Great Moments in Unintended Consequences: Gun Buybacks, Poppy Payday, CAFE Standards (Vol. 13)

Рет қаралды 416,730

8 ай бұрын

Good intentions, bad results
Watch the whole series: • Great Moments in Unint...
Do you know a great moment in unintended consequences? Leave a comment or email us at comedy@reason.com.
*****
Part One: Glock Management
The year: 2008
The problem: Oakland has too many guns!
The solution: Offer $250 for every gun turned in to the police, no questions asked.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
It turns out a lot of guns aren't worth $250. But they were that day! People drove for hours-even from other states-to sell their old junk that had been collecting dust, generally not the kind of weapons used to perpetrate a crime. In fact, the first two people in line at one of the buyback locations were gun dealers unloading their worthless stock. The program was estimated to cost $50,000, but the police department quickly ran out of cash and had to issue IOUs totaling roughly $170,000. It would have been more expensive, except that Oakland had essentially created an open air gun market: Some guns were actually bought by prospective buyers walking the line offering $300 for specialty items.
Talk about a misfire.
Part Two: Poppycock
The year: 2002
The problem: Farmers in Afghanistan are growing poppies for the illegal drug market. And after all we've done for them!
The solution: Cash for Poppies, a $30 million program to pay farmers $700 an acre to destroy their crops.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Turns out, you can't get paid to destroy your poppy crop if you don't have a poppy crop. Poppy cultivation exploded, with many thoughtful Afghans making sure to harvest and sell the valuable sap on the black market before destroying the remaining plants to comply with the program-getting paid twice for the same crop. The project was such a fiasco that one British agricultural expert called it "an appalling piece of complete raw naivete."
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Part Three: Fuel's Errand
The year: 1975
The problem: Cars are using too much gas!
The solution: improve average fuel economy by penalizing automakers who fail to meet efficiency standards categorized by vehicle size, creating more stringent targets for passenger cars than for trucks used in farm work and commercial hauling.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Turns out car manufacturers don't like paying fines. In order to comply with the new rules, automakers began making their cars…bigger! Voila! More crossovers, SUVs, and minivans-all of which technically meet the government definition of a "light truck." That's why a Lexus NX is actually considered a "truck." So is a Toyota RAV4 and a Subaru Outback. In fact, "light trucks" now account for almost 80 percent of all new vehicles sold.
Way to truck things up.

Пікірлер: 867

@Telmach 8 ай бұрын

This series is eventually going to catalogue nearly every action taken by the Government, and the playlist will be 4,870 years long.

@joseornelas1718 8 ай бұрын

what could possibly go wrong?

@zwerko 8 ай бұрын

Only two things are infinite, human stupidity and government stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. If there is one thing we can all be sure of is that the government will never run out of bad ideas.

@bartman59laj55 8 ай бұрын

I guess that will be the unintended consequence.....lol

@katieandkevinsears7724 8 ай бұрын

Are you sure it will be so short? I was thinking at least 15,000 years.

@gambitsheild9814 8 ай бұрын

Big government makes big mistakes, small government makes small mistakes.

@emmettturner9452 8 ай бұрын

Small trucks all but disappeared too as CAFE standards tightened. That’s why the Ford Ranger and Toyota Tacoma are so huge now. Compare them to the early ‘90s…

@cguy2guy511 8 ай бұрын

I know stupid Cafe standards make it so you can't have a small truck. My old Tacoma is bigger than I needed for sure.

@Furluge 8 ай бұрын

What is worse is they still make the small trucks people want. They just won't sell them in the US.

@ledzeppelin1212 8 ай бұрын

@@cguy2guy511I love the old Ford Rangers and Tacomas. I was wondering why they've been growing so big over the years.

@MrJeffcoley1 8 ай бұрын

Repealing CAFE standards is the single best thing Congress could do to revitalize the US auto industry.

@MrJeffcoley1 8 ай бұрын

@@Furluge Same with extremely efficient compact diesel cars that get 70 mpg sold in Europe. Illegal in the US because they don't meet emissions requirements.

@sashagray319 8 ай бұрын

Kern County California was alarmed by the number of massage parlors offering prostitution. They implemented a high annual fee for all massage therapists with the intention of flushing out the sex trade. But the only massage therapists that could afford the high fee were the ones selling sex, which put all the legitimate massage therapists out of business.

@DanArnets1492 8 ай бұрын

Awesome unintended consequences in my book 😎

@ThePsiclone 8 ай бұрын

where is that again? (asking for a friend)

@Shorty_Lickens 7 ай бұрын

when was this? I only ask cuz I lived in Ridgecrest from 2003 to 2006 and believe me I could have used some stress relief.

@nutandboltguy3720 4 ай бұрын

Perfect!

@gorilladisco9108 4 ай бұрын

What the hell did they think will happen? Of course the only ones who can afford the fee are the prostitute. *facepalm

@L337f33t 8 ай бұрын

Should’ve gone with the 2020 gun buyback where a single person got thousands for 3D printed single shot handguns that cost between $5 and $8 to make. The next year they banned them.

@Liberty4Ever 8 ай бұрын

There was an online contest to see who could buy the most new guns and ammo with gift cards from gun "buybacks". There are fewer gun "buybacks" now, and most of those offer gift cards that can be redeemed for food and not guns - shades of how life will be after the central bank digital currency is enacted.

@gblargg 8 ай бұрын

@@Liberty4Ever "offer gift cards that can be redeemed for food and not guns" because nobody would ever redirect their grocery budget to buying guns and use the buyback cards to buy the groceries.

