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Do sin taxes work? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know front House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles w. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there too, So
0:17
Speaker 1: this is you should know. How you doing come fine?
0:24
Speaker 1: How are you doing good? You know this one? Um,
0:27
Speaker 1: we did a podcast in June twelve, Should we have
0:31
Speaker 1: a fat tax? Sure? I remember that was now that
0:35
Speaker 1: I look at the timeline of uh and I'm sure
0:38
Speaker 1: we'll cover this now about Mayor Bloomberg in New York
0:42
Speaker 1: in twelve. That was in May when he wanted to
0:45
Speaker 1: ban the sale of soft drinks over sixteen ounces in
0:49
Speaker 1: New York City. Uh. And we released in June twelve,
0:53
Speaker 1: So that had to have been the impetus, right, Uh, baby,
0:56
Speaker 1: it was probably something to do with it. But the
0:59
Speaker 1: difference with his two thousand and twelve push was that, um,
1:04
Speaker 1: he was just trying to ban it. There was no tax.
1:06
Speaker 1: It was correct. You can't have this tubs, you know, Yeah,
1:10
Speaker 1: like you're drinking yourself to an early death with the sodas.
1:15
Speaker 1: There's that very famous commercial that he had where like
1:19
Speaker 1: this this uh, very large man is drinking like a
1:23
Speaker 1: big gulp and Michael Bloomberg steps into the frame, smacks
1:27
Speaker 1: it out of the guy's hand, shoves him, turns to
1:30
Speaker 1: the camera and smiles, and he's missing a front tooth.
1:34
Speaker 1: What I'm just kidding. It's pretty believable, though. I was
1:40
Speaker 1: with you until the tooth part, and then it was like,
1:42
Speaker 1: what kind of monster would be missing in front tooth
1:45
Speaker 1: at h uh? Yeah, so, um Bloomberg did try to
1:50
Speaker 1: ban that, which, like you said, is different than a
1:53
Speaker 1: than a syntax. But um, yeah, by the way, we're
1:56
Speaker 1: not saying s Y and T a X. It's high
1:59
Speaker 1: end space T A X. That's right. And this article paints, uh,
2:04
Speaker 1: one of the broadest political brushes I've seen from our
2:08
Speaker 1: articles in a long time with this sentence. Syntaxes are
2:13
Speaker 1: often considered a favorite tool of liberals out to impose
2:15
Speaker 1: a nanny state on freethinking individuals. Conservatives often to post
2:20
Speaker 1: syntaxes on the grounds that they amount to greater government
2:22
Speaker 1: intervention in people's lives. Now, let's all read some iron
2:26
Speaker 1: ran It's it was just a pretty like it wasn't nuanced. No,
2:33
Speaker 1: it's pretty pretty unnuanced. Remember those big plastic bats that
2:38
Speaker 1: you would get with the whiffleball when you're like two,
2:41
Speaker 1: so you're learning to practice baseball. It's like being hit
2:44
Speaker 1: with one of those. Yeah, there's no mistaking it. It's
2:47
Speaker 1: just weird one of our articles because I think that's
2:49
Speaker 1: sort of the the old party line that people believe.
2:52
Speaker 1: It's just like all liberals just want to do is
2:54
Speaker 1: control your life. Well, I think the author very clearly
2:58
Speaker 1: sees it that way and slipped it in. I guess yeah,
3:02
Speaker 1: But he also slipped in, but not all liberals think
3:05
Speaker 1: this way because John Stewart thought it was ridiculous. Than that,
3:11
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. I don't remember John Stewart doing that.
3:13
Speaker 1: Um do you do you remember him coming out against it?
3:16
Speaker 1: I don't remember, but that doesn't surprise me. He said
3:19
Speaker 1: it was draconian and would not have the proper outcome.
3:22
Speaker 1: And John Stewart's pretty smart guy. Well yeah, if he
3:25
Speaker 1: thinks that, then I do so he's probably one too,
3:28
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a lot about this. But syntax is
3:32
Speaker 1: uh to me. The proposed outcome isn't necessarily like what
3:39
Speaker 1: um ends up happening A and maybe not even what
3:43
Speaker 1: they're after in the long run. Jerry's still out on
3:45
Speaker 1: that you know, like you talked to some people and say, oh, no,
3:49
Speaker 1: they're effective. Other people say no, they're not effective, and
3:52
Speaker 1: some people say sometimes they're effective. I think the third
3:55
Speaker 1: group is probably right. Yeah, sometimes, so we should probably
3:59
Speaker 1: tell people which talking about with a syntax. Syntax is
4:02
Speaker 1: a type of text that is levied against a usually
4:07
Speaker 1: a good of some sort that society in general says,
4:12
Speaker 1: we don't really think you should have too much of that.
4:14
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, we'd all be happier if
4:16
Speaker 1: you would not use that. So we're going to have
4:20
Speaker 1: our government, or go along with our government levying a text. Yes,
4:27
Speaker 1: the next size text, which is a sales tax on
4:30
Speaker 1: one specific type of good. Um. For example, with a
4:33
Speaker 1: syntax something like tobacco or liquor or gambling, something that
4:38
Speaker 1: society tends to think of as advice. Yeah, and so
4:42
Speaker 1: they're saying, there's a couple of things that are being said.
4:44
Speaker 1: With the syntax, it's saying, well, we want you to stop,
4:49
Speaker 1: so we're gonna hit you in your pocketbook. Yeah, that's
4:54
Speaker 1: a good argument. You can argue both ways. Um. And
4:57
Speaker 1: then secondly, and I think this one's a little more legitimate. Um,
5:03
Speaker 1: that is costing the rest of us money in the
5:07
Speaker 1: form of higher insurance rates, Like you're abusing your body,
5:11
Speaker 1: we're having to pay for community hospitals. That cost of society. Yeah,
5:18
Speaker 1: there's a cost of society. So if you want to
5:20
Speaker 1: do this to yourself, you're gonna have to pay more
5:22
Speaker 1: for it, so that we can use that money for
5:25
Speaker 1: things like health care systems to fund UM, to fund this,
5:30
Speaker 1: to offset the social cost that you are creating. Yeah,
5:34
Speaker 1: And a lot of times there is something specifically earmarked
5:37
Speaker 1: for a specific syntax, like we're gonna take the money
5:41
Speaker 1: in our state from this new cigarette tax and put
5:43
Speaker 1: it toward this healthcare measure. UM. And I think that
5:48
Speaker 1: they like to do that more because people might get
5:51
Speaker 1: behind it more if they're not, just like it'll just
5:55
Speaker 1: go in the government coffers And uh, I don't know
5:58
Speaker 1: how much faith there is the public at large that
6:01
Speaker 1: the government spends the money wisely. Well, that's that's I mean,
6:05
Speaker 1: that's a big part of it. Like if you are
6:07
Speaker 1: not taking the money from a syntax and directly using
6:12
Speaker 1: it to offset the social cost of whatever that vices
6:16
Speaker 1: or whatever, if there is one, UM, then you're scamming
6:20
Speaker 1: the general populace and you're using your shaming like a
6:24
Speaker 1: segment of your populace for that, for that to that
6:28
Speaker 1: end to scam everybody. Yeah, or which is not cool.
6:31
Speaker 1: Let's let's say you're not, um, want to drink soda much,
6:36
Speaker 1: but every once in a while you like to get
6:38
Speaker 1: out there and have a big, tall, giant, big gulp.
