Great Moments in Unintended Consequences: Price Controls, Hearth Tax, Cash for Clunkers (Vol. 9)

Good intentions, bad results.
Watch the whole series here: • Great Moments in Unint...
Part One: Antwerps
The year: 1585
The problem: The Spanish army is besieging Antwerp, shelling approaching merchant ships and causing food prices inside the city to rise.
The solution: Enact strict price controls on food!
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
It turns out merchants don't like risking their lives, ships, and cargo-especially when their goods fetch the same prices at ports without incoming cannon fire. Artificially low prices also fueled demand, causing food supplies inside the city to plummet.
It wasn't long before Antwerp surrendered, given that the city government blockaded itself far better than any army ever could.
Food for thought? Well, it's the thought that counts.
Part Two: Change of Hearth
The year: 1662
The problem: King Charles II needs more money!
The solution: a hearth tax! Since the number of fireplaces in a building is considered a proxy for wealth, this progressive property tax scheme was sure to be a hit.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
It turns out people don't like paying taxes! They also don't like petty constables and subcontractors entering their homes to count stoves. Many stopped up their chimneys to avoid the taxes. One intrepid baker even knocked through the wall from her oven to access her neighbor's chimney-causing a fire that destroyed 20 homes and killed four people.
And since the revenue generated was less than expected, it wasn't long before the hearth tax also went up in smoke.
Part Three: Clunk and Disorderly
The year: 2009
The problem: a recession! And we need to save the environment! And domestic manufacturing! Plus, something about economic inequality! And, you know, maybe juice the reelection campaign. All that. All that was the problem.
The solution: Give away $1 billion in incentives to U.S. residents who destroy their old cars for more fuel-efficient new ones!
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
It turns out people like free money! The program blew through the original allocation in less than a month. So Congress approved an additional $2 billion. The next month, that money was gone too.
Turns out the boost in vehicle sales was fully offset by a falloff once the program ended. Same for the boost to gross domestic product.
The government spent $1.4 million on the program for every job created.
And apparently destroying an entire generation of used cars causes remaining used car prices to rise. But hey, those are just the kind of vehicles less affluent people buy. The kind donated to charities or sold to poor countries where they replace even older, less fuel-efficient vehicles.
What about helping U.S. car manufacturers? Nope.
Only two of the top 10 models sold as part of the program were domestic brands.
As for the environmental impact?
The program did increase average fuel economy in the United States by…err…0.65 miles per gallon. But people like using new cars way more than old ones. New vehicles are driven as much as three to five times more than genuine clunkers.
And about that reelection campaign? Ehhh…
Great moments in unintended consequences: good intentions, bad results.
Written and produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg; narrated by Austin Bragg

[@j4s0n39]

I remember when a $1B government boondoggle seemed like a lot of money.

[@wheel-man5319]

Now it's a two trillion (or more) inflation reduction act! How on earth can spending two trillion borrowed dollars reduce inflation!?⁉️

[@rifter6176]

@@wheel-man5319 The lies they sell have become so obvious. They genuinely believe we're stupid. In too many cases, they're correct. :(

[@jeremykraenzlein5975]

@@wheel-man5319 The "Inflation Reduction Act" is deceptively named by the same people who brought you the "Affordable Care Act", (AKA "Obamacare").

[@EF-69]

@@wheel-man5319 a billion dollars? Isn't that cute?

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

in another decade at this rate, the poverty line will be billionaires.

[@Dawntreader233]

Cash for Clunkers made it so hard for me to buy my first car. All of the old trucks I wanted to buy were getting crushed. And even worse, the government MANDATED the vehicles be totally destroyed. They junked the entire thing. Huge waste.

[@Antoniobrady]

It destroyed an era of cool cars. I love old station wagons, and they’re a rare commodity anymore

[@denvan3143]

Cash for clunkers destroyed an entire economy and an aftermarket industry that made it literally every replacement part for those old cars. Dad’s with buy a Clucker, fix it up and drive it for years so he could afford to put his kid through a couple years of college. Privileged Washington politicians didn’t have a clue and if they did didn’t care. But at least I got to waste billions of dollars of taxpayers money.

[@willstikken5619]

This one really irritated me. The vehicles weren't simply removed from the roads but along with their engines had to be completely destroyed. No replacing an old engine with one form a salvage yard or finding other replacement parts. Why bother when you can just eat cake...

[@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462]

Destroying the aftermarket wasn't unintended consequences, it worked exactly as intended.

[@willstikken5619]

@@cnrspiller3549 It is underrated but it isn't exactly funny despite William's involvement.