@Liberty4Ever 8 ай бұрын

@@gblargg - Yeah. The people doing the gun "buybacks" aren't the sharpest tools in the shed and they excel in unintended consequences. Leftists have no understanding of economics or they wouldn't be leftists. Everyone else intuitively understands the economic principle that states, "All funds are fungible."

@kingrex1931 8 ай бұрын

In 2008, several guns actually cost less than the $250, but your example is even better. They simply should have done both.

@tuseroni6085 8 ай бұрын

@@gblargg yeah something people often forget...i think there was something like that with the lottery, the money from the lottery was earmarked to go to schools, sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions, what could POSSIBLY go wrong...turns out with money going from the lottery to schools you could redirect funds intended for the schools to other things.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

~2009: EPA outlawed the old gas cans, which didn’t spill, and we are now stuck with gas cans with so many safety features it is nearly impossible to pour gasoline without spilling it.

@brassmule 8 ай бұрын

You can buy "repair" kits with a new nozzle and a screw in air intake hole to return your "new" gas cans to original spec, also, which does a great job of allowing you to pour gas efficiently while creating more plastic waste from the useless nozzle you threw away.

@patrick8116 8 ай бұрын

An instructional video should NOT be required to operate a gas can.

@jayschafer1760 8 ай бұрын

@@patrick8116Just copy the superior design the Germans used in WWII and be done with it, I'd say. That's basically what the Allies did.

@cmichaelhoover8432 8 ай бұрын

@@brassmule I have "repaired" about 9 or 10 gas cans. EPA should love me as I spill much less gas now!

@jayschafer1760 8 ай бұрын

@@cmichaelhoover8432 Shhhh... That's a big argument from the environmental lobby to outlaw fossil fuel powered yard tools, too much spilled gas. Never mind that the gas can designs the same environmental lobby insisted on cause much of the spilling of gas.

@shedactivist 8 ай бұрын

In the 1980's after an airline crash-landing killed a couple of babies held on the mother's laps a law was introduced to ban that practice and that every baby had to have a full priced seat on the airplane. The unintended consequence was that young families chose (were forced) to travel long distances by car, and in doing so more road accidents that killed many more babies.

@MrJeffcoley1 8 ай бұрын

Europeans perplexed by the popularity of trucks in the US - here is your answer. CAFE (Corporate Aggregate Fuel Economy) standards distorted the US auto market. Manufacturers were constructively prevented from making the cars consumers want to buy, forcing them to shift to "light trucks." Another unintended consequence, the regulations also destroyed the very popular fuel efficient compact truck market. Small inexpensive 4 cylinder pickups were forced to become larger and heavier "midsize pickup trucks" to fit into the regulatory scheme.

@aevangel1 8 ай бұрын

BINGO!!!

@simonwinn8757 8 ай бұрын

CAFE has a fuel efficiency equation, which meant the larger vehicle footprint needed a lower fuel efficiency. So if you have a small pickup with a footprint of 42 sq ft, it need an efficiency of 42 mpg, where as a 74 sq ft needs 25 mpg. It's a lot easier to just build the vehicle bigger, than to design a better engine.

@MrJeffcoley1 8 ай бұрын

@@simonwinn8757 The fuel efficiency goal are arbitrary and too high. CAFE should be scrapped, it’s a relic of a bygone era.

@thecursed01 8 ай бұрын

similar in germany. a battle tank would get a better eco classsification than a normal sized family car. also the reasons why ppl who complain that there are no small trucks anymore blame it on egos of buyers, not the gov regulations

@pipsplay 8 ай бұрын

Right! So now I can't replace my Mazda B2200 that was small, light, and got great gas mileage (but not up to CAFE standards for it's size). Instead I have to get a Dodge RAM that's cool enough, but way too big to just go across town to go to work.

@Sandman2007 8 ай бұрын

I love these series of unintended consequences! Keep it up.

@LibLibertyLibertarian 8 ай бұрын

fux I was gonna say that!

@timhinchcliffe5372 8 ай бұрын

We had a big gun buy back in Australia in the 90's. It was totally rorted... one example, people would actually get pieces of old guns and make up the rest of the gun with whatever garbage and claim it as a complete gun. They somehow managed to make two guns out of one, claim air rifles as much more expensive rifles, etc.

@dbio305 8 ай бұрын

Yup it’s even funnier as Aussie gun restrictions think that an air gun can be “easily” converted to a real one, despite the pressures being wildly different

@alflyover4413 8 ай бұрын

@@dbio305 In 1994, the US implemented an assault weapons ban that included magazines larger that 10 rounds. The basic premise was that shooters would use their 10+ -round magazines and they would wear out, limiting shooters to 10 rounds in magazines that could legally be sold. Meanwhile, there are any number of Colt 1911 magazines made in 1912 that are still readily usable to feed ammunition into the pistol. And 1912 was 111 years ago.

@MrCharles7994 8 ай бұрын

And the gun buyback obviously didn't work, right? Right? Oh, what's that, it did? Huh. It's almost like anti government propaganda is driven by lies and profits, not reality! Who'd have thunk it. The truth is that gun buybacks work, but only when done everywhere, and without intentional obstruction by extremists. Yes, they can cost a lot, but a human life is worth more than a million dollars in hard economic math. It's worth the expense. The CAFE spiel is just lies start to finish. The loophole was closed, it's exploitation was much later than the initial programs inception, and the program succeeded. Fuel economy improved.

@dbio305 8 ай бұрын

@@alflyover4413 oh I know, and the logic never approaches any level of intelligence

@inulomar1776 8 ай бұрын

Didn't happen, the valuation was done by specialists, so a piece of crap was valued as a piece of shit, don't be scared American, NZ did the same and it worked well too

@christopherlarsen7788 8 ай бұрын

1:14 "And after all we've done for them." My God - that was funny! Love this series!