6:42
Speaker 1: Then you're paying that tax. And some people might say, well,
6:45
Speaker 1: that's not really fair because you're not contributing to any
6:48
Speaker 1: social epidemics. Right. Um, we're gonna get into all this,
6:52
Speaker 1: but we should point out that Bloomberg, um, he lost
6:57
Speaker 1: that war. He uh, the soda industry they you know,
7:01
Speaker 1: they're not just gonna say that sounds like a great idea, mayor.
7:04
Speaker 1: They fought hard. They mounted a campaign and ad campaign,
7:08
Speaker 1: they mounted a legal challenge, and the Court of Appeals
7:11
Speaker 1: eventually struck it down in June. So later that year
7:15
Speaker 1: he said, all right, New Yorkers, you don't like to
7:18
Speaker 1: be pushed around, Let's go to Berkeley, California. Yeah. Well, okay,
7:22
Speaker 1: So Bloomberg is a billionaire, right sure, And he's a
7:25
Speaker 1: billionaire who is exceedingly liberal. He's a very liberal billionaire. Um,
7:30
Speaker 1: and he his foundation in two thousand and ten and
7:35
Speaker 1: said we're going after soda. We've not just we the
7:39
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Group, but the World Health Organization said soda texas
7:44
Speaker 1: probably the most effective strategy of government can undertake for
7:47
Speaker 1: improving the diet of the general population. UM, there's mounting
7:52
Speaker 1: evidence that what are called ss D s sb's sugar
7:56
Speaker 1: sweetened beverages are they lead to increased weight gain and
8:02
Speaker 1: other um co morbid health outcomes like diabetes and are
8:09
Speaker 1: basically they're they're becoming the central focus of a lot
8:14
Speaker 1: of um negative publicity. A lot of people are saying
8:19
Speaker 1: these things are are around the nexus of a lot
8:23
Speaker 1: of really bad chronic health conditions. It's these sodas right,
8:28
Speaker 1: and so much so that there was this really great
8:30
Speaker 1: Guardian article that was written by Tina Rosenberg and she
8:35
Speaker 1: puts it, soda is on the verge of becoming the
8:37
Speaker 1: liquid cigarette. And in part because of Bloomberg and his
8:43
Speaker 1: his foundation, what would that make the East cigarette? East
8:48
Speaker 1: cigarette is the new cigar? Uh? Yeah, soda is one
8:52
Speaker 1: that it's easy to go after because UM, childhood obesity
8:58
Speaker 1: and kids that you about stories about kids like going
9:01
Speaker 1: through like a leader or a two leader of sugary
9:05
Speaker 1: sweet soda a day in these you know, just ridiculous
9:08
Speaker 1: amounts of sugar intake that any reasonable person would say, like,
9:11
Speaker 1: you can't drink that much sugar right well and expect
9:16
Speaker 1: to like not have like huge consequences. The UK has
9:20
Speaker 1: a sugar text on the books that's proposed to take
9:24
Speaker 1: effect next year, and I was reading a BBC article
9:28
Speaker 1: on it and they had like this little pole thing
9:30
Speaker 1: comparison thirty five grams of sugar and a can of
9:34
Speaker 1: Coca cola. Thirty grams is the maximum that the UK
9:39
Speaker 1: suggests it's children or people eleven years or older have
9:43
Speaker 1: a day. And so if you drink one cannon coke,
9:46
Speaker 1: you're automatically having more then you're supposed to have in
9:50
Speaker 1: one day as far as like a normal diets concerned
9:53
Speaker 1: and who just drinks one can of coke? You know, Well,
9:57
Speaker 1: so what we're do you really Well, I don't even
9:59
Speaker 1: drink and we've talked about this before. I rarely ever
10:01
Speaker 1: drink soda, that's true. You're drinking water right now, yeah,
10:04
Speaker 1: And it's just it's not an effort to not drink
10:08
Speaker 1: sugar water. It's just sort of the way I was raised.
10:11
Speaker 1: We didn't have a lot of sodas in the house,
10:13
Speaker 1: drank a lot of water. I still love water. It's
10:15
Speaker 1: good stuff, that's right, it is. And as a sweater too,
10:20
Speaker 1: that's what I need water. Yeah, so I can sweat more.
10:24
Speaker 1: It's just a system. It's called the closed loop. He's swallowing. Yeah.
10:30
Speaker 1: Uh so, I feel like about eight minutes ago, I
10:32
Speaker 1: said something about going to Berkeley. Um. So Bloomberg went
10:36
Speaker 1: to Berkeley later in fourteen after he was rebuffed in
10:40
Speaker 1: New York and said, New Yorkers don't like to be
10:42
Speaker 1: shoved around. Let's go out west where all these Berkeley
10:46
Speaker 1: hippies will surely be down with this kind of thing.
10:49
Speaker 1: And let's uh, instead of trying to ban it, let's
10:51
Speaker 1: try and get a syntax an exercise tax i pose
10:55
Speaker 1: and uh. He was very successful there. There was um. Obviously,
10:59
Speaker 1: the the uh soda industry they're tried to fight back
11:02
Speaker 1: as well, to the tune of about close to two
11:05
Speaker 1: million bucks uh in a campaign against it, But voters said, yes,
11:09
Speaker 1: we like the syntax uh, to the tune of how
11:13
Speaker 1: much is it a penny? An an ounce ye that
11:17
Speaker 1: could be substantial. Coke used to be what like a dollar.
11:22
Speaker 1: I don't even know now, it would be a dollar twenty,
11:24
Speaker 1: that's right, you know, I mean, yeah, that could be substantial,
11:26
Speaker 1: especially if you're talking two leader, three leader. It's getting
11:29
Speaker 1: into the area where you would start to see an
11:33
Speaker 1: impact from it. Yeah, that's the way to do it. Though,
11:35
Speaker 1: I gotta say, instead of just like you know, a
11:38
Speaker 1: flat tax across the board, they're literally saying, like, the
11:42
Speaker 1: more you drink of this stuff, the more you will pay. Right,
11:44
Speaker 1: It's a negative. It's a disincentive to buy that product,
11:49
Speaker 1: which again society or the government or somebody has deemed unhealthy. Right,
11:55
Speaker 1: And in that case, uh, in Berkeley at least, you
11:59
Speaker 1: know that what they need to do is look at
12:00
Speaker 1: this stuff long term. But in the short term, um,
12:03
Speaker 1: over five months after the tax, they saw that, um
12:06
Speaker 1: this is the American Journal of Public Health. They found
12:09
Speaker 1: that low income and minority residents of Berkeley drink less
12:15
Speaker 1: soda than before, but in San Francisco nearby consumption went
12:19
Speaker 1: up by four percent. That's a pretty significant study. Yeah,
12:26
Speaker 1: five months though, Like, well, that's the problem. Like, look
12:29
Speaker 1: at it long term, I think is what the because
12:31
Speaker 1: maybe initially people will stop and then they'll go back
12:34
Speaker 1: to it. Maybe right, But why did San Francisco's go
12:37
Speaker 1: up for people like leaving Berkeley to go get their
12:39
Speaker 1: soda thicks? Maybe, I mean, that's entirely possible. I don't know.
12:43
Speaker 1: I don't think you would. The money you would spend
12:45
Speaker 1: going back and forth to San Francisco is unless you
12:48
Speaker 1: just went and bought like a truckload of cases of soda. Yeah.
