Interesting Links for 01-05-2016

[andrewducker]

I want to visit the Costa Rica dog sanctuary! 900 dogs! Roaming free! (tags: dogs awesome ) How Beyonce became an 'albums artist' - and what radio is doing about it (tags: music ) The choice of potato or rice may have determined the future of society (tags: prehistory food society ) We can solve our Mars problem and our Ceres problem at the

Comments

[bart_calendar]

People really are dumb when it comes to imposing taxes.

For a while New York City put a heavy tax on cigarettes.

They didn't consider three important facts:

1. New Jersey did not also put a heavy tax on cigarettes.

2. The New York City public transportation system is so directly linked to the New Jersey transportation system that from nearly anywhere in the city you can take a subway over the New Jersey border in at most 20 minutes - and from most parts of the city in five minutes or less.

3. Subway/PATH tickets are fairly inexpensive and you can buy a monthly ticket with unlimited rides.

The result? Within a month the subway stops in New Jersey suddenly had the largest tobacco stores in the fucking world and once a week New Yorkers would simply hop into the subway and get off at a New Jersey shop and buy a weeks worth of cigarettes.

[bart_calendar]

To be fair, New Jersey has it's own form of stupdities.

Ocean City, where Rome Girl grew up, decided that they didn't want to become a rowdy spring break tourist town so they banned the sale of alcohol on the island.

They didn't, however, ban the use of alcohol in the town.

Result - right on the border is a liquor store the size of a small castle that people simply walk to, buy massive amounts of alcohol from and then go back to their Ocean City vacation homes and use.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Very few people seem to think about how people's behaviour will change when you change the rules.

That one seems really obvious to me, for instance. Did they change the rules back eventually?

[bart_calendar]

It sorted itself out.

Eventually New Jersey was like "cigarette sales our up! we shoudl increase the taxes to get more state revenue!"

And then were shocked when cigarette sales went down because people were no longer taking PATH trains to the state to buy them.

[bart_calendar]

Ocean City can't change the rules now.

Liquor licenses are owned by the state and each town gets a certain number of them. And the total number of licenses in the state can only be changed by statewide referendum.

When Ocean City went dry t hey gave the licenses back to the state which happily sold them to other towns. So, now, there are no more liquor licences to give back to Ocean City

[andrewducker]

That is particularly funny.

(And a really stupid system. Of course.)