@navchinna 7 ай бұрын

Fr that was hilarious.

@fouresterofthetrees287 8 ай бұрын

In the 80's, Texas Governor Mark White decided that if vehicle owners were willing to pay $15 extra for a personalized license plate, they would pay $60. He thought everyone with such a plate would pay. Guess what? Many people, including my father, decided it wasn't worth it. Instead of raising an extra $20 million, it only raised $40,000. Lack of basic economic understanding.

@hendo337 8 ай бұрын

You forgot Cash For Clunkers, took a bunch of good running used vehicles off the market, especially vehicles that had "poor fuel economy" that were ruggedly built, like body on frame, V8, rwd vehicles that can easily last 20-30 years when maintained. The program penalized the poor by taking reasonably priced cars out of the market and incentivized the rich who can afford new cars..

@EF-69 8 ай бұрын

Those used vehicles had to be destroyed and scrapped, removing all the used parts value. The program literally took money out of the economy, borrowed from taxes not yet paid, to destroy things, taking money out of the economy, so that people who could afford a new car got a little extra cash to buy one. Then, they mostly purchased import brand products.

@ReasonTV 8 ай бұрын

That's in Volume 9! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iqibprWhla_TZZs.html

@robertmoulton2656 8 ай бұрын

They already covered cash 4 clunkers. Jtysk

@MrJeffcoley1 8 ай бұрын

Not only did Cash for Clunkers destroy the used car market ... it also destroyed the salvage parts market. The "clunkers" engines were destroyed by (I kid you not) draining the oil, then filling the crankcase with water and sand and running it until the engine seized. Then the cars were crushed. So many good parts cars lost forever.

@anon_y_mousse 8 ай бұрын

@@MrJeffcoley1 That sounds absolutely evil. So I'm not surprised the government was behind it.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results." -- Milton Friedman, 7 December 1975

@shinnam 8 ай бұрын

Yes, and Freman's policies have had huge unintended consequences too.

@penguinjay 8 ай бұрын

the results were the real intentions. The "intentions" are just lies to useful idiots who still suck down 100 lies a day. Always been that way, and seemingly always will be. You gotta SUCK 100 Lies a Day if you want to fit in in communist America.

@PhilJonesIII 8 ай бұрын

@@shinnam Margret Thatcher was a fan of his so, I'm bound to agree.

@brunhildevalkyrie 8 ай бұрын

*Goes on to force a failed economic philosophy onto the world*

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

@@brunhildevalkyrie When and where did Friedman ever "force" anything on anyone, much less the world? "A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." - Milton Friedman, 1962

@Samuel43510 8 ай бұрын

I propose we stop calling them unintended consequences and call them ignored consequences

@Woodside235 8 ай бұрын

And a handful of them are completely intentional.

@anon_y_mousse 8 ай бұрын

@@Woodside235 Yep, both ignored and intentional. Mostly because the people that propose them are an even mix of evil and stupid. Of course both yield the same result.

@phishENchimps 8 ай бұрын

@@Woodside235 Most are. there has to be someone who sees, knows but says, does nothing. the Church Committee displayed what they are capable of.

@Highly-censored 8 ай бұрын

Maybe disregarded consequences.

@TheDuckofDoom. 8 ай бұрын

@@phishENchimps In most cases there is someone who says and does something, but they are often discarded by the ignorant majority.

@jeremytessier5316 8 ай бұрын

Every "Sounds like a great idea! With the best of intentions! What could possibly go wrong?" had me choking with laughter. This is the greatest series I have ever discovered

@margaretthemagnificent 7 ай бұрын

Get ready to have that voice follow you around and pop up in your head all the time.

@osmia 6 ай бұрын

@Hyper_Drud 4 ай бұрын

I loved the earlier videos where an idea that’s obviously questionable and the narrator makes concerned noises before asking what could possibly go wrong?

@grizwoldphantasia5005 8 ай бұрын

Regarding the opium fields, the British Raj in India discovered the same thing with cobras, and the French in Indochina discovered it with rats. Or something like that.

@michaelsommers2356 8 ай бұрын

The cobra thing was covered in an earlier episode.

@Wireball 6 ай бұрын

I still can't believe that the cobra farmers set the cobras loose when the program ended. That's malicious.

@MrJeffcoley1 8 ай бұрын

Very clever propaganda calling it a gun "buyback." Implies the state is the one that owned it in the first place, and now they're "buying it back."

@JonathanWrightSA 8 ай бұрын

I'd buy up all the second hand 38 specials I can find and go collect my money.

@darrennew8211 8 ай бұрын

Somebody 3D printed a bunch of guns, too, for about $3 in plastic each.

@james.lambert 8 ай бұрын

We probably shouldn't allow the government to buy guns. They wouldn't pass a background check

@kovy689 8 ай бұрын

@@darrennew8211Bingoo!

@victormontes7007 8 ай бұрын

@@darrennew8211 I thought it was gonna be about the 3d plastic guns that would blow up in your hands

@Eddmech13 8 ай бұрын

suggestions 1: EPA regulating Diesel engine emissions standards that reduce the efficiency and reliability of those diesel engines (EGR to an extent, DPF, and DEF Injection systems) 2: EPA adding Formaldehyde to the list of "banned ingredients" - limiting the content in products to the 10ppm legal limit, when Formaldehyde naturally occurs at 15ppm 3: NFA ban on firearms suppressors because they sounded scary in 1934, so hunters are effectively barred from being considerate to the people nearby for noise concerns (no, they don't make the gun silent, but they greatly reduce the risk of unintended permanent hearing damage)

@DarkElfDiva 21 күн бұрын

My brother bought a Mahindra tractor specifically because it didn't need DEF. Keep your eye on India. They're real up-and-comers in the automotive industry, and beginning to break out into a lot of international markets. I own an Indian motorcycle (not the company called Indian) and it's fantastic.