12:51
Speaker 1: If that's the case, then you got you know, there
12:53
Speaker 1: are other issues in your life. Consider like even just
12:56
Speaker 1: the people who live near the border close enough. Yeah,
13:00
Speaker 1: where on the way home they're stopping or during their
13:02
Speaker 1: day they're stopping in San Francisco, just on the border
13:05
Speaker 1: getting a coke. That would raise consumption in San Francisco. Uh,
13:09
Speaker 1: Coke and the other companies might say, hey, um, we
13:13
Speaker 1: need to divert all the stock that was gonna go
13:16
Speaker 1: to Berkeley over to San Francisco and maybe spend a
13:19
Speaker 1: little more on advertising there. I could raise consumption. I
13:23
Speaker 1: guess so. But you make a very valid point. I'm
13:25
Speaker 1: not disagreeing with you. That jury is very much still
13:29
Speaker 1: out on whether soda taxes actually do work in the
13:31
Speaker 1: long term, And then even more is we'll see whether
13:34
Speaker 1: they have the impact and effects that are supposedly desired. Yeah, well,
13:39
Speaker 1: let's take a little breather and we will go uh huddle,
13:46
Speaker 1: not puddle, huddle, huddle, pittle from all all the water
13:50
Speaker 1: we've been thinking. Uh, people say that about their dogs,
13:55
Speaker 1: like he pittled. I think that's just a cute way
13:57
Speaker 1: of saying he beat it right, takes a stay out
14:00
Speaker 1: of it a bit a little. But also I think
14:02
Speaker 1: the peddle. I think a pile is just a little squirt. Yes,
14:05
Speaker 1: but it's usually also a company with like a I'm
14:08
Speaker 1: nervous or I'm scared or something, so I'm peddling. Well
14:12
Speaker 1: that's a weird segue. So we'll go uh pittle and
14:16
Speaker 1: talk about a little history of this when we get back.
14:47
Speaker 1: All Right, we both got excited the book Pittle piddle
14:50
Speaker 1: a little bit. Jerry mopped it up, piddled it a little. Yeah,
14:53
Speaker 1: she was so um scornful though. Yeah, that's all right. Uh, alright,
14:59
Speaker 1: so history WI, this is nothing new, And this is
15:02
Speaker 1: a stat that I didn't know for about fifty years
15:04
Speaker 1: in the late eighteen hundreds to early nineteen hundreds, until
15:09
Speaker 1: n of our revenue in the United States came from
15:14
Speaker 1: taxing booze and beer, smokes wine. I feel like we
15:19
Speaker 1: talked about then in the customs episode tariffs episode. Did
15:25
Speaker 1: we do a tariff episode? We talked about tariffs in customs. Yeah. Yeah,
15:31
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that it's a large share of your
15:34
Speaker 1: taxes though, coming from syntax, right. And as a matter
15:37
Speaker 1: of fact, the first tax on a domestic product levied
15:40
Speaker 1: by the United States was on It was a syntax.
15:43
Speaker 1: It was a tax on whiskey or on distilled liquor,
15:47
Speaker 1: the famous whiskey tax that led to the even famous
15:50
Speaker 1: for whiskey rebellion, which led even famous her to the
15:53
Speaker 1: Whiskey Hangover Whiskey Rebellion hangover. Uh So, in nineteen thirteen,
15:58
Speaker 1: that all change when the United States said, you know
16:02
Speaker 1: what we should do. We should people are making money now,
16:05
Speaker 1: we should tax their income because the more they make,
16:08
Speaker 1: the more successful they are, the more that we can
16:10
Speaker 1: get until they get to a point where they can
16:13
Speaker 1: get away from paying taxes. Sure they're so rich, and people, wait,
16:17
Speaker 1: how does that work? They went, Oh, you wait, they said,
16:20
Speaker 1: forget the supply side, We'll go to the demand side
16:23
Speaker 1: to tax. And from that moment on, the United States
16:26
Speaker 1: never collected a scent in Texas from another company. Again
16:31
Speaker 1: the end so um. But the point is syntaxas are
16:38
Speaker 1: most major source of government revenue up until right, which
16:44
Speaker 1: is a little ironic, I guess considering our history as
16:47
Speaker 1: a country. Yeah, it is. But what's weird is it's
16:52
Speaker 1: it's the syntax actually goes back really far. There's a
16:56
Speaker 1: lot of governments and throughout history that have collected syntaxes um,
17:02
Speaker 1: for all sorts of different reasons. Um. And then they
17:06
Speaker 1: also used to take the form of something called sumptuary laws. Yes,
17:10
Speaker 1: so sumptuary laws were basically rather than taxing. It was
17:15
Speaker 1: kind of like what Bloomberg was trying to do by
17:18
Speaker 1: just outlowing outlowing so it all together, but rather than
17:22
Speaker 1: necessarily being a moral thing, usually sumptuary laws were meant
17:26
Speaker 1: to keep class distinctions intact. Yeah, like you know, the
17:30
Speaker 1: word sumptuous expensive looking. It was a way to restrain extravagance. Um.
17:37
Speaker 1: And like you said, uh, And they use Elizabeth the
17:39
Speaker 1: First in this article, which was a good example because
17:42
Speaker 1: she was big on those. And you know, it's kind
17:45
Speaker 1: of like I don't want how am I going to
17:46
Speaker 1: tell the difference between my subjects if they're dressing all
17:50
Speaker 1: fancy now and thinking they're all that. Yeah, I don't
17:53
Speaker 1: want to accidentally talk to a commoner pretty much. Uh,
17:56
Speaker 1: And I looked into these a little bit. Apparently they
17:58
Speaker 1: were not very ready enforced. Um. If they were, it
18:02
Speaker 1: was usually because of a specific complaint that someone would
18:05
Speaker 1: bring against, like their neighbor or something. They're wearing fancy shoes. Yeah,
18:09
Speaker 1: pretty much. It wasn't like super police. But they made
18:12
Speaker 1: a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Hey, that's
18:16
Speaker 1: just good old fashioned ingenuity. Um. When you open it, it
18:20
Speaker 1: it moves. But apparently that when these young men would
18:26
Speaker 1: enter London, they would sometimes their swords would be measured,
18:30
Speaker 1: and if their swords were too long, they would break
18:32
Speaker 1: them because that was a sign of extravagance. If you
18:35
Speaker 1: had some big, flashy sword. It's not a euphemism, right,
18:39
Speaker 1: you're talking about a sword. I don't think, so weird
18:44
Speaker 1: and gross. So even in this country, the sumptuary laws
18:49
Speaker 1: um almost made an appearance. I think in the puritan
18:55
Speaker 1: Um codes there may have been some sumptory laws, but
18:59
Speaker 1: in the Ated States itself, George Mason during the Constitutional
19:03
Speaker 1: Convention said, hey, let's get some sumptuary laws. They've been
19:07
Speaker 1: done for centuries already, they work. Let's just keep it going.