[@notme222]

Also Cash for Clunkers ignored the environmental impact of manufacturing. Using a less-efficient car is still less energy than building a whole new car prematurely.

[@mvmlego1212]

That claim sounds highly plausible, but do you have a source for it? C4C has become one of my go-to examples of economic and environmental policies that both fail to accomplish their goals and have harmful side-effects. It would be helpful to have another reliable detail to add to the pile of problems with it.

[@notme222]

@@mvmlego1212 NPR and Slate both had pieces about it right about when the program ended. Subsequent studies tend to be more agenda-driven one way or another, bearing out in what assumptions they make for the counterfactual. In short, manufacturing a car releases an average of 6.7 tons of CO2. (That according to William Chameides, dean of Duke's School for the Environment.) That means it will break even after saving about 700 gallons of gas. So the variables are 1) How much better is the car they would have gotten and 2) How much later would they have gotten it. The minimum efficiency to claim the C4C incentive was 22 mpg. The White House bragged that the average car purchased this way actually got 25.4 mpg. HOWEVER, according to the standards that had already been in place for 2011 models, manufacturers needed a fleet with an average of 27.3 mpg. And the data shows that sales were only pulled forward 1 year anyway. So did the buyers each save 700 gallons of gas in 1 year? Unlikely. My algebra says that if the average improvement was a large increase from 15mpg to 25, they would have to have driven 26,250 miles every year regardless. Plausible for some, but highly inconsistent with averages. And then we can wonder if we subsequently lost ground having sold 2010 models instead of 2011. (Of course it's not fair to charge the entire manufacturing cost just because it was accelerated. But then again, it also means that car's replacement has to come a year earlier as well. And there's also the harder-to-calculate issue of whether the destroyed cars would have been an improvement for someone else.) There's also another environmental impact aside from direct emissions. A scrapped car is used for parts. What isn't sold as a used part is separated out and recycled into its components. According to the Automotive Recyclers Association, this takes about 3 years. But C4C required cars be crushed and shredded within 180 days, after pouring sodium silicate into the engine. This resulted in between 3 and 4.5 million tons of toxic metal going to landfills and according to the ARA a waste of 24 million barrels' worth of energy. (Which equates to 11.4 tons of CO2.) KZbin doesn't allow links in comments, but hopefully I've given enough details that you can find sources on what I'm saying and/or back up the calculations with your own math.

[@mvmlego1212]

@@notme222 -- Yes, thank you very much!

[@josephwheeler1]

Do you mean 11.4 million?

[@notme222]

@@josephwheeler1 Yes, sorry.

[@smareng]

One show that will NEVER run out of material. Not sure if it's more depressing or hilarious that governments never learn, but if I don't laugh, I'll cry.

[@jeycee32]

It’s not the governments that never seem to learn…it’s the voters.

[@cnrspiller3549]

What do governments need to learn? Everything works like a dream for them. They promise the moon on a stick, they get elected into office. Once in office, they produce all these unintended consequences. They then procede to promise yet more moons and more sticks to a gullible electorate who have not yet grasped Thomas Sowell's universal maxim, 'there are no solutions, only tradeoffs' Result: the politicians still get elected over again for all the moons and sticks they promise. It works like a dream for them, there's nothing to learn.

[@chrimony]

Come on, now. What could possibly go wrong?

[@jasondashney]

I'm shocked at how infrequently these videos come out given all of the examples. I'm also surprised at how many of the examples delve way way back into history when there are so many contemporary ones to choose from.

[@smareng]

@@jeycee32 Touché

[@JETZcorp]

Never stop making these.

[@The_g_string_lover]

They’ll never run out of material

[@NateTheOhioan]

@@The_g_string_lover because government will always do worse than private business

[@michaeltewes7833]

@@NateTheOhioan like NASA compared to Space X

[@01nmuskier]

In 2021, I stopped assuming that the consequences were unintentional.

[@bobertjones2300]

Welcome to your Enlightenment. Shine on!

[@thadrepairsitall1278]

We are still experiencing the consequences of "Cash for Clunkers". Steel and aluminum prices dropped because of the glut of materials released into the market quickly. The quick change in price greatly affected demolition recyclers, auto scrap yards, and the like. Many scrap yards closed down reducing the availability of parts to fix cars which increases the price for repairs. Many engine replacements almost doubled in price.

[@joshcarlson9352]

Not to mention the wave in supply, that would have crashed right after.

[@ianandersen265]

And thefts went up for older vehicles, due to Cash for Clunkers.