@4k8t 8 ай бұрын

An economist, like Thomas Sowell, would say don't think of the goal to be attained by the program, think of the incentives that would result from the way the program would work. Have way fewer unintended/unexpected consequences that way.

@CaliforniaArchitect 8 ай бұрын

In California there is a requirement to have the same number of restroom fixtures in men's and women's public restrooms. The result is that many fast food restaurants and gas stations simply removed some urinals in the men's restroom to equal it out with the women's restroom. The result is that there is a longer line in the men's restoom than there was before, and no improvement for the women's restroom.

@markchapel 8 ай бұрын

Good point. But you could have stopped at "In California...."

@Random-ld6wg 8 ай бұрын

i was considering going to a gun buyback for $300 for long guns a couple of weekends ago. i had a 22 caliber rifle that was worth less than that and i was going to use the money to get a better gun. good thing i didn't go as they ran out of money in 2 hours and would have wasted my time. most of the stuff turned in was junk as well but they still called it a success. in the hospital one of the metrics they decided to track was how many pxs get discharged before 10am( to free up beds for new pxs). you get dinged if you discharge pxs after. the length of stay of the patients increased since the physicians held onto those pxs one more day rather than discharging them after 10 am and lowering their score.

@weeeeehhhhh 8 ай бұрын

The Northern Ireland's "Cash for Ash" scandal, where people were paid for heating buildings, provided they used "renewable energy". People were heating sheds, barns, outhouses, and heating their houses 24/7 using "renewable" wood pellets and making a 10% profit on anything they burnt.

@margaretthemagnificent 7 ай бұрын

They did that one previously.

@patriot9455 8 ай бұрын

There was a gun buyback in Salt Lake City Utah. A man showed up with a small case with a pair of pistols. He let them go for 25.00 each. One of the people recognized the guns and took them before they were destroyed. They were a pair missing from a museum, there weas a 10,000.00 reward for their safe return. Guess who got a big payday.

@joshuareed8243 8 ай бұрын

This series needs to have mandatory viewing in all schools, including colleges and universities.

@jamesdaniel1376 8 ай бұрын

There was another consequence to the rediculous CAFE standards: in order to meet the government regulations by selling small cars that no one wanted, car manufacturers skewed the market by selling those smaller cars at or below cost, then, in order to make up the losses, they jacked up the price on those larger cars and trucks. Thwn, when it was realized that CAFE wasn't working, the government slapped a gas guzzler tax on the very cars their misguided policies made popular. The most popular lie in history is, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

@kauske 8 ай бұрын

The auto lobbies meddled with CAFE to have the exact consequence it did too. Auto makers get more from selling a big expensive 'truck' than a cheaper compact. So that one is working exactly as auto lobbyists wanted, but not how environmentalists originally envisioned.

@Tangent360 8 ай бұрын

My favorite bit of CAFE trickery is the PT Cruiser. It's essentially a Dodge Neon with a retro body slapped on top but that too managed to get classified as a truck for CAFE reasons.

@toddburgess6792 8 ай бұрын

As a "car guy", I've wondered why the SUV and crossover explosion happened. Now, I know. Uncle Sam-The-Sham.

@kauske 8 ай бұрын

The auto lobbies meddled with CAFE to have the exact consequence it did. Auto makers get more from selling a big expensive 'truck' than a cheaper compact. So that one is working exactly as auto lobbyists wanted, but not how environmentalists originally envisioned.

@domenik8339 8 ай бұрын

That and you know, being the current most popular type of vehicle on the road. 😂

@gino14 2 ай бұрын

@@domenik8339 Chicken, or egg?

@anonygent 8 ай бұрын

Here's one that's been around a long time: there are tons of companies with exactly 49 employees, because a lot of federal regulations kick in at the 50 employee mark. The result being that a lot of companies that could be growing and employing more people aren't.

@ghz24 8 ай бұрын

Well you have to put the line somewhere and people close to the line will take advantage. Not teally unintended consequences more like human nature.

@stevegilbert8486 8 ай бұрын

There was a gun buy back where I used to live. More people showed up in hopes of buying the guns from the people turning in their guns that the number of people actually turning in guns.

@scoutwalters 8 ай бұрын

These are my favorite followed closely by music videos. Learning to Fly was pure gold.

@freizeitphase1878 8 ай бұрын

"Not personal stories though" Was absolutely unexpectedly funny, I nearly chocked!

@spankynater4242 8 ай бұрын

OMG, I unexpectedly lost it at that one, also. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

@MrWorf53 8 ай бұрын

Many cities in Illinois still waste money on these feel good buybacks, which gun organizations use to finance teaching youth to shoot. The last buyback was in Bloomington, IL a few weeks ago. No criminals have shown up to turn in their guns yet.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

2021: The government of Sri Lanka enforced back-to-nature organic farming, and banned highly effective synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. By 2022, the result was crop failure, hunger, and poverty, as they no longer had crops to export. The per capita income plummeted. In 2022, the government toppled.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

Have you covered this one yet? Late 20th century: US Forest Service did their best to put out all fires, which meant that large stockpiles of fuel gathered on the floor of the forest. So instead of having a small fire every few years, which killed only a few young trees, there was a disastrous fire every few decades which destroyed everything, even the largest trees. Once again, the best way to preserve nature is to leave it alone. But for the people who do things because of their good intentions, they don’t care of the actual results, they just want to feel good about themselves, or tax and spend more dollars.