19:10
Speaker 1: But Mason's aim wasn't to um keep class distinctions. He
19:16
Speaker 1: wanted to basically say, hey, here's how you guys conduct
19:19
Speaker 1: yourselves the way we say where the US government. Don't
19:24
Speaker 1: flashy because don't be flashy, don't be um, don't waste
19:28
Speaker 1: your money, don't drink too much. So so rather than
19:31
Speaker 1: saying like we're going to tax your whiskey, you who
19:36
Speaker 1: produced whiskey, We'll just go and say you, you know, you,
19:41
Speaker 1: member of the public, you can only have like a
19:44
Speaker 1: pine of whiskey a day, and anything beyond that you
19:47
Speaker 1: will throw you in jail for That would be a
19:49
Speaker 1: sumptuary law. But the the other guys in the Constitutional
19:52
Speaker 1: Convention said no, no, no, no. I think one of
19:55
Speaker 1: them very famously said, um, the law of necessity is
19:58
Speaker 1: the greatest sumptuary law. Meaning if you tax people, they're
20:02
Speaker 1: not going to be able to afford it anyway. Plus you,
20:06
Speaker 1: the government, get the money, So why be a jerk
20:09
Speaker 1: and just outlaw it. Just throw a big old tax
20:11
Speaker 1: on it, and everybody wins except for the poor loser
20:14
Speaker 1: he's having to cough up this much more stuff to
20:17
Speaker 1: to kill himself. Yeah, forget laws up with taxes which
20:24
Speaker 1: had been you know, like we talked about a long
20:25
Speaker 1: history and in the seventeen sixty four we uh, we're
20:29
Speaker 1: subject to a sugar tax, which kind of had a
20:32
Speaker 1: twofold purpose. One was, Hey, anything that we can do
20:35
Speaker 1: to make the king richer great, uh and be you know,
20:41
Speaker 1: we know what you're doing with that sugar. You're making
20:46
Speaker 1: rum and you're getting too drunk, and we don't like
20:48
Speaker 1: that either. So instead of a sumptuary law there, let
20:51
Speaker 1: me just tax your sugar. And do you remember we
20:54
Speaker 1: talked about swilling the planters with bumbo? Yeah, like that
20:58
Speaker 1: was just election day. People used to drink in the
21:02
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, not like now, No, not like now.
21:07
Speaker 1: I know I was being facetious, but that is true.
21:10
Speaker 1: People like everyone was drunk back then. Yeah, there was
21:12
Speaker 1: written no reason not to be. No, it was a
21:14
Speaker 1: hard life for everybody. You weren't driving around, no, you
21:18
Speaker 1: were you were in like weird pants. Yeah, there's a
21:22
Speaker 1: lot to You had a lot of reason to drink. Yeah,
21:25
Speaker 1: you could just get on your horse, and your horse
21:27
Speaker 1: knows where to go, skipper, skipper knows where to go
21:35
Speaker 1: it was a weird neighbor hors. So do these syntaxis
21:38
Speaker 1: actually work? Is the question? Well, yeah, that is the
21:40
Speaker 1: big question. So um, oh we don't know, you. I mean,
21:46
Speaker 1: it can work for sure. We actually with with this
21:49
Speaker 1: is I thought this was a very Um this article
21:53
Speaker 1: confused me here there because it seemed to be making
21:57
Speaker 1: its own argument rather than reporting the arguments, which I
22:01
Speaker 1: found like hard to follow. And then secondly it just
22:06
Speaker 1: kind of wove all over the place right as far
22:09
Speaker 1: as that argument went. But I think what I'm getting
22:12
Speaker 1: is with the soda tax, that specific kind of syntax,
22:17
Speaker 1: which is the syntax doujure of the century right now. Um,
22:22
Speaker 1: and I've just said the syntax of the day of
22:25
Speaker 1: the century, which is a little weird. Um, the jury
22:31
Speaker 1: is very much still out like a few countries of
22:33
Speaker 1: tax soda, but they also tax like mineral water and
22:36
Speaker 1: diet soda. So there's no way to study whether that
22:40
Speaker 1: actually works. As far as like health outcomes and things. Yeah,
22:43
Speaker 1: I mean there's a few different ways to say whether
22:45
Speaker 1: or not it works, because there's threefold It's like, can
22:47
Speaker 1: we improve health outcome, can we raise money? Yes, in
22:51
Speaker 1: that case it always works. Right, and UM and C
22:57
Speaker 1: or three started with three p o um man, this
23:01
Speaker 1: is falling off the rail. Uh and see does it
23:05
Speaker 1: help the public at large? UM. In the case of Mexico,
23:09
Speaker 1: they a couple of years ago imposed to soda tax
23:14
Speaker 1: um because Bloomberg spending ten million dollars. That surprised me,
23:18
Speaker 1: but that was a good place to do it because apparently, UM,
23:24
Speaker 1: Mexico was nuts for sugar sweetened beverages. Yeah, and sort
23:28
Speaker 1: of junkie food and sugary beverages. I think it has
23:31
Speaker 1: a reputation for sure as being a problem. And I
23:33
Speaker 1: think in two thousand and six there was like a
23:36
Speaker 1: nationwide health report basically like a study of Mexico and
23:39
Speaker 1: they were finding like it was on its way to
23:41
Speaker 1: becoming like the fattest country in the world. And UM
23:45
Speaker 1: they were like, well this, this is definitely opening our eyes.
23:47
Speaker 1: And that kind of planted the seed for Bloomberg's a
23:51
Speaker 1: group to come in and a few years later and
23:53
Speaker 1: spend ten million on a campaign against soda. I've seen
23:57
Speaker 1: I mean, have you been to Mexico. I've seen it,
24:00
Speaker 1: you know, in person, Like it was a notice. It
24:03
Speaker 1: was noticeable to me the amount of people drinking soda
24:07
Speaker 1: just right out there in front of people. They weren't
24:09
Speaker 1: even trying to hide it. I'm kidding of course. Um
24:13
Speaker 1: so is when I guess Bloomberg was successful there, they
24:17
Speaker 1: had to pay so per leader tax and an eight
24:19
Speaker 1: percent tax on junk food and apparently both of those
24:23
Speaker 1: consumption of both went down a lot because of that tax. Um.
24:28
Speaker 1: But like I said, so wait, there's one there's one
24:31
Speaker 1: thing that consumption can decrease as a result. Right, What
24:35
Speaker 1: they don't know is the long term health outcome, because
24:39
Speaker 1: that's just one thing that can lead to poor health
24:42
Speaker 1: in your future, is a sugary drink. Well, so that
24:46
Speaker 1: to me smacks of like soda industry like obfuscation, well
24:52
Speaker 1: in a way, but it's true. It is true. But
24:54
Speaker 1: apparently in Mexico, the battle that's being fought by the
24:57
Speaker 1: soda industry is, um, hey man, don't don't don't text us.
25:04
Speaker 1: That's that you got it all wrong. Text the cheeseburger people,
25:08
Speaker 1: get them. Uh, and the cheeseburger people like what we're
25:12
Speaker 1: standing over here being quiet the pork rind people right.
25:16
Speaker 1: Um No, they were saying, teach kids to like get
25:19
Speaker 1: out and exercise more it's calorie and calorie out right,
25:22
Speaker 1: So who cares if our drinks have high calorie Tell
25:26
Speaker 1: these little kids to get off their duffs and get
25:28
Speaker 1: out there and start playing the hopscots or something. The
25:33
Speaker 1: thing is is, um diet is more responsible for obesity
25:38
Speaker 1: than exercises. You can exercise with your heart's content, and
25:41
Speaker 1: if you don't change your diet, you're never gonna lose
25:42
Speaker 1: any weight. It's diet that that leads to a change
25:46
Speaker 1: in obesity. And again, obesity is kind of the central
25:49
Speaker 1: focus of this whole cluster of co more big chronic
25:53
Speaker 1: illnesses that include things like UM insulin resistance and type
25:57
Speaker 1: two diabetes UM. And if you can change the diet,
26:02
Speaker 1: then you can conceivably cut down on these chronic illnesses.
26:06
Speaker 1: And again the World Health Organization said, so to text
26:10
Speaker 1: is the best way to change the diet. So that's
26:12
Speaker 1: just being fought in Mexico right now, and and it's
26:14
Speaker 1: actually it's having an effect at least on a reduction
26:18
Speaker 1: and consumptions. Now, what you're saying is we have to
26:22
Speaker 1: wait and see whether that reduction and consumption has a
26:25
Speaker 1: reduction in things like obesity and has a positive impact
26:28
Speaker 1: on health outcomes, and if that's the case, then Mexico
26:31
Speaker 1: will probably change, will lead the way for the rest
26:34
Speaker 1: of the world because everybody's gonna start following suit after that. Well,
26:38
Speaker 1: here's the thing, though, let's look at uh. Let's look
26:41
Speaker 1: at alcohol. For instance, we've long text cigarettes and alcohol
26:45
Speaker 1: in this country to great effect or great revenues at least. Uh.