[@m-71tx26]

And it didn’t reduce emissions even one bit. It was the stupidest idea the Obama Administration ever came up with and it didn’t work. Obama himself claimed that it would also help the U.S. automakers make more money BUT IT DIDN’T!! My father owned a 1996 Ford Taurus GL at the time. It was having transmission problems and it turned out that it wasn’t much longer for this world. He traded it in for a 2009 Toyota Corolla LE and it served him quite well(he currently owns a 2020 Toyota RAV4 XLE and so he’s driving a more powerful car). LOL

[@dashsocur]

I remember going to a town hall meeting in small town Iowa where Representative Bruce Braley was claiming credit for Cash for Clunkers. He was not only extremely proud of it but was completely baffled that he wasn't getting praised for the idea (he actually got a lot of flak for it). Even at the time it was passed, the working classes thought it was a terrible idea.

[@violinhunter2]

...and whomever came up with this idea didn't pay a price for being wrong. It was just an experiment - like that thing they wanted to stick in my arm.

[@s0nnyburnett]

Cash for clunkers was one of the worst policies. The used market NEVER recovered, lack of affordable used vehicles available delays kids from entering the job market and truly becoming independent. It's a poor tax to keep lower middle class americans on the bus and dependent on government.

[@JeremyBelpoisX]

That's what they do best, kept the public dependent. Just ask the Native Americans!

[@DalTron001]

I remember I had a neighbor that just needed a part for their old suburban and couldn't buy one becuase the cash for clunkers wouldn't let people take parts off of the cars they were destroying.

[@LaitoChen]

Whoa, just wow

[@joegadget670]

How dare him keep his old suburban and not upgrade to a more energy efficient model.

[@karozans]

In Arizona, a county is getting ready to vote in water rights restrictions. If you don't water at least 2 acres of land per year, then you lose your water rights and you can never put any water on your land commercially again as a farmer. So here is what I see in the future. People watering 2 acres of dirt and weeds for nothing, just so they can keep their water rights, and the actual ground water consumption goes up. But then again without farm subsidies, who in their right mind would start a farm in a desert? I talked with a farmer in Colorado, and when I told him about the irrigation in Arizona, he had no idea what I was talking about. In certain parts of Colorado, you plant your field and let the rain do the rest.

[@cameronhoglan]

Most all of the farms in Colorado need irrigation. I don't know of one that doesn't. Colorado is extremely dry...

[@karozans]

@@cameronhoglan Which study did you use to determine that?

[@EverettBurger]

Didn't AZ sell water rights to Saudi Arabia?

[@Meton2526]

@@EverettBurger No, there are farms in Arizona that secured water rights that then produce stuff like alfalfa that's then sold to Saudi Arabia. Just like every other state and country that grows an agricultural product that is then sold elsewhere. I'm not going to say it's a smart practice considering the scarcity of water, but it's also not nearly as ridiculous as people make it out to be. Basically the price of water is being centrally planned instead of market based, so you wind up with natural arbitrage opportunities that exploit the inability of central planning to ever work.

[@abetterfuture4787]

You are exactly right. That's a similar phenomenon that a lot of corporate departments have to deal with. Near the end of the year they rush to blow their budgets, because they know that if they come in under budget the suits will cut their budgets for the following year. It causes massive amounts of waste that never needed to occur.

[@Aaron.Reichert]

I remember "cash for clunkers" The part that surprised me was that a brand new Hummer would qualify, but my rust bucket that burned oil didn't because when it was brand new the mpg was too good. Nevermind that being well over a decade old it's actual MPG was not so great anymore. Great branding, deceptive though.

[@derekisthematrix]

You need to take the inverse of the name of any proposed legislation to know what the bill will do.

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

@@derekisthematrix more true every day. the patriot act was the apex of this. now we have infrastructure bills to fund drag shows for nigerian schools (i wish i was kidding) and inflation reduction acts with nothing but what every economist and person with two brain cells could tell you would directly cause massive inflation.

[@kenbrown2808]

the part we all should have seen coming is that the people who used the program were mostly people trading in their gently used urban assault vehicle for a brand new urban assault vehicle, while the people who would have had a long term benefit from trading in their actual clunker on a used car with better reliability and efficiency were ineligible.

[@geraldfrost4710]

​@derekisthematrix LoL!!! For example, the Inflation Reduction Act.