@timotene6462 8 ай бұрын

My state is notorious for their fires and the destruction of property and human lives that result. I had a friend on the other side who decided to major in forestry. Bro said almost every example of what not to do is provided by my state's policies.

@johnwilliams7922 8 ай бұрын

Actually started in the early 20th century. Even more fuel and waiting for ignition.

@Lozzie74 8 ай бұрын

This happened in Australia, too. We used to do “controlled burns” but the green movement said it was unnatural and messing with nature, so now nature does uncontrolled burns and we end up with fierce bush fires, destroying multiple homes (the town of Yarloop was wiped out).

@mkvv5687 4 ай бұрын

By the '70's California and the US Forestry had realized the mistake and created policies to mitigate the issue with such things as prescribed burns (purposely setting fires to clear) and controlled burns (letting fires burn themselves out while controlling where they go). Some Californians choose to live out in the wilderness and have the expectation that the Fire Service will attempt put out any fires that approach their homes. This knowledge has been circulating for at least fifty years, which is why everyone who lives near wilderness knows about it.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

Fall of 2013, the Labor Department increased the minimum wage for fast food workers on federal contracts under the Service Contract Act, varying by region. The rules also require payment of new, additional "health and welfare" fringe benefits at a rate of an additional $3.81 per hour to those employees. Contractor-operated fast food concessions on military installations fall under those regulations. The rules went into effect in March 2014. Four restaurants closed within the next three weeks on Navy installations. Two other restaurants asked to be released from their AAFES contracts. To stay in business, restaurants would have to raise their prices on base. That means service members will go to restaurants off base, which are less expensive. And so the restaurants lose business, and go out of business, and employees lose their jobs.

@SenileOtaku 8 ай бұрын

And the more they raise the minimum wage, the more the fast-food replaces actual workers with self-serve kiosks and automation. Which means fewer jobs available, more people on public assistance, and all of the rest of us paying higher taxes and higher prices to make up for it. And my brother won't use self-serve kiosks, since if he is having to do the job himself he should be getting a discount.

@domenik8339 8 ай бұрын

@@SenileOtaku It's pretty rare that you can just take a look at current reality as evidence that you're wrong (instead of speculation or retrospect.) Minimum wage has constantly been raised all over the country and we still almost see self-serve kiosks.

@timotene6462 8 ай бұрын

Fast food restaurant chains can absolutely pay their US workers more than minimum wage without significant cost deficit. They just don't want to. Look to Europe. Many of their workers make well over US minimum wage.

@gothivore277 5 ай бұрын

Yeah that’s the exactly the point. You can raise minimum wages as high as you want but it’s never going to make a tiny fraction of a difference because those mega fast food chains will NEVER eat the cost of it they’ll just keep raising prices and firing workers. Now your $15/hr is worth less than the $7.50/hr minimum I was making when I entered the workforce in 2004

@RealityOrganized 5 ай бұрын

@@gothivore277 Why would anyone expect a company to “eat the cost”? A company goes into business to make money, not lose money. A company that can’t cover its costs goes out of business. If it goes out of business, it employs no one. If it's a restaurant and goes out of business, it feeds no one.

@legolasfanboy6712 8 ай бұрын

Can you make this a monthly series please?!! This is one of the best single pieces of content on youtube.

@stephenlee5929 8 ай бұрын

Only if governments keep doing stupid things, oh sorry, yep.

@tomfinn6579 8 ай бұрын

Once again, proving that people respond to incentives which is the first rule of Economics.

@Ciborium 8 ай бұрын

My favorite "gun buyback" exploit was the guy who 3D printed thousands of lowers (which, according to the AFT, are what makes a firearm a complete and operational firearm). The 3D printed lowers cost a few dollars each, received probably 10x that in gift cards. I love it when people take the piss from government stupidity.

@RezaQin 8 ай бұрын

There was a gun buyback in Houston recently and a guy got paid a ton of money by turning in useless 3D printed parts.

@diegomadera9700 8 ай бұрын

I have a couple of favorites from great bathroom ideas. #1. The government demanded low flow toilets to replace the old ones so they would use less water. What could possibly go wrong? The next year it was found that more water had been used by each person because the low flow toilets were flushed nearly three times as much to flush the same amount as the original toilets!! LOL!! #2. Hot air blowers we're going to save the environment from wasting trees by replacing paper towels. What could possibly go wrong? Bathroom patrons began to use toilet paper in large wads along with the electric burning blowers, which resulted in more paper usage than paper towels & to the bits of blown off toilet paper covered the floor, often ending up blowing out the doors, & the environment overall got worse.

@brockjohnson100 8 ай бұрын

Just watched the whole series, love it, but y'all haven't mentioned the subsidizing of crops in America and how they've drastically changed the American diet to worse, increase health issues, and increase the cost and availability of other food.

@darthhodges 8 ай бұрын

3d printers have recently made gun "buybacks" even more ridiculous. One guy showed up to one with 250 3d printed "receivers" expecting to get over $30,000 for them. They only gave him $10k but it was for parts that were not only nonfunctional they wouldn't have existed had the buyback not been held. Additionally all that resin could have been used to make something actually useful instead of being sold to a government who would just throw it all away.

@Roddy556 8 ай бұрын

If you put a 12 gauge shotgun shell in a length of 3/4" pipe and slide that inside a length of 1" pipe fitted with a cap holding a self tapping screw in it you have a very functional shotgun. No printing requiredand they sell the caps and pipe pre threaded for about $2.