26:50
Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, Illinois, the state of Illinois said
26:54
Speaker 1: all the beer is gonna be one cent more per bottle,
26:58
Speaker 1: and each serving of liquor is going to be five
27:02
Speaker 1: cents more, Which I don't know what that means. Uh,
27:06
Speaker 1: like ounce and a half. I think an ounce and
27:08
Speaker 1: a half is a serving a liquor. So is that
27:10
Speaker 1: just for a drink? You're getting a bar showy, they're
27:11
Speaker 1: not slapping that on a bottle that you buy. I
27:13
Speaker 1: don't know'd be a lot of dough. I don't know.
27:16
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know. I don't know that either. Well,
27:19
Speaker 1: let's think about it's a fifth. The fifth is like, um,
27:27
Speaker 1: instead be like a dollar twenty extra for a fifth
27:33
Speaker 1: because it's a leaders about thirty two ounces, So three
27:37
Speaker 1: quarters of thirty two would be twenty four right, I'm
27:42
Speaker 1: pretty sure it is all right, sons, and maybe it
27:44
Speaker 1: wasn't that much then. Um. But what they found out
27:48
Speaker 1: was that deaths and this is where the hanky reporting
27:53
Speaker 1: comes in, UM, deaths associated with drunken driving stop by
27:58
Speaker 1: and the general population in thirty seven, it for young
28:00
Speaker 1: people and also went down for uh, people who drink
28:05
Speaker 1: a lot supposedly Yeah, heavy drinkers. Yeah, a population that
28:09
Speaker 1: that Everyone was like, that's the what you can tax
28:13
Speaker 1: it till the cows come home and they're still gonna drink.
28:16
Speaker 1: So that was drunk driving accidents. And UM, if you're
28:19
Speaker 1: someone like mathematics professor Rebecca Golden, UM, you will look
28:24
Speaker 1: at that and say that doesn't prove anything. That's correlation
28:28
Speaker 1: at best, and you can't prove that that caused the
28:31
Speaker 1: drop in drunken driving accidents. Well, she actually said also
28:35
Speaker 1: that there was a larger trend of um, drinking less.
28:41
Speaker 1: You know that it had to do with the Great
28:43
Speaker 1: Recession of two eight. People had less money to spend
28:46
Speaker 1: on drinking, so we're getting drunk less, so we're dying
28:49
Speaker 1: in drunk driving accidents less. She said it didn't have
28:52
Speaker 1: anything to do with this tax, But if you want
28:54
Speaker 1: to support the tax, you can cherry pick a study
28:56
Speaker 1: like this and say, well, look people, because this is
28:59
Speaker 1: the third part of that equation, the public at large benefit,
29:02
Speaker 1: which is fewer drunk driving accidents, um, less domestic abuse
29:07
Speaker 1: in the case of smoking, less second hand smoke issues. Um.
29:12
Speaker 1: That's when people are like, wait a minute, I'm the
29:14
Speaker 1: one smoking, doesn't affect anyone else, Well, yeah, second hand smoke,
29:18
Speaker 1: or I'm the one drinking. Plus let me destroy my
29:20
Speaker 1: own body. Everybody likes a pretty smile, not meth mouth.
29:26
Speaker 1: That's the number one problem with meth. But the problem
29:30
Speaker 1: with that, I don't know if it's the study or
29:34
Speaker 1: the tax or what, but that Illinois tax on alcohol
29:37
Speaker 1: leading to fewer drunk driving deaths. That doesn't mean that
29:41
Speaker 1: it couldn't work. I think I said somewhere that like
29:45
Speaker 1: is about the minimum that you want to slap a
29:48
Speaker 1: syntax on before it starts to have, um, the outcomes
29:51
Speaker 1: that you're looking for. That's just nothing. Half a cent
29:54
Speaker 1: on a beer. No one's even gonna notice that, you know,
29:58
Speaker 1: five cents on a shot. No is going to notice
30:00
Speaker 1: that it just couldn't possibly have the kind of outcomes
30:04
Speaker 1: that that study concluded it had. Right, But that's not
30:07
Speaker 1: to say that it couldn't if the text were raised, right.
30:11
Speaker 1: And the thing is is there's a there's a sweet spot.
30:14
Speaker 1: There's a window where too low of attacks isn't gonna
30:18
Speaker 1: do anything, but too high of attack can have really
30:21
Speaker 1: negative outcomes too, And we'll talk about those right after
30:24
Speaker 1: this break, all right. So you tease the fact that
30:55
Speaker 1: there is a point in time when you're raising these
31:00
Speaker 1: taxes to try and get more and more people to say,
31:03
Speaker 1: all right, enough is enough. I'm not paying five dollars
31:07
Speaker 1: and eighty five cents and taxes taxes on a pack
31:10
Speaker 1: of smokes. Yeah, and that's I think how much they
31:13
Speaker 1: pay in New York these days, New York State if
31:15
Speaker 1: you buy a pack of smokes. I'm not sure how
31:18
Speaker 1: updated that is, but it's got to be around there, yeah,
31:22
Speaker 1: Because I mean cigarettes are like twelve bucks there. Yeah,
31:26
Speaker 1: they're like twelve dollars a pack. Wow, I know that's insane.
31:31
Speaker 1: I remember friends saying like, I'll never like, I'll quit
31:34
Speaker 1: smoking once they hit five dollars a pack? Did he?
31:38
Speaker 1: Because some people say that and they don't know other
31:41
Speaker 1: people do. Yeah, And like even if it's a two
31:45
Speaker 1: percent of smokers who say that actually do two percent
31:48
Speaker 1: reduction in smoking across the country. That's the size of
31:53
Speaker 1: the United States. That's significant. No agreed, But like I
31:57
Speaker 1: was saying them, there's that breaking point. And Canada saw
32:00
Speaker 1: it for real backfire wise in the early nineties, they
32:04
Speaker 1: were um increasing the taxes on cigarettes. It finally got
32:07
Speaker 1: to a point where it spawned a black market, and
32:10
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, people, I think it from the
32:14
Speaker 1: black market was one percent of sales, and just five
32:17
Speaker 1: years later it jumped up to And not only are
32:22
Speaker 1: they is it defeating itself, but they're not. They're not
32:26
Speaker 1: raising They're getting less money on taxes than they would
32:29
Speaker 1: have if they would have kept it more reasonable. Right,
32:32
Speaker 1: Like I think Arkansas ran into the exact same problem
32:35
Speaker 1: they had. Um they up the tax on cigarettes in
32:43
Speaker 1: two thou nine. They doubled their tax. Suddenly it was
32:47
Speaker 1: a dollar fifteen a pack, which was enough that they
32:51
Speaker 1: were expecting something like um eighties six million dollars in
32:54
Speaker 1: revenue from tobacco. And they had an earmarked for a
32:57
Speaker 1: specific health UH initiative, which is good but also bad
33:02
Speaker 1: when you're like, hey, we're gonna project this much money
33:05
Speaker 1: for this thing. Yeah. Not only did they um not
33:08
Speaker 1: make the eighties six million dollars that they were expecting to.