[@lizziebreath9]

I worked data entry on Cash for Clunkers back when I was 19, it was my first job that made over $10/hr. A truly in a way shocking and in a way completely unsurprising amount of those claims were fake. Fake ID's, Stolen cars, expired documents, and even one car lot that was using a transparency to keep the cars. Every single one I pointed out to the guy from the dept of transportation on the floor was the same response "Push it through". I got sent home early 3 days for working "too fast" because the government doesn't appreciate people who know how to skim for relevant information but doesn't care if Harry Boner(real fake ID I turned down behind the DOT guy's back because I have a conscience) buys a car with government money and some else's insurance that had the wrong car listed.

[@bobertjones2300]

I hope you are still living a life of integrity and courage. Thank you.

[@elvenskyarcher7874]

As a young car guy in a low income area, I will forever get heated about the stupid idea that was cash for clunkers. Thank you, useless government, for making it even harder for young people to survive on the little money they make.

[@geraldfrost4710]

When I was younger, long before cash for clunkers, I drove a clunker. It ate a quart of oil per tank of gas, and it lasted for two years. I bought the car for half the price of a new engine; oil added likely added 5% of the cost of an engine. When it died, it was dragged across the scale, and I got money back. Not more than I paid for the car, but when living on minimum wage and side hustle, it was a bonanza! Hang in there. As your skills improve you'll be paid more.

[@redtsun67]

When my oldest brother was 16, he bought his first car for about 500 dollars. That was in 2005 I think. When I turned 16 and started looking for MY first car, similar vehicles were going for 2000+. Only the most broken down, decrepit clunkers were selling for below $1,000. So I started looking into why cars were so expensive, and found out about the whole "destroy your old car, buy a new one" thing and I gotta say, it has to be the most retarded idea imaginable. Why destroy a perfectly good car that runs, just because it's old?

[@theALTF4]

-Why destroy a perfectly good car that runs, just because it's old? just because is old, it must be destroyed even if still good and functional, regardless of consecuences...that their no-brain process i think

[@visearms5774]

I think I'm quite a bit older but I got my first car for 30 dollars. Yes it ran.

[@FerdFerdFerdFerd]

@@visearms5774 $50 for the '78 Honda Civic Wagon that was my very first set of wheels. Drove it for three years until it decided to pitch a rod through the side of the engine, making a basketball sized hole that let you see everything of the two cylinders in the middle. Get this: I got $100 for it because it rolled into the junkyard under its own power - The two end cylinders were able to make it mobile, even though it hitched and chugged and could barely make 5MPH. Parked it, signed the pink, handed the guy the keys, he gave me the cash and a lift to the bus station, done deal. Serious "hoopty". It'd been hit 3 times before it came to me, but until it blew, it just wouldn't quit, and even then, it crawled into its grave under its own power.

[@stubeing]

Epa rule to limit diesel emissions. Diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) and other costly engine changes have reduced emissions, but trucks now get fewer mpgs, thus requiring more gallons of fuel to get around. These changes also reduce the engine longevity, thus requiring trucks to be replaced sooner.

[@TheSchaef47]

That last one still grinds my gears. It priced us out of a used minivan right as we were trying to upsize from a sedan to accommodate our growing family.

[@Vaelosh466]

>The government passes anything "Good intentions, bad results"

[@super8mate]

You got it half right…

[@tenhundredkills]

Good intentions? Since when!?

[@pauldarling330]

@@tenhundredkills For them, not for us.

[@tenhundredkills]

@@pauldarling330 Fair point.

[@Mirthful_Midori]

More like pretend to have good intentions, but then they actually get exactly what they wanted.

[@edd1833]

Just read about the price controls in Antwerp in Thomas Sowell's Economic Facts and Fallacies. I highly recommend that book.

[@visearms5774]

I recommend all of his books.

[@TrentCantrell]

You have my vote to make this required viewing in every high school classroom.

[@bodybuilderslave7125]

Hahaha Fat Chance! The gov't run schools are a great source for this type of stuff. So FAT CHANCE.

[@austinvitoux]

Don't forget the "clunkers" that were brought in and turned out to be very valuable classic cars. Killing off classic car restoration services and even more jobs!

[@justinpaul3110]

You also forgot that Cash For Clunkers created a parts shortage since the cars traded in were mandated to be have their engines destroyed. This also was exasperated when that earthquake in Japan shut down parts manufacturing. Oh, and because the engines were scrapped, the price of scrap metal crashed, causing a drop in metals recycling.

[@JoshuaMiller-ny5uf]

I think exacerbated is the word you want.

[@bcmineresearch]

I always get exacerbated when people use big words and they don't know what they mean!😂

[@justinpaul3110]

@@bcmineresearch" exasperated adjective intensely irritated and frustrated." Go attempt to be witty somewhere else.

