker in town and every alcoholic knew
23:55
that you can go get something there.
23:57
And, and look at what happens here.
24:00
You've got this law and for whatever reasons, we think it's
24:03
a good idea that you not sell alcohol on Sundays.
24:06
And because of people like this figuring out ways around it, all
24:11
of a sudden society looks and says, you know what, this look,
24:15
people are getting around this law left and right and the
24:18
ceiling hasn't caved in. And how else would how else
24:22
would we know that the ceiling wouldn't cave in if it weren't
24:25
for these entrepreneurs trying to get around the thing?
24:28
But you know, as I think about the idea of victimless crimes,
24:31
I'm, I'm offended by the very notion that there can be a crime
24:35
if there is no victim, no victim, no crime.
24:37
But that's a perfectly reasonable thing to think.
24:40
But OK, like you, I live here in the real world and we have some
24:44
but, and I'm telling you, for the life of me, I can't think of
24:47
any that are non drug, non prostitution.
24:53
Those are the only things that come to mind.
24:55
It used to be the case that gambling would have fit into
24:59
this category. Right.
25:02
But that's that's functionally legal now, just like marijuana
25:05
is functionally legal. Well, yeah, but but look what
25:08
you just said. Functionally, it became
25:11
functionally legal because of this phenomenon, I claim of
25:14
entrepreneurs working around it. I, I say functionally because
25:18
it's not legal everywhere, but you can go to the places that it
25:21
is and get what you want and then go back.
25:24
And that's probably not true of some people in the middle of a
25:28
prohibitive state who would have to travel hundreds of miles.
25:32
But most of us have access to legal wheat anytime we want it
25:38
and come to find out, we don't want it nearly as much as we
25:40
thought we did. They do a good business, don't
25:43
get me wrong, but it's not like the bar on Friday night.
25:48
Not at all. Prostitution's a different
25:50
animal entirely because it flies under the radar so much.
25:55
But look, I can tell you this. My wife used to work at a what
26:02
would be the right word? It's not an assisted living
26:04
facility. It's a like an independent
26:06
living facility for senior citizens where people have
26:09
apartments and they can have cars and all this.
26:12
And she said as she would be leaving work on Friday, some
26:15
nights the prostitutes would all be.
26:17
Adding it. Good Lord, huh?
26:21
Because the old people have credit cards and telephones and
26:27
look, everybody knew it. Who the hell was going to report
26:30
that? I mean, it's not, it's not
26:33
making a scene. It's not causing a commotion.
26:36
Nobody's in any physical danger. There is no harm.
26:40
So everybody knows it happens. And I want to pursue this, this
26:47
comparison I'm making to entrepreneurs because as with
26:52
entrepreneurs, look, you can have an entrepreneur who has an
26:54
idea and it's a great idea and all of a sudden you've got a new
26:57
business or new industry or whatever it is.
26:59
And there are plenty of entrepreneurs who just blow it.
27:03
They're they have an ID and it turns out to be a stupid idea
27:06
and you know, they go bankrupt, they go away.
27:09
I think so too here with these, we'll call them, I'll call them
27:12
criminal entrepreneurs, that they're going to be instances in
27:17
which they try to get around the law and they do get around it.
27:21
And something bad does happen. You know, selling alcohol to 15
27:25
year olds, for example, right. You could lead.
27:28
Suppose you're a situation where you do get away with it for a
27:32
long time. Eventually, something really
27:33
bad's going to happen, and so it becomes.
27:37
Do you know what was never in the bag?
27:40
A receipt, Yeah, for right, Because it was smart.
27:44
Enough to know that if we rolled the car and all four of us died,
27:47
that receipt was going to be in the middle of all the beer cans.
27:51
Yeah. And as with entrepreneurs in in
27:53
the business sense, you're in a situation where society has a
27:58
need, which is to know which of these laws are useful and which
28:03
ones aren't. And the criminal entrepreneurs
28:07
help us figure that out. One thing I do want to ask
28:10
though, Aunt, is is there anything else that is a
28:15
victimless crime that doesn't involve drugs or prostitution?