33:11
Speaker 1: They actually collected ten million less than they had the
33:14
Speaker 1: year before. Yeah, ta trombone, right right. And the reason
33:19
Speaker 1: why is because they jack the attacks up too much
33:23
Speaker 1: and they made it um in the interest of the
33:26
Speaker 1: smokers to go elsewhere, like just across state lines to
33:29
Speaker 1: buy their cigarettes, and a black market developed. So there
33:32
Speaker 1: is a window where syntax can work. But you can't
33:37
Speaker 1: go too low, and you can't go too high or
33:39
Speaker 1: else it's gonna not have the intended effects. Yeah, here's
33:42
Speaker 1: a few stats, um in the United States, apparently a
33:45
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, Uh, Rhode Island, Nevada, West Virginia,
33:50
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, and Delaware. We're led the nation in syntaxas
33:55
Speaker 1: um tobacco at seventeen billion for the country. I'll cohol
34:00
Speaker 1: six billion casinos five and a half billion Russinos, which
34:06
Speaker 1: I had never heard of. Made sense though, Russian sina
34:10
Speaker 1: Russian casina racinos, I guess it would be called because uh,
34:16
Speaker 1: you know, horse races are doll races with a casino
34:20
Speaker 1: right were you're you're betting on them, right, Yeah, but
34:23
Speaker 1: it also has a casino attached Oh is that what
34:25
Speaker 1: it is? I guess, like, we know you like to
34:27
Speaker 1: bet on the ponies, but why not throw some black
34:30
Speaker 1: check over here? Have you ever tried electronic binga uh?
34:34
Speaker 1: And then video gaming paramutual betting seven hundred million? So, uh,
34:40
Speaker 1: the United States brings in a lot of dough from
34:43
Speaker 1: these taxes. And one of the big arguments, um, that
34:47
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear politically is that or I guess not
34:51
Speaker 1: even politically is that, Uh it's a regressive tax, meaning
34:55
Speaker 1: attacks that uh infects a proportionately unfair segment of the
35:00
Speaker 1: poor population, right, which makes total sense because uh, syntax
35:05
Speaker 1: is an excise tax, and an excise taxes a sales tax,
35:08
Speaker 1: and sales taxes almost two to a single one affect
35:13
Speaker 1: the poor more than they affect the wealthy. Just because
35:17
Speaker 1: this matters more. Yeah, it's a er share of their
35:20
Speaker 1: income exactly, you know. Right, Well, we also should point
35:24
Speaker 1: out to there are texas like luxury taxes on it's
35:29
Speaker 1: sort of a syntax for the rich, a luxury tex Yeah,
35:33
Speaker 1: because you're like you text yachts at a higher rate
35:37
Speaker 1: or something like that. Sure, yeah, this is a different
35:39
Speaker 1: type of excise tax with the syntax you're especially with
35:44
Speaker 1: say like tobacco. Uh, studies show that poor people tend
35:49
Speaker 1: to smoke more cigarettes than the wealthy. So when you
35:55
Speaker 1: have an excise tax a syntax on tobacco, yeah, you're
36:00
Speaker 1: definitely instituting a regressive tax because it's being shouldered by
36:06
Speaker 1: the poor disproportionately in that they have less income, but
36:11
Speaker 1: also because they smoke more. So some people say tada,
36:15
Speaker 1: syntaxes are regressive. Other people would say, well, actually, let's
36:19
Speaker 1: take another look at this. You could say that that's
36:22
Speaker 1: a progressive tax because it's having exactly the kind of
36:26
Speaker 1: outcome you want to have by basically making it so
36:30
Speaker 1: that the people who smoked the most can afford it
36:33
Speaker 1: the least. So therefore people are going to stop smoking
36:37
Speaker 1: as much now though we have traped very clearly, and
36:41
Speaker 1: syntaxes are always in this realm anyway, but now we
36:44
Speaker 1: can't avoid it any longer. What you're talking about is
36:48
Speaker 1: the government deciding what what is good for you and
36:52
Speaker 1: what you should or shouldn't do, and they're doing it
36:54
Speaker 1: in a sneaky way, like we talked about in the
36:58
Speaker 1: PR episode when we release from Chicago. UM that kind
37:02
Speaker 1: of um paternal liberalism where the government's like, oh, you
37:08
Speaker 1: just listen to us, we'll we'll take care of you.
37:13
Speaker 1: We're not going to tell you what to do. We're
37:15
Speaker 1: just gonna make it so that you can't really afford
37:17
Speaker 1: to do what we don't want you to do any longer. Right,
37:21
Speaker 1: But as this article points out, it's sort of a
37:24
Speaker 1: kind of talking out both sides of their mouth because
37:26
Speaker 1: they bring in the US government brings in ninety billion dollars.
37:30
Speaker 1: I think that's the the US and states together. Okay,
37:34
Speaker 1: so federally in state wise billion dollars from syntaxes each year.
37:39
Speaker 1: That they use that money and UH kind of need it.
37:45
Speaker 1: Yeah I almost said need but it didn't depend on
37:48
Speaker 1: it about that sure, UM. And you know they they
37:53
Speaker 1: say like, we don't want you to do these things.
37:55
Speaker 1: We want you to smoke and drink less, but well
37:58
Speaker 1: just not completely though, because we still want to collect
38:01
Speaker 1: these taxes. Yeah. So that's why I like UM. I
38:04
Speaker 1: know the UK had a big, a big issue with
38:09
Speaker 1: UM some of their proposed UH syntaxes on alcohol. They
38:14
Speaker 1: had one that was a syntax and they also had
38:16
Speaker 1: a proposal I'm not sure where this went yet, but
38:19
Speaker 1: UM on minimum alcohol pricing and uh, they flat out said, um,
38:27
Speaker 1: or you know, most of the public flat out said, like,
38:29
Speaker 1: there's no way you can have that minimum pricing because
38:32
Speaker 1: that's clearly gonna affect poor people who drink drink cheap
38:37
Speaker 1: liquor and go to the store and get you know,
38:40
Speaker 1: Mr Boston Vodka and that Boston vodka and cheap anymore
38:46
Speaker 1: because there's a minimum pricing on it, and it's not
38:48
Speaker 1: gonna affect the fat cat who wants to go in
38:50
Speaker 1: there and get his uh, what's a nice vodka? Uh vodka?
38:56
Speaker 1: Hold on, grey Goose, it's not bad, Grey Goose. Sure, Belvedere, Exactly,
39:01
Speaker 1: they're not walking in their sweating some minimum price on
39:03
Speaker 1: vodka or probably the tax because they want their martini,
39:08
Speaker 1: right exactly, No, that's exactly right. So I read this
39:11
Speaker 1: article from it's called the Wages of Syntaxes from the
39:14
Speaker 1: Adam Smith Institute, Oh of all places, the capitalism, and
39:20
Speaker 1: they said, you know, they come out very obviously, very
39:23
Speaker 1: much on the side of saying syntaxes are ineffective, they
39:26
Speaker 1: don't produce the outcome you want, they're regressive, and um,
39:31
Speaker 1: anyone who's saying anything else is just fooling themselves. What
39:34
Speaker 1: they're doing is trying to collect revenue. Yeah, where are
39:39
Speaker 1: you following this? I'm very curious. I'm not gonna weigh
39:42
Speaker 1: in on it. Okay, I'm just staying neutral. I'm saying
39:45
Speaker 1: some people say this, some people say that, good for you.
39:47
Speaker 1: Jack Chuck just stays at home, Yeah, with his Tetos vodka.