[@ivanandreevich8568]

Cash for clunkers is literally the broken window fallacy to the tune of 3 billion.

[@frostydog860]

How about when Obamacare mandated that all full-time employees receive paid benefits, employers cut down on their employees' work hours. At several places I worked, the employer went from a few full-time employees to many part-time employees.

[@freethebirds3578]

I and every person at my level in my major employer's organization (4,000+ employees) is a part time employee. Before Zerocare, the jobs were full time. I have 2 part time jobs, neither provides any benefits, and I make too much to get cheap insurance. More unintended consequences: The organization has hundreds of openings that date back years. They can't get find people who can afford to take those jobs part time. And, it's a school district. Special Education students are not getting all the services they are mandated to get, because there's not enough employees working enough hours to provide all those services.

[@crosslink1493]

There was a staff minimum you had to have for Obamacare to kick in, I think it was 50 because a sales customer I had wanted to expand his business but doing so would put him above 50 employees, thus requiring he supply everyone with medical insurance, and it wasn't worth it. He eventually stopped hiring employees and brought on temp workers, saving him $$$ on payroll while increasing his profits.

[@wildcatlh]

My favorite Reason TV videos that aren't Remy. Excellent once again.

[@lisaroper421]

Remy first forever!

[@ArloPignotti]

So glad you included Cash for Clunkers. I applied for and received a $3,000 certificate from Obama just to throw it in the trash. It was my way of saving someone from destroying a perfectly good car.

[@bobbytoledo.]

You were one of extremely few people who saw through this virtue signaling bamboozle and actually did something good for his fellow man and the planet. Thank you, no sarcasm.

[@hairyviking9248]

You could do an entire episode just on government trying to fix shortages with price controls. Did you know the Romans tried that right before they collapsed? It gives modern day historians an idea of what things cost back then during ideal times.

[@randomlyentertaining8287]

The Romans did the price controls and screwing with their currency a lot long before they collapsed. Yet despite that, they still lasted around 2,000 years. Pretty impressive really.

[@hairyviking9248]

@@randomlyentertaining8287 Interesting. I had only heard about it towards the end of the western roman empire as a way to combat rampant inflation. When was the first time they did it?

[@brookeking8559]

I’d suggest a topic, but I fear unanticipated consequences.

[@lisaroper421]

Ha!

[@WorldPowerLabs]

Between the "Affordable" Care Act (which increased my insurance premiums more than three times over (though ironically, I didn't qualify for subsidies under the ACA after I had to cancel the coverage I had), and "Cash for Clunkers," that administration screwed me worse than any I've lived through before or since (though inflation now is becoming a real issue, too).

[@ryanzondervan7780]

The US Department of Agriculture got the bright idea that Asian Lady Beetles (they look like orange ladybugs with black dots) would be a great "natural" way to control aphids on crops b/c the beetles eat aphids. The only problem - these beetles were fruitful and multiplied; sometimes in the fall the walls inside people's homes would be crawling with literally hundreds of these bugs, and if in the process of killing them they happened to get squished they let off a horrible odor...

[@jasondashney]

Perhaps I only hear of the examples where it doesn't work, but it seems like every time people introduce one creature to control another creature there are unintended negative consequences.

[@bigedslobotomy]

Back in Iowa, our house would be swarmed by these Asian beetles, and I’d “nuke” thousands of them off the outside of our house where’d they swarmed (using wasp spray). Then I spent the next month vacuuming them off of the windows until they were gone. This was an annual event. (Sigh)

[@Pimps-R-us]

@@bigedslobotomy Same here in Virginia my friend, The back of my house gets covered in them every summer and they ALWAYS find there way in when the weather starts changing colder ( like right now )

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

i remember cash for clunkers. it makes me think of how now EV mandates will take my modest goal of driving budget manual transmissions from difficult now because of C4C to impossible. i just want to exercise my right to travel by the most modest individual means possible. on a capital restricted fixed income, like many retired and disabled people, you can't buy a $10k car without debt, let alone a car with a $10k battery with a ten year lifespan. a $200 gas tank doesn't require child labor or replacing.

[@TheHamerer]

Cash for clunkers it was so much worse than people realize. Besides what well said in the video, a lot of the new cars that people got were just trash, I remember there being a surge in PT cruisers around that time.

[@juancuelloespinosa]

if you haven't done so yet. daylight savings is a great example of unintended consequences let's give people more daylight! enjoy the summer more! (or use less kerosene to aid the war? no one really knows why it started) sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions! what could possibly go wrong? turns out shifting your circadian clock suddenly isn't something your body likes to do, and besides the lost productivity of people being late for work, the inconvenience put on us to change every clock and software designers to have to implement it, it has caused medical emergencies and accidents from the lack of sleep

[@stuarthirsch]

Daylight savings time or not, or where the clocks are set, the number of daylight hours remains the same for any given date. Its God's time, but man's clocks.