28:18
At this point, is there anything you're thinking of?
28:21
Oh, today? You mean in the US?
28:24
Yeah. Not off the top of my head, but
28:27
I'm sure what I'm sure once I go about my life in encounter
28:31
something tomorrow, I'm going to say, hey, look at that.
28:34
Yeah, I'll be thinking. I'll be thinking the same way,
28:38
but my knee jerk reaction is that it's really just these two
28:42
things. Let me throw out in this one
28:46
comes with caveats, the speed limit.
28:50
Now, here in Northern Virginia, there's a big 6 lane Rd. that
28:56
runs between Dulles Airport and downtown DC.
29:00
The speed limit on this thing is 55 miles an hour.
29:04
It is. Nobody goes 50.
29:07
Now, I don't observe people being unsafe or I don't observe
29:10
them being more unsafe than Virginia drivers appeared to be
29:13
in general. But they're going, you know, 70
29:15
miles an hour. They're all, every single one of
29:18
them breaking the law. But it's a stupid law.
29:21
I agree, but that's more of a regular to the fact, right.
29:24
It's like driving on the right hand side of the road.
29:26
We have to have a decision about this sort of thing.
29:30
It's it's it's functional. It's fundamentally different to
29:33
look at a speed limit and to look at cocaine use.
29:37
Oh, I think in terms, not in terms of the victimless crime
29:41
with the footnote of, you know, if you're driving 120, yeah,
29:46
that's a problem. Yeah, but I mean, look, this is
29:48
just one of those things like an age of consent where we need a
29:52
bright line distinction. Some places decided 55 back in
29:56
the OPEC oil crisis years and never came back to the original
30:01
657585. I just don't think that rises to
30:06
the level of prostitution or LSD use, right and things like that,
30:13
which which we say people shouldn't do because we think
30:17
those are morally bad decisions. I submit that it's of the same
30:23
type as I'm as I'm considering here.
30:26
And the evidence I give is how do I, how do I know that this is
30:31
a ridiculous law? Because everybody's driving 75
30:36
miles an hour every day and there's not a slew of accidents
30:39
there. That is.
30:40
We've got a bunch of criminal entrepreneurs, the drivers who
30:44
are who are demonstrating by their behavior that the law is
30:48
not necessary. Yeah, I mean, fair enough.
30:50
I don't want to beat this particular dead horse anymore.
30:54
James and I are delighted to be working with Civil.
30:56
For years we have been pushing people to think about how we can
30:59
make the world a better place. Civil's mission of upgrading
31:03
society fits exactly with what James and I have been talking
31:06
about for years. Civil helps us by allowing us to
31:09
do what we do best, which is researching topics that are
31:12
important and communicating these to our listeners in ways
31:15
that we hope they find enjoyable.
31:17
To see Civil's extensive list of content, including our podcast
31:21
Words and Numbers, and our new lecture series, Words and
31:24
Numbers Live, visit civil.com. That's civl.com.
31:30
Let me throw out a thought that's occurred to me many times
31:34
over the years when you and I start to talk about stuff like
31:37
this. And that is, I submit that
31:42
government as we understand it today, not a particular
31:45
government, but the concept of government, is itself an
31:51
evolution of crime. That is, millennia ago, the way
31:58
you became rich was by taking things from other people.
32:03
And of course, you take things from people.
32:05
It makes them mad and they come back and try and take them from
32:07
you, possibly kill you in the process.
32:09
And it doesn't take too long before you realize that if you
32:14
can establish yourself in some way that you can take from the
32:20
people. And yet not take so much that
32:24
you make them mad that they want to come and take back and you
32:27
offer them something perhaps in exchange to justify you taking
32:31
what you're taking from them. And what I might offer you could
32:35
be anything from bread and circuses to banding together and
32:39
going and attacking the neighboring village and taking
32:42
their stuff. I argue that government is
32:45
actually not to say it's a criminal organization, but the
32:49
government as we understand it today is a is the evolutionary
32:54
product of what originated as crime.