39:52
Speaker 1: Actually I don't even drink vodka, but I do have
39:54
Speaker 1: Tito's in the house because you know, you want to
39:57
Speaker 1: offer it to your friends. It's American, that's right. Sure,
40:00
Speaker 1: Oh bloody marry I mean now and then oh yeah,
40:02
Speaker 1: although you got to drink that with Jenner tequila so
40:06
Speaker 1: much better than a vodka. Have you tried it? Yeah?
40:09
Speaker 1: And you prefer vodka? Is still huh absolutely really yep.
40:12
Speaker 1: I'm surprised to hear you say that. Yeah, Titos, uh
40:17
Speaker 1: Mr Boston not Mr make a blend of both two
40:21
Speaker 1: thirds Tito's, one third Mr Boston and then spit my friend. Well,
40:26
Speaker 1: I do have that famous bloody Mary recipe from years ago,
40:28
Speaker 1: the Caesar. But I've also been called out for not
40:33
Speaker 1: talking specifically about my red neck crabbed up. People are
40:37
Speaker 1: writing in saying you can't just say that they want
40:39
Speaker 1: the recipe. You can't say crack dip and not give
40:42
Speaker 1: us a recipe. So are you going to Well, I
40:44
Speaker 1: don't remember, Like I don't go I don't do recipes
40:47
Speaker 1: because I like to just cook by the seat of
40:49
Speaker 1: my pants. But I know it's got the k rab
40:53
Speaker 1: chopped up lemon juice, it's got mayonnaise, it's got Worcestershire
41:00
Speaker 1: little salt, pepper and paprika and that maybe it. I
41:04
Speaker 1: just don't remember the exact proportions. And you made you
41:07
Speaker 1: can monkey with it sure like like mayo, Yeah you do.
41:11
Speaker 1: You can go lighter on the mayo if you want,
41:13
Speaker 1: if you want to be a comie, um, Worcestershire. I
41:16
Speaker 1: don't remember putting a ton in there. Just yeah, a
41:19
Speaker 1: couple of couple of dashes or no tapoon. Well, I
41:23
Speaker 1: mean it depends on how much you're making. You know,
41:24
Speaker 1: if you make a big tub for a party, you're
41:27
Speaker 1: gonna want more than a couple of dashes, probably like
41:29
Speaker 1: you know, a quarter cup or something. Who um yeah right, yeah, uh,
41:34
Speaker 1: wake you up. And I think that's everything. Just as
41:37
Speaker 1: I say, monkey around with it, get creative, and then
41:40
Speaker 1: next week maybe I'll talk about my Bloody Caesar recipe.
41:43
Speaker 1: I think you should that. I didn't even know it's
41:45
Speaker 1: called the Bloody Caesar until recently. Again, I think it
41:48
Speaker 1: was the Bars episode. Yeah, because it became clamato and
41:51
Speaker 1: stead of tomato, that's the difference, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
41:55
Speaker 1: the clam makes all the differ. Do you like red
41:58
Speaker 1: beer or Jerry? What's at there? And called that? You
42:00
Speaker 1: had your michelada Michelada, love him? We call him red
42:04
Speaker 1: beer and yuma? Oh really? Yeah, that's funny because you
42:08
Speaker 1: was closer to Mexico than New York. You know, you
42:12
Speaker 1: think if anywhere they call him a Michelada. In fact,
42:15
Speaker 1: it's so close to Mexico you can walk there. Oh
42:18
Speaker 1: is it that g I didn't know humans on the border?
42:20
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean it's it's right on the border
42:22
Speaker 1: of Arizona in California and uh in Mexico. It's like
42:27
Speaker 1: right in that bottom corner. Yeah. You know. The worst
42:30
Speaker 1: is um if you ever order a Michelloda somewhere and
42:34
Speaker 1: they don't they have the gall to not bring you
42:37
Speaker 1: the can of beer as well, Like you just made
42:40
Speaker 1: you a Michelada eight dollars please, and it's like there's
42:43
Speaker 1: a shot of beer, not even that because it's still
42:46
Speaker 1: kind of foamy, and they just try to pretend like
42:49
Speaker 1: they don't owe you that the rest of that beer,
42:52
Speaker 1: that that didn't get into the glass. At the same time,
42:55
Speaker 1: what kind of weirdness is this? It's not okay, So
42:59
Speaker 1: hold on, I'm of time. If you order a Michellodda
43:02
Speaker 1: and they don't bring you the can, you tell them
43:04
Speaker 1: to bring you the can, and then you throw that
43:06
Speaker 1: can back in their face. That's a little at the topic. Yeah,
43:10
Speaker 1: I guess you could, especially if you chug the rest
43:12
Speaker 1: all at once. Jerry did not care for her Michelloda
43:15
Speaker 1: that because it was um we saw the woman make it.
43:20
Speaker 1: It didn't have tomato juice. It was just made with
43:23
Speaker 1: like hot sauce. It's not supposed to have tomato juice,
43:26
Speaker 1: all right, So Jerry just weighed in. We took the
43:28
Speaker 1: tape off her mouth, right, and she said that in
43:31
Speaker 1: Guatemala they make the Michellodda with clamato. Well, that's what
43:35
Speaker 1: they did in Huma. That was a red beer, basically
43:37
Speaker 1: bloody mary with beer. So that is not that's different
43:41
Speaker 1: from Michellodda in my in my experience at the what's
43:46
Speaker 1: the Triple Crown horse race in Maryland. I don't know.
43:50
Speaker 1: So there's the Kentucky Derby, Yes, the Preakness. At the Preakness,
43:55
Speaker 1: they make something like Jerry was just describing where it's like, um,
44:00
Speaker 1: bloody Mary with beer. They didn't call it a michellotta
44:03
Speaker 1: what they call it. I don't remember what they called it.
44:07
Speaker 1: Kevin like it is good. I'll give you that. But
44:10
Speaker 1: my experience Mitchellott is lime juice, beer and hot sauce.
44:15
Speaker 1: Well that's what she got and you didn't like it, huh. Alright,
44:18
Speaker 1: so Josh says Jerry, she liked it. She said it
44:22
Speaker 1: was awful. The proportions were not correct, and she did
44:28
Speaker 1: we get charged for that. We did get charged for that,
44:30
Speaker 1: even though she didn't drink any of it. So I'm
44:34
Speaker 1: not going to name the restaurant in New York. You're
44:37
Speaker 1: not gonna shame him publicly, huh. I will say the
44:39
Speaker 1: lobster tacos were good. I'm sorry, the lobster roll was good.
44:43
Speaker 1: So that could be anywhere in New York. Was their
44:45
Speaker 1: crownut there as well? That'll be a slight hint, slight hint. Yeah,
44:51
Speaker 1: so you narrowed it down to three thousand places to
44:54
Speaker 1: the west village. Okay, alright, so that narrows it down. Okay.
44:58
Speaker 1: Uh so, Syn Texas, you got anything else? Uh? No,
45:02
Speaker 1: he said you didn't want to weigh in on it.
45:04
Speaker 1: I understand. I respect that. No, because you know, to
45:06
Speaker 1: be honest, not only do a not one a way
45:08
Speaker 1: in just because I'm trying not to do that. But um,
45:12
Speaker 1: you're turning over a new leaf. No. Just for things
45:15
Speaker 1: that I feel really passionately about, I will, but I
45:17
Speaker 1: don't feel super passionately about this. I'm being torn every
45:21
Speaker 1: which way by this. Well, that's what my deal is is.
45:23
Speaker 1: I don't I can't really speak to it because it's
45:25
Speaker 1: sometimes it seems like a regressive tax, sometimes it doesn't.