[@juancuelloespinosa]

@@stuarthirsch suuuure, but the whole point is to keep using the same hours on the clock. Most businesses don't open based on where the sun is in the sky

[@FUNshoot]

We have a problem, so the government gets involved. Now we have two problems.

[@15743_Hertz]

“The top 9 most terrifying words in the English Language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.” - Ronald Reagan

[@teddy4271]

Ronald Reagan would certainly be the one to know about how bad the US government is, he made it as bad as it is!

[@StudioUAC]

FINALLY!!! been waiting for you to cover cash for clunkers!

[@deanmeyer1815]

The government mantra- “judge us by our intentions, not our results.”

[@Liberty4Ever]

I love these. They're the first videos I click in my video feed, I watch the video twice, and forward it to my friends. It's amazing that people need to be shown how stupid government is. I encounter plenty of examples every day.

[@USSResolute]

In 2009 I took my 1995 Saturn in to exchange in Cash for Clunkers. Turns out that a "clunker" was defined as inefficient fuel economy, which meant that, given my 35mpg, my car didn't count. Soon afterwards, GM closed Saturn down. I still drive that car.

[@TheRisky9]

Cash for Clunkers is probably one of the factors in today's current car shortage. Because we never really recovered from that fiasco.

[@Bobo-ox7fj]

Cash for clunkers sounds like a great idea if you're trying to destroy every single reliable vehicle in the country.

[@joes3703]

My favorite thing about these is that when new legislation is passed I always say “watch out for the unintended consequences” and people look at me like they’ve never heard the expression. No wonder we never learn.

[@Woodside235]

If you're cautious of unintended consequences, you're accused of being against the desired results. It's so frustrating.

[@28ebdh3udnav]

I will never forget the cash for clunkers fiasco. It still makes me laugh every time somebody brings it up

[@jamesmyers5970]

Idea. Wasn't there a time when the environmentalist found a rare/endangered flower but were concerned because of the bison in the area so they moved the bison only for the flower to die due to the symbiotic relationship. Also, in Texas, the million dollar bridge over nowhere to protect a stream with little fish from the cattle in the area only for the stream to dry up once the cattle were no longer eating the little trees that, eventually, sucked up the water. :)

[@rachelrasmussen1101]

Haha. Hope they cover these

[@AntisocialRedNeckNerd]

I worked in a Foodland grocery store while I was in high school in Austin, Texas. Nixon was president and inflation was an issue. Food prices were going up. So, he decided to institute price controls on meat. The man who owned our store was also a rancher. He cut out the middle man and used his herd to stock our meat counter. At that point, I was reassigned to help with this part of the store, keeping the meat counter stocked because of very high sales. There was a Safeway store a short distance away. The manager of the Safeway came to our store and filled a shopping cart full of beef for his family. I was told, the Safeway meat counter was empty. Our store closed an hour before our store. When I got off, I drove the Safeway to see the empty counter. Their counter was probably five times the size of our store and almost all of it was empty. The exception was a small area with tongue. I learned first hand how price controls fail . . .

[@marscaleb]

Cash for Clunkers still gets me angry to this day. The people writing these laws have never in their lives driven in a car with tape on it somewhere. They've never even lived in a city where busses ran only once an hour, let alone where busses don't run at all. The cheapest crappiest used cars became drastically unaffordable. How the hell do I get to work now?

[@codeman99-dev]

Please do a bit on Diesel Exhaust Fluid!

[@BigBossIvan]

I love these so much, and yet I hate that there is a bottomless well of material for it. It's practically a flood at this point.

[@MobiusOneFoxTwo]

When I saw the car in the thumbnail I thought you guys were going to talk about how Mercedes in the '80s lobbied the government to stop the importation of cars 25 years or newer. That law is directly responsible for R34 Skylines being $150k or more, along with other classic '80s, '90s, and '00s JDM cars.

[@RtistiqSkubie]

What's crazy about that is Mercedes being a FOREIGN manufacturer getting the US Government to do anything to help them because they were afraid of being beat out by the more reliable Japanese...particularly Toyota, who turned into their rival in early 90s

[@jcb3393]

Don't forget the other unintended consequence of "cash for clunkers": the impact to the environment. All those used cars now took up space in landfills and junk yards while more energy was spent creating and shipping even more new cars.