32:58
Yeah, I, I think that's right. I I think that every government
33:02
you can point to that has been successful has a criminal past.
33:08
Something was taken from someone.
33:11
This is why these these land acknowledgement statements that
33:15
people are all so they, they get their panties all twisted in a
33:19
knot to to say we do hereby announce that we stand on the
33:24
land. Who's claimed traditionally by
33:27
X? Well, all right, who did X get
33:32
it from? Because they took it from
33:35
somebody else. Who did that group get it from?
33:38
Well, they took it from somebody else too, ad infinitum.
33:43
You go all the way back. We should be doing land
33:44
acknowledgments to the dinosaurs, not to human beings,
33:49
right? It's always a criminal
33:51
enterprise. And I think almost every
33:54
philosopher would agree on this. How do you know no one was ever
34:00
given a choice? It's murderous from the
34:03
beginning. Every regime find its roots in
34:06
blood, some much less than others.
34:08
Some are far, far more just than others in their origins.
34:15
But there is always blood, literally ours.
34:20
So I, you know, I don't know what to say about that except
34:23
expect it, guard against it. It will happen again, and it
34:28
will always happen again. This is always what happens.
34:33
As part of this thinking about laws and good laws versus
34:39
unnecessary laws and government now as, as the evolution of a,
34:44
of basically crime, I want to propose, and I'm not the first
34:49
to propose this, this has a name, the cash benchmark test,
34:54
but I want to propose the following as a litmus test for
34:58
whether a law or if you want to think more broadly, a policy is
35:02
justified and, and picture here policies that are aimed at
35:07
achieving some societal outcome. So, for example, raising people
35:13
out of poverty or, you know, preventing drug abuse or
35:16
whatever it is. Think about laws like that, not
35:20
laws like preventing people from stealing from others or murderer
35:25
or something like that, right. So here's here's the
35:28
proposition. A policy is when two policies
35:32
achieve the same outcome at the same cost.
35:37
A society that values freedom ought to prefer the policy that
35:42
employs less coercion. And I think that's anybody who's
35:47
interested in freedom would say that's obvious.
35:49
You got 2 competing policies. They achieve the same outcome,
35:52
same cost. This one involves coercion.
35:54
This one involves less coercion. Take the one that involves less
35:57
coercion. If you can buy that proposition,
36:00
which I think is reasonable, there's an implication.
36:02
And the implication is a policy is unjustified if a direct cash
36:09
transfer not exceeding the total cost of the policy can achieve
36:14
the same outcome. And I give you an example you
36:18
and I have talked about before the welfare state in the US
36:22
since the War on Poverty, we have spent the country adjusted
36:27
for inflation, something on the order of 20 to $25 trillion
36:32
adjusted for inflation since 1967, fighting the war in
36:36
poverty. And and from that we have
36:39
reduced the poverty rate by it fluctuates year to year, but it
36:43
seems to be around 3:00 to 5:00 percentage points reduction in
36:48
poverty. Now here's the thing.
36:51
If we took that $23 trillion and simply divided it up amongst all
36:58
the poor people who have existed since 1967, we could have cut
37:03
each one of them a check for $10,000 a year.
37:06
Not each family, but each person a check for $10,000 a year.
37:11
That would have raised them out of poverty.
37:13
In other words, for the same cost as all the poverty
37:17
programs, we could have simply cut a check and completely
37:22
solved the problem. So to me, following this this
37:25
proposition I've laid out, which the name again is the cash
37:29
benchmark test. This says that that our welfare
37:34
state is anathema to someone to the principle of freedom all.
37:40
Right, couple of things. The first is, yeah, I mean,
37:44
look, conceptually, I I agree completely, you know, I do.