@tuseroni6085 8 ай бұрын

@@Roddy556 i don't think those legally qualify as "guns" so they wouldn't buy them. the reason he handed in only the lower receivers is because that is the part actually considered the "gun" by the government...for...some reason.

@jayschafer1760 8 ай бұрын

@@tuseroni6085The people running the buyback might not consider those "guns", but if you try to sell those or commit a crime with them, you can bet your ass the ATF and a local prosecutor will call them "guns".

@cbargainer 7 ай бұрын

... "with the best of intentions!"

@Roddy556 7 ай бұрын

@tuseroni6085 I bet you're right they wouldn't give you anything at the buyback but I would also bet you could still face all the criminal firearms related penalties for having one.

@gregoswald7723 8 ай бұрын

In College (1980's) I got a $15 ticket for parking in Staff Parking (Empty parking lot, 5 minutes before the time when free parking was allowed). Next time I needed to run in to a building urgently, middle of the day, I parked on the sidewalk. Parking on sidewalk ticket $10.

@javavillain 8 ай бұрын

Please, MORE, MORE, MORE of these Unintended Consequences!!!! It's one of the best, most enlightening series EVER to appear on KZfaq (or anywhere!)

@va3svd 8 ай бұрын

My family and I love this series. Keep them coming!

@LynyrdSkynyrd.4Ever 8 ай бұрын

Do one on the government deciding that opioids are so dangerous that even pain doctors cannot prescribe them without multiple layers of supervision by bureaucrats

@anon_y_mousse 8 ай бұрын

Which leads more to the black market, both doctors and patients?

@Liberty4Ever 8 ай бұрын

FDA gave the green light to Purdue Pharma to sell the crap out of OxyContin which kick started the opioid epidemic. The crackdown on legitimate opiate prescription (state and federal) is the result, so the addicts were then forced to buy heroin, so government's unintended consequences created a generation of heroin addicts. The government paid Afghan farmers to burn their poppy fields and had similar attempts to eliminate the supply, so the Chinese now supply the Mexican drug cartels with far more potent and less expensive fentanyl. As is often the case, we see the government solutions to government's unintended consequences having even worse unintended consequences, nested 3 or 4 layers deep. Government - If you don't like our problems, wait until you see our solutions.

@nojuanatall3281 8 ай бұрын

The Perdue pharma case and oxytocin. They were able to declare bankruptcy to cherry pick a judge. The victim's families got squat while the state made out like a bandit. It's actually a really crazy example of medicine and the state colluding to create addicts and blatantly harm the public.

@ghz24 8 ай бұрын

Yet codiene is over the counter in Canada with no major issues.

@ThatGuy-cw8gb 8 ай бұрын

Love these!! Please make more!!

@samuelpaulson6416 8 ай бұрын

It’s amazing that you’ve made 13 of these. I goes to show that laws have a butterfly effect, and the end result is very different from the intended outcome.

@leslie6938 8 ай бұрын

Oh wow, there are 12 more of these for me to watch?! Yay! Guess I know which rabbit hole I’m going down tonight. Thanks for mentioning this video is part of a series, I (obviously) was unaware of that!

@MakerInMotion 8 ай бұрын

My favorite was the luxury tax on American made yachts that they thought would only effect the rich. The rich just bought their yachts from Europe instead and they put thousands of middle class American boat builders out of work.

@michaelbujaki2462 4 ай бұрын

@@leslie693815 total now.

@sovietunion7643 8 ай бұрын

the fact that the gun buyback thing basically caused a open market to be created in the middle of the street is the funniest thing ever. why can't we use these types of situations to show how libertarism can work rather than focusing on crypto and bitcoin which most people view as a pump and dump scems nowadays.

@ekimp252 8 ай бұрын

“And after all we’ve done for them” 😂😂😂

@Ukepa 8 ай бұрын

here's one... "pay government employees big salaries with incredible benefits and recruit by race, gender, audacity and ejaculation method, ignoring experience, aptitude and abilities... what could go wrong??? low ability opportunists quickly fill all government positions and issue regulations with unintended consequences!!!"

@Charles-wv8yx 8 ай бұрын

I Love this. Maybe you could discuss how government practices contributed to the dust bowl, or how mothers complaining about superhero cartoons being too violent led to Saterday morning cartoons being replace with football, which is obviously not violent at all.

@scotty3114 8 ай бұрын

I love this series! If only we could make Congress Critters watch it... but they proably wouldn't understand the point!

@carbonking53 8 ай бұрын

Never underestimate the government's abilities to fk things up.

@ArloPignotti 8 ай бұрын

These all should be required watching before anyone's allowed to vote. ...but I suppose that would have unintended consequences too. lol

@geobloxmodels1186 8 ай бұрын

Hey, Arlo, I think I know you! I was about to leave this comment 'Sounds like a great basis for a parody skit'. Then, I noticed your name. Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I was a coleader of ACA and the editor of the newsletter. If you are the same Arlo, it makes for a weird world. I was in HEB today getting beer for my girlfriend and went to check out the religious candles. We burn them at dinner to make left overs more romantic. I was looking for an unusual saint, but they just had the regulars. So, I settled on one with Chuy, the Big Enchilada himself. I remember the time you showed us your collection of such stuff. Fun times.

@YouaNumbahOneRacist 8 ай бұрын

For no particular reason, I really hope it *is* the same guy.

@ArloPignotti 8 ай бұрын

@@geobloxmodels1186Yes, that's me! I tried to reply to you earlier but was removed. Strange.

@silverjohn6037 8 ай бұрын

There's an old British sitcom called Yes Minister then renamed Yes Prime Minister. If you've never seen it check it out. It was talking about this sort of nonsense back in 1980-84.