[@JH-ex6mb]

Cars for clunkers was a prime example of the scariest phrase in the English language: "We are the government and we are here to help". One of the requirements to get the money was for a liquid to be poured into the engine to permanently kill it. A horrible move for the economy and the environment.

[@chadbeimer3363]

Thank you for including cash for clunkers. There's so much to say, but you covered the highlights very well.

[@christina5949]

I am so very happy to see another episode of this. These are perfect for sharing with friends.

[@crosbonit]

Here's material for your next video: The government offers an $8,000 subsidy to buy an electric vehicle. The result: the price of some cars went up in price by $8,000 almost immediately.

[@Little_bane]

Cash for clunkers was misnamed and a crime against the American working class. I worked at a Ford dealership in 2008 as an 18yr old detailer. It was not clunkers being scrapped, it was trucks and SUVs in great shape, only a few years old. The program paid on average just slightly above what trade in value was on those vehicles. So it only helped people who already could afford a new vehicle.

[@wyleong4326]

I’m an honorary American with a Malaysian citizenship. The best kinda politics are those you can laugh with it and not being humdrummed into hopelessness.

[@CaptOrbit]

I remember our local Ford dealership (which is also owned by our local congressman) was doing cash for clunkers. They had a Nissan pickup truck in a dumpster in front of the showroom as their ad. I had to go around to the back of the building and saw a beautiful blue 1978 Grand Marquis sitting in one of the bays. It look like it had just rolled in off the showroom floor. Bewildered I asked one of the employees if that was going to be destroyed. They told me that it had indeed come in for the cash for clunkers program but that it didn't actually qualify. They said not that it mattered because even if it had qualified there was no way the owner of the dealership was going to let it be destroyed. The dealership had made a cash offer on the car and it was sent to the owner's private collection. I'm glad it wasn't destroyed.

[@andykratoska5791]

Thank you for just absolutely wrecking the cash for clunkers program

[@johngalt97]

My car was just old enough to be rejected for the 'cash for clunkers' and was instead designated a 'classic'. It was truly a gas guzzling clunker that was sold 7 years later for $200. Thanks, government.

[@Threedog1963]

That Cash for Clunkers was a joke. Dealerships jacked up the prices of qualifying vehicles. That offset any possible gain for the consumer. I just kept my 15 year old pick up and laughed at some of my coworkers who bought into that scam

[@longanddeadly]

Bless you. Thank you for these. Never stop bringing this.

[@thedude7319]

I like ReasonTV placed fries with the wauffles about Antwerp. Good on you

[@abetterfuture4787]

If only the common citizen understood price controls make the situation worse. We would be far better off.

[@ericscott3997]

Still feeling the ripple effects from this monstrosity program. Used car/parts prices haven't yet stabilized .

[@sesquame9527]

The voiceover/captions and the titlecards for the sections not matching BOTHERS ME SO MUCH

[@1495978707]

Antwerp: Huh, it's almost like prices signal something, and higher prices aren't just a result of greed

[@erikjlee1]

Ha! Great vid. This is a very promising series. looking forward to the next one!

[@jonmarler]

This made me laugh so hard. Truly one of y'all's best yet.

[@sharonanderson3851]

Thumb up for that plural possessive!

[@bikerbernie821]

Hearth tax sounds like the gas stove elimination

[@nicolesousa1836]

Oh you need to do about 100 more of these on this topic alone this was fantastic!

[@InquireInspire]

Love this series please make more

[@bhough410]

These should be a weekly thing!

[@rosehippyguy3402]

Very clearly done. Pure quality 👌

[@Entreprenoob]

More of this, less complaining about the An-caps in the Libertarian Party (ie: mises caucus and rothbardian ideas). Eh? What do you say Reason? lets give being libertarian a shot again

[@tadroid3858]

Your chorus makes me laugh EVERY time: ". . . . What could possibly go wrong?"

[@wstavis3135]

I hate to mention this, but Toyota Camry is considered a domestic vehicle now. The Toyota plant in the US produces more than 75% of all Camrys manufactured in the world. It, in fact, exports Camrys world-wide.

[@jasondashney]

And this is a good example of why I never take anything for gospel because I seldom have expert knowledge and know all sides of an issue.

[@IchOdaNich]

Germany did the same thing as the US. We also gave people money to buy new more efficient cars and wreck their old ones with basically the same outcome as the US. I honestly thought we were the only country to come up with such a ridiculus waste of money.