37:47
We've talked about this before, But if we wound down the welfare
37:52
state tomorrow in favor of just giving people checks, how many
37:55
new people would now be out of work and poor who used to work
37:59
in the welfare state? Yeah, I'm I'm with you there.
38:03
Now here's here's the thing. The the bench, the cash
38:08
benchmark test is a hypothetical.
38:10
So it's not it's not that this is actually the alternative we
38:14
should cut everybody checks, but rather if you can demonstrate
38:18
that simply cutting checks would have solved the problem at less
38:22
cost, or told it better for the same cost, whatever it is, that
38:26
unto itself says there's something wrong with your
38:29
policy. Yeah, but it doesn't tell you
38:31
what, and it doesn't tell you what what the correct answer is
38:34
which. Is.
38:35
No it doesn't. And here's how it would play up.
38:38
Let's leave welfare to the side and talk about healthcare, which
38:43
is all in the news again. Because lo and behold, if only
38:47
two guys could have predicted that the Affordable Care Act was
38:51
going to yield care that was not nearly as affordable as as it
38:54
once was. If only two guys had said out.
38:57
Loud, Well on record. We've written, we've written in
39:00
newspapers about this before. The Affordable Care Act was
39:04
told. The tale was told.
39:06
Repeatedly. But now you can point out that
39:09
that is exactly what happened. And is healthcare any better?
39:13
No. Is it more accessible?
39:16
No, actually it's not. Maybe a little less so as these
39:20
things go. But then comes the cardinal
39:23
question. What are we going to do about
39:25
that? And just because I can point all
39:29
that out doesn't mean we're not going to have government
39:31
involvement in healthcare again. It just means it's going to look
39:34
different and it's going to fail next time too.
39:37
And we're going to say the same things.
39:39
And then it's going to fail the next time too.
39:41
Because when governments take over healthcare, you get certain
39:45
kinds of failures. It's wrapped right into the
39:48
nature of the thing can't be avoided.
39:51
And you and I say this a lot. You can ration by time or you
39:55
can ration by money. And I have gone out and gotten
39:57
medical procedures in an afternoon that would take our
40:00
Canadian friends 6912 months to get.
40:05
Right. We rationed by money here and I
40:08
had enough money. They rationed by time, and
40:13
sometimes you have the time and sometimes you don't, but you're
40:17
still rationing no matter what. Let me pick another example that
40:22
I've actually run some rough numbers on, and this is the this
40:26
is the drug war, and I'm going to take marijuana off the table
40:30
here. Let's talk about other illegal
40:33
drugs. What does it cost us to wage the
40:38
war on drugs? Incarceration.
40:41
Federal and state is about 16 billion a year.
40:44
Federal enforcement is around 40 to 50 billion a year, and state
40:49
and local enforcement. Is this just for drugs?
40:54
Yes, we spent 16 billion on keeping drug offenders in
41:00
prison. Yes, OK, yes, state and local
41:04
enforcement, almost 20 billion. There's lost GDP because these
41:08
people are now in jail instead of producing.
41:10
That's over 10 billion. And when you do it all, of
41:14
course the the numbers are estimates, you're going to get
41:16
people all over the map. But generally, the estimates
41:20
come out in the ballpark of the drug war, costing about 100
41:24
billion annually. That's all in.
41:28
That's a lot. Yeah.
41:29
But here's the thing, James. I'm going to go back to this
41:34
principle. The cash benchmark test, 100
41:38
billion a year. There are, and this is by U.S.
41:44
government estimates, 2 million. What do we have here?
41:49
Americans who use, yes, illicit drug users excluding marijuana,
41:54
9.4 million. That's the estimate.
41:58
And this is not, this is 9.4 million who have used drugs in
42:01
the past year. So it was not like the question
42:03
of how have you ever used drugs, right?
42:05
So think of this, 9.4 million active illicit drug users
42:09
excluding marijuana, $100 billion a year.