@williamw3501 8 ай бұрын

this is my favorite segment on reason.

@OutsideTheTargetDemographic 8 ай бұрын

While the narratives are amazing, the narrator's deliveries are BANGERS! 😂😂😂

@superman9772 8 ай бұрын

yep... my first truck was a surplus 1/4 ton military truck (aka willys jeep) got it for $100 back when i was 12 (i worked all summer for it and hid it from my folks)...and the last time i went "shopping for a truck" all i could find was $100,000 cup holders with built in computers (aka ford f150)

@spankynater4242 8 ай бұрын

I think you left this comment in the wrong video. How does it relate?

@FreelanceDev4life 8 ай бұрын

Oh, and the "light truck" means your vehicle is technically worth more - which means you pay more property tax on it

@bobbij3030 8 ай бұрын

Love the show... LOVE IT! The only UC I can think of, which was intended, was when King George the Stupid, a.k.a. Bushy II decided to tell cotton growers to grow less cotton, the price went up for everything made of cotton, they made it rich, but people like myself, especially people like myself - meaning quilters - could ill afford to pay the price of material any longer, so we stopped buying fabric. They're eating that one.

@stormisuedonym4599 8 ай бұрын

You're not going to find a lot of sympathy for crying about the removal of farm subsidies here. Sorry you had to pay closer to the true cost of the fabric for your hobby instead of foisting it off onto the taxpayer, I guess.

@margaretthemagnificent 8 ай бұрын

How about the time the EPA kept doing invasive checks on closed down mines and set off a HUGE cadmium spill in Colorado. They didn’t even warn the locals, they just woke up to their river being yellow and toxic.

@briant7265 8 ай бұрын

A 3/4 ton truck used to have an 8200 lb GVWR. The EPA made a bunch of rules, and had them apply to vehicles under 8500 lb GVWR, so they would apply to 3/4 ton pickups. Manufacturers responded by being 3/4 ton trucks up to to 8600-8700 lbs so the new rules wouldn't apply. It goes nicely with my California water-saving toilet. It uses half a much water per flush, but you have to flush it 3 times.

@kauske 8 ай бұрын

To be fair , the auto lobbies meddled with CAFE to have the exact consequence it did. Auto makers get more from selling a big expensive 'truck' than a cheaper compact. So that one is working exactly as auto lobbyists wanted, but not how environmentalists originally envisioned. Dual flush toilets are superior' little flush for #1, big flush for when you need it. Mexico and Europe use them extensively.

@tommywolfe2706 8 ай бұрын

I know that the research, finding visuals, recording the voice work, editing, all of that take time, but I really could go for a video that is a few times longer than this. This stuff is great. I love the concept, I learn something crazy in almost every video.....its amazing. I have gone down the list too. 3 minutes is too short for such good content!

@Arfonfree 8 ай бұрын

The Drug War: lets make drugs illegal -> make drugs more expensive -> increase incentives to deal in illegal drugs.

@navchinna 7 ай бұрын

Yeah the war on drugs really backfired, huh.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

2019: Uber took drivers off the app because of NYC’s new minimum wage law.

@tuongpham7609 8 ай бұрын

Housing bubble of 2008. Good intentions: Making home purchases available to everyone, even those that can't afford it. Bad results: no one could pay their mortgage and the housing market crashed as 10 million people were put into financial ruin.

@spudsdavenport 8 ай бұрын

Was that the AMERICAN DREAM ACT of 1993[or '96]?

@stormisuedonym4599 8 ай бұрын

And they fucking deserved it, getting mortgages they knew they couldn't afford and had to demand by playing the "muh racism" card.

@StudioUAC 7 ай бұрын

lmao!

@DarkElfDiva 21 күн бұрын

LMAO, 'good intentions.'

@Deathnotefan97 8 ай бұрын

I don’t think it was the same gun buyback mentioned in this video, but there was one guy who literally made his own firearms from plants of wood and other materials that could be cheaply purchased from any home improvement store Because they were capable of firing (only once) they technically counted as firearms and he made bank

@aaronkcmo 8 ай бұрын

please do the wooden stairways of Ketchikan Alaska. the law states that if a wooden staircase only goes to one residence then that residence is responsible for maintaining the staircase. if, however, more than one residence is serviced by the staircase it's the responsibility of the city to maintain it. consequently there are no wooden staircases in the city that lead to only one residence.

@alexbarker975 8 ай бұрын

This reminds me of Terry Pratchett talking about the rat bounty in am infested city. His answer was tax the rat farms, and I've never come across a better one.

@wolfgangfegelein2450 8 ай бұрын

It's not related to government policies, but I think telling kids that "everyone is special" and that they could be "anything you want to be when you grow up" definitely count. Barney & Friends and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks 8 ай бұрын

They aren't wrong though... It's a highly individualist perspective to say peeps are unique. And generally if someone puts their minds to things they can do pretty much anything in theory. However there are limitations and just telling someone they can do anything is hogwash. You need to add the preffix, with a great amount of work and dedication...

@neilmanhard1341 8 ай бұрын

This policy, I believe, originates from Dr Spock's "Baby Book". He emphasized only encouragement so not to harm their "self-esteem" etc...

@stevenscott2136 8 ай бұрын

And then they immediately told us we actually COULDN'T be superheros, starship captains, wizards, pro athletes, or any of the other cool jobs.