45:28
Speaker 1: Sometimes it seems like it might work, sometimes it seems
45:31
Speaker 1: like it might not. Right, So I think that's where
45:33
Speaker 1: I lie is ambivalent and confused. Yeah, I'm interested to
45:36
Speaker 1: see how this how this comes out, you know, with
45:38
Speaker 1: UM Berkeley, with Mexico, the Navajo Nation, UM instituted, they
45:43
Speaker 1: instituted a two percent junk food tax and then simultaneously
45:47
Speaker 1: repeal the five percent tax on fresh fruit and vegetables
45:51
Speaker 1: and their grocery stores. Yep. So there's a lot of
45:54
Speaker 1: like natural experiments going on right now that I'm very
45:57
Speaker 1: interested to see what the outcomes are. People are going
45:59
Speaker 1: to be audeing the heck out of those places. Well,
46:01
Speaker 1: there's a lot of natural experiments going on in my
46:03
Speaker 1: house to buddy. So if you if you want to
46:08
Speaker 1: know more about this kind of stuff, go and listen
46:10
Speaker 1: to our fat tax episode. We did want to high
46:13
Speaker 1: fruit toast corn syrup. There's a great article about syntax
46:17
Speaker 1: is that we used, called The Wages of Syntax as
46:20
Speaker 1: it was in the Atlantic by a guy named Band
46:22
Speaker 1: new Kirk. So go read that too. Brush up on
46:25
Speaker 1: the syntax tip. And since I said brush up, time
46:28
Speaker 1: for listener, Matt, I'm gonna call this Josh's choice. Every
46:34
Speaker 1: one boy, all right. Every once in a while Josh
46:37
Speaker 1: will send an email and saying, hey, I know this
46:39
Speaker 1: is your bag, that would you mind reading this one?
46:42
Speaker 1: And that is exactly what I wrote. Yeah, So this
46:45
Speaker 1: is uh from Ada, And I don't remember where Ada
46:49
Speaker 1: is from, but Ada is in high school, oh from Canada.
46:53
Speaker 1: So that immediately means that Ada is probably smarter than
46:56
Speaker 1: we are. She well, I mean the course she took
46:59
Speaker 1: in school is pretty impressive it is. I didn't run
47:02
Speaker 1: into those until well into college. All right, Hey guys,
47:05
Speaker 1: I'm seventeen year old from Canada, and somebody caught my
47:08
Speaker 1: attention to your Polar Bears episode when Josh is talking
47:10
Speaker 1: about hunting. Uh. He said that people will say, well,
47:13
Speaker 1: the food you're eating came from the store that was
47:15
Speaker 1: killed unethically as a counter argument, and Josh found it
47:19
Speaker 1: kind of fallacious, but didn't know how to describe it. Luckily,
47:23
Speaker 1: I'm taking the English class and we just finished finished
47:25
Speaker 1: a unit on fallacies, and I can confirm it is fallacious.
47:30
Speaker 1: So it would be qualified as a straw man argument
47:33
Speaker 1: because the counter argument isn't really arguing against your point
47:36
Speaker 1: that hunting is wrong, but it's arguing a slightly different
47:39
Speaker 1: and weaker point that food bought in grocery stores could
47:42
Speaker 1: be unethically killed, which takes your attention away from the
47:45
Speaker 1: point that you're arguing nice. It could also be an
47:48
Speaker 1: ad hominen to quoke sure that right? If my Latin
47:55
Speaker 1: not as rusty as I thought, to quoke q you
47:58
Speaker 1: o q u e u quake quoke quick quick, I
48:03
Speaker 1: didn't take Latin. I didn't need or you two y
48:08
Speaker 1: o U T O O not the band um. If
48:11
Speaker 1: you say that hunting is unethical killing, and then the
48:15
Speaker 1: person is saying, well, you participate in the unethical killing
48:18
Speaker 1: of animals by grocery shopping. Another example of this kind
48:21
Speaker 1: of argument be one person telling another that they shouldn't smoke,
48:25
Speaker 1: but the person says, well, you smoke. Just because the
48:28
Speaker 1: other person doesn't practice what they preach, it doesn't change
48:30
Speaker 1: the fact that it is wrong and good stuff. The
48:33
Speaker 1: reason that you might not have been able to identify
48:36
Speaker 1: this is because fallacies like this are used so much
48:40
Speaker 1: in media today and they're not accepted widely as fair
48:43
Speaker 1: arguments because they're really not. Hope this helped, Yes, yes
48:47
Speaker 1: it did. You were delighted keep calling out these fallacious arguments,
48:51
Speaker 1: and that is from Ada. Thank you Ada. That was
48:54
Speaker 1: de bravo. Although I have to say we did get
48:57
Speaker 1: some some good fallacious arguments on the other side. They
49:01
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with what I was saying necessarily,
49:04
Speaker 1: but they did explain hunting a little more, which I
49:07
Speaker 1: thought was pretty great, including one that you read. But
49:10
Speaker 1: we've gotten some other ones since then as well. There
49:12
Speaker 1: I'm just like, wow, I want to go hunting, like
49:15
Speaker 1: slap my own face. It was funny. I was at
49:18
Speaker 1: the park yesterday with my daughter and there were these
49:22
Speaker 1: really cool kids, his brother and sister that were probably
49:24
Speaker 1: ten and eight ish, and they were kind of hanging out.
49:28
Speaker 1: They had a dog that um that Ruby was playing with,
49:30
Speaker 1: and they were just being nice sounds talking to them,
49:32
Speaker 1: and then this other kid came up later and they
49:35
Speaker 1: were talking to these kids and they're talking about sports.
49:38
Speaker 1: This kid was saying he played baseball, the cool kid.
49:41
Speaker 1: I'm not saying your kid wasn't cool. And the other
49:44
Speaker 1: kids said, you know, I don't do any sports except
49:45
Speaker 1: for hunting and fishing. And this this other kid looked
49:49
Speaker 1: at him like he was from Mars. You could just
49:52
Speaker 1: see the difference in their two upbringing. And this kid
49:55
Speaker 1: was just like what. He's like, what do you hunt for?
49:58
Speaker 1: The kid was like deer, and he was like, you
50:00
Speaker 1: shoot deer? And he was still young enough in in
50:03
Speaker 1: that you know environment that his family is raising him
50:06
Speaker 1: in where he was just like, why would you shoot
50:08
Speaker 1: a deer? Right? Yeah, they're awesome. Yeah, And this gips like, yeah, man,
50:13
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. It was an interesting interaction to watch
50:16
Speaker 1: as an adult. I would have liked to have seen that. Yeah,
50:18
Speaker 1: because I mean, and you have that conversation as an
50:21
Speaker 1: adult doesn't usually go that way. It'll go it's pretty interesting. Yeah,
50:26
Speaker 1: I've been listening in on kids convers just don't do
50:28
Speaker 1: it in a creepy way, you know, you know, they
50:30
Speaker 1: say everything you needed to know you learned in kindergarten. Yeah,
50:34
Speaker 1: I believe it. Uh Ada, Thank you again for that.
50:37
Speaker 1: That was a great email. Thank you too, Chuck for
50:40
Speaker 1: the additional anecdote. Sure beautiful. Uh If you want to
50:44
Speaker 1: send in an anecdote or explain something that we put
50:47
Speaker 1: a call out for whatever, you can tweet to us
50:49
Speaker 1: at josh um Clark and s y s K podcast,
50:53
Speaker 1: two different ones. You can hang out with Charles W.
50:57
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant on Facebook and or you can go to
50:59
Speaker 1: face but dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You
51:02
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at how
51:04
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
51:06
Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot
51:08
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
51:15
Speaker 1: Does it how Stuff Works dot com