42:13
We could cut each of them a check for $10,000 a year in
42:18
exchange for taking drug tests. And so long as you you come in
42:24
once every, pick a number, once every month you take a drug
42:27
test, and so long as you're negative every single time, you
42:31
get your $10,000 check. That I was going to say wow,
42:34
with with $10,000 I could buy a whole lot more illusive drugs.
42:39
Yeah, all excited until that last.
42:41
Part yeah, but you'll only yeah, you'll only do that once you
42:44
come in for your next drug test. Now you have a problem right
42:46
now. Is it going to is it going to
42:48
drop the 9.4 million to 0? No, but it's my guess is it's
42:54
going to drop it way closer to 0 than what the war on drugs has
42:58
done for the same cost. As the war on drugs, I guess it
43:01
would be probably less than half what it now is.
43:06
That would be a huge win given what the war on drugs has
43:09
accomplished. Or here's crazy idea, make all
43:12
drugs legal. Yeah, see, and that and that's
43:15
the thing when you're dealing with victimless crimes like
43:17
here, there's like this, there's always that answer.
43:20
The problem with that answer is that while it is compelling to
43:25
people who are of a libertarian mindset, it's not compelling to
43:29
anybody else. And so with this, with this
43:33
litmus test that that I'm highlighting here, we can say to
43:37
people, look, you want to keep people off drugs, here's a way
43:40
to do it that's more effective for the same amount of money or
43:44
as effective for less money. And less coercive.
43:48
And and yes, on yes. And on the top of everything
43:51
else, it's less coercive, which, if we care about freedom, that
43:54
should be one of the prime deciding factors.
43:57
Yeah, I've I've come to the conclusion that we don't really
44:00
care about freedom anymore. Well, this is the problem with
44:04
both the war on poverty and the war on drugs, that they have
44:07
become so lucrative that we have actually created entire
44:11
industries in which people who are neither poor nor drug users
44:17
are benefiting by simply working in this industry, and they are
44:21
going to resist a solution like this.
44:24
Yeah, no, Bureaucracies always resist.
44:29
Corporations that are in bed with government always resist.
44:33
And you find that bureaucracies and those kinds of corporations
44:37
are very, very powerful. Once you've Co opted the
44:41
government itself, there's very little you can't do.
44:44
And we can point at them all the time.
44:46
And I I take joy in pointing at them, but that's literally all I
44:50
can accomplish. I can't, I can't undermine them
44:54
in any way. I can't return us to an
44:57
understanding of individualism. All I can do is point out the
45:01
problems. And until and unless the
45:03
majority, and probably a significant majority of
45:06
Americans actually care about these things, this is what we're
45:09
going to get. Yeah.
45:11
And I think, and that's both sad and uplifting, Yes, Individually
45:15
there's not much we can do, if anything, but collectively
45:18
there's a tremendous amount we can do.
45:21
We'll see. As is always the case, we'll see
45:24
marijuana. I didn't think I'd see marijuana
45:27
legalization in my lifetime, and it just toppled like Domino's,
45:31
so other things can too. You never know.
45:34
And that's all I have. First time for everything.
45:37
On that happy note, we take our leave.
45:40
We'll see you next time. And until we see you again,
45:44
please be nice to each other. It'll be all right.
45:46
Just give it a shot. It's OK.
45:48
Catch you later, Aunt. See you next time, James, at
45:51
Words in Numbers. We spend a lot of time talking
45:53
about what's going on in the economy and the government, but
45:56
fundamentally, all of this boils down to one thing.
45:59
The greatest threat facing modern society is a lack of
46:03
civility, that people who disagree somehow find it
46:06
difficult, if not impossible, to discuss their differences in a
46:09
civil manner. We at Civil are interested in
46:12
upgrading civilization by encouraging people to engage
46:16
with new ideas and ultimately engage civilly with each other.
46:20
If you share this idea, please join us by subscribing at
46:23
civil.com. That's civl.com.