@louisryan5815 8 ай бұрын

@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks but that's not necessarily true, either

@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks 8 ай бұрын

@@louisryan5815 technically if you could find a way for magic to work and exist, technically you could be a witch or wizard Harry. But assuming we are grounded by reality... There are always limitations. If one had an iq of 10... They probably won't be able to do anything. Even if they worked really hard at it. But why I say they technically aren't wrong is because of the plurality of possibility. Most people can be most things given they work hard enough to achieve it. The limitations of the few technically does not limit the statement generally. As edge cases do exist well... Yes, it's nit entirely correct, but they aren't wrong either. There's a massive Asterix on that statement.

@AntiNeoFascist 8 ай бұрын

"And after all we've done for them." lmao ... I can't.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

2016: As minimum wage was raised, Wendy’s replaced employees with self-service kiosks.

@Majima_Nowhere 8 ай бұрын

McDonald's employees were all about "Fight for 15" and now a Big Mac combo meal costs 10 bucks. Who could have _possibly_ seen this coming?

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

@@Majima_Nowhere ..."What could possibly go wrong?" You nailed it, great example.

@hackman669 8 ай бұрын

Stupid feds.

@StudioUAC 7 ай бұрын

but in reality, who would want to work in fast food?

@teamcybr8375 6 ай бұрын

@@Majima_NowhereIn Norway, McDonald's workers get $22 per hour, paid time off, Healthcare, and a pension. And their big macs cost less than ours! Less than $5! The higher prices are just corporate greed!

@joshuaracey7967 5 ай бұрын

The puns are superb. And the Poppycock story has got to be my favorite yet.

@steprockmedia 8 ай бұрын

They've LITERALLY done this exact same thing before with the exact same results. Previously, it was a bounty for rattlesnakes, which resulted in tons of rattlers being bred and then released when the program was cancelled. Don't ask government to learn. (*It looks like you covered the snakes one last year, of course!)

@Hyper_Drud 4 ай бұрын

Wasn’t it cobras?

@RedRyan 8 ай бұрын

I really love that you guys are venturing into more war and events with extremely catastrophic consequences. Great video today

@jaewok5G 8 ай бұрын

I like the new disclaimer "no personal stuff" XD

@notme222 Ай бұрын

Just heard a great one. A restaurant owner in Quebec gave out vouchers for free meals. The government reprimanded him for only printing them in English so he stopped giving them out. (The restaurant is Mama Khan's if you want to look up for yourself.)

@rwcraver 8 ай бұрын

Criminals don't turn in their firearms; the real 'unintended' consequence was that law abiding individuals are now at greater risk from criminals than before.

@spankynater4242 8 ай бұрын

Not really. People didn't turn in their working firearms.

@MatthewHolevinski 8 ай бұрын

The zeal in which he read naivete almost had me rolling.

@theironmanx428 8 ай бұрын

Sooo glad they are keeping this going.

@TURK_182 8 ай бұрын

They banned single use plastic grocery bags so now they have thick plastic bags that are reusable, but they're just using more plastic

@Roddy556 8 ай бұрын

It's hard to reuse them when you never bring them back. I just see it as bags costing a lot more now.

@kauske 8 ай бұрын

I have a set of reusable bags from 2008, they only just started to bite the dust. They saved more than their weight in plastic.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

As with most examples in this excellent series, "unintended" is correct. But "unintended" does not mean "unforeseen".

@grantmillard8387 8 ай бұрын

Just watched through the entire series. Love it SO much. Great to see how the voiceovers and video design have evolved. Subscribed!

@vladimpaler3498 8 ай бұрын

This is why I laugh so hard when someone asks me to have respect for government officials.

@notthefbi7932 8 ай бұрын

I made over 1,000 dollars selling super soakers to the city of Oakland 😉

@emmettturner9452 8 ай бұрын

Hey! They said no personal anecdotes. Did you not watch to the very end? ;)

@notthefbi7932 8 ай бұрын

@@emmettturner9452 Nobody tells me what I can't and can't do, except for big government 😉

@vazjc 8 ай бұрын

The car one, a massive reason to redefine vehicles by size.

@joecontreras5068 8 ай бұрын

One video and I’m sold - I love it !

@macsnafu 8 ай бұрын

This one was all about "you get what you pay for", and with government, you end up getting more of what you're willing to pay for.

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

2015: The Seattle city council decided to raise the minimum wage to $15/ hour. Seattle’s restaurants closed at an alarming rate.

@MrWayneJohn1 6 ай бұрын

These episodes just prove that there's nothing the government can't f##k up.

@freesk8 8 ай бұрын

Great one! Thanks! :)

@buckgulick3968 8 ай бұрын

This series is the BEST. Need more.

@oblii5590 8 ай бұрын

Very informative series, keep them coming !

@saiga12forme88 8 ай бұрын

I absolutely love this series.

@JamesHegedus-pw4fc 8 ай бұрын

I'd like to see a whole series of policies that have gone wrong. I appreciate the humorous presentation, but I think an instructional one would also be very useful!

@C6BD 8 ай бұрын

Here in Japan they have Keitora. Full-fleged trucks smaller than american cars but with even greater cargo space. These tiny trucks are super cheap, fuel efficient, agile and nimble, and OMG are they so totally kawai! I wish we could have those in Canada.

@Majima_Nowhere 8 ай бұрын

I've seen a few imported kei vans and trucks here in the states. I want one so bad. It'll go next to my Holden Ute and my RX-7 in the future house I'll never have 🥲

@gilwood7530 8 ай бұрын

This was awesome !

@droptozro 8 ай бұрын

Now I understand why when I would look up certain vans I've owned for parts it might have the word "Truck" in it on Autozone

@RealityOrganized 8 ай бұрын

2019: In response to rising minimum wages, Whole Foods reduced employees’ hours. Companies don’t do this out of spite. They do this out of the laws of economics, because the purpose of a company is to make money; the purpose is not to provide people jobs.