[@luismiguel5391]

An idea for next episode: Spanish trains are manage by a company call Renfe. This year government paid so that people could get like a voucher that allows them to travel for free. If you wanted it you have to pay 20€, that would be return to you if you get at least 16 trips. Well, people just buy the trips without even going, just to get the money back. Trains go empty while people can't find a seat.

[@joakimsiljelind118]

"People are evil. - Lets outlaw evil behavior! - Sounds like a great idea! With the best of intentions! What could possibly go wrong? - Turns out evil people don't give a rats ass about what is legal and not. So good people modify their behavior and stop using the outlawed behavior while evil people don't. And as a result, evil people get a monopoly on behaviors that can harm others."

[@johnschultz3664]

Here is another unintended consequence for you. The big three seeing that trucks and SUVs are more profitable emphasize them in their advertising. (Though one had an ad the claimed that they had more models that were fuel efficient, but did not name names.) They just let Honda, Toyota and other imports advertise their cars. Then Cash for Clunkers comes around and those who wanted to trade went to who they knew were selling fuel efficient cars.

[@mustang607]

Now we live in a world of so many intended consequences.

[@jasondashney]

The current energy problem is exactly that so it blows my mind that Joe Biden is asking brutal regimes for cheap energy. The Canadian Prime Minister will blame greedy oil companies for high prices when he does everything he can to limit production. It's beyond belief.

[@stuarthirsch]

I have a great idea, since the original "Cash for Clunkers" worked so well, why don't we use it for the updated electrified version? Not only do we replace the cars with electric cars, we will replace the gas pumps with charging stations, whether the cars run and the chargers actually work notwithstanding. Even a better idea, carbon offsets and solar farms. We simply give money to tree and forest conservation groups, bulldoze forests to install subsidized solar panels, and call ourselves "carbon neutral". Result: A perfect "greenwashing" job.

[@markbenoit]

They didn’t mention how cash for clunkers made steel scrap prices go to zero.

[@VoxUrania]

I’ve also heard the term “revenge effect” used for the same idea.

[@sifridbassoon]

There seems to be an ongoing theme here. The Problem: Brittain needs more money.

[@SH-ly1uy]

That’s my favorite series on KZbin.

[@cleverwitticismhere6922]

I'm sure you could say something about the Affordable Care act, Individual Mandate, and ban on considering pre-existing conditions.

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

that whole thing seemed to swing both ways. i have close friends who swear by it or condemn it for destroying or saving their health prospects. i was highly skeptical, seeing how the medical industry was regulated into inaffordability already.

[@xaviergonzalez3814]

1946 in Argentina the navy brought some canadian beavers for their furr. The environment was different than in Canada and the furr of the beavers was of a lesser quality and value, also they became a plague that doesnt have predators and made dams that greatly damaged the Argentinian nature

[@2ndAttemptPOG]

I challenge you to make a video about government doing something that worked out as expected :)

[@MakeItWithCalvin]

My dad turned his OLD Mazda 323 he got off his brother into the program since the cost to "fix" it to pass SMOG regulations was higher than he felt the car was worth. In my dad's case, it worked since he got more for the car in the program than it would be worth if he sold it to a junkyard for parts. That said, many otherwise GOOD cars got junked for no reason other than a fast buck, and that's just painful.

[@Utred2012]

How silly of Charles II, he should have just taxed a feature on a house's exterior... oh wait.

[@chrismiller5198]

I like the examples from the 1500s and 1600s. Maybe some research can take us even farther back in time. I wonder what ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome have to offer.

[@SoloPilot6]

The one good thing about Cash for Clunkers is that those of us who didn't get taken advantage of by the program saw the prices of used cars double or even triple -- especially beat-up ones with good engines or transmissions. People were stopping at crash scenes and offering to pay TWICE what the insurance company buy-back amount was, just to get the drive trains and good-condition body parts. A complete door for a Honda Civic that went for about $100 in 2008 would run $600 in 2011 (don't ask how I know that).

[@user-nh3gu1ge3d]

how do you know that

[@user-nh3gu1ge3d]

😁

[@thepowerofozone]

My favorite show. Please, more of these!

[@lemmymaster]

Also, because antwerp fell, lots of antwerpers went towards the newly formed dutch Republic, and with no spanish conflict (in the hollands at least then), productivity rised and sea-trading made Amsterdam and other cities ultra rich, plummeting Antwerp's capital even more.

[@aptorres01]

Great video, thank you .

[@xcellerated207]

Another thing about Cash for clunkers it decimated The used parts industry because all of the engines transmissions and drivetrains had to be destroyed and not be able to be used again. Subsequently all of those cars ended up being recycled in China

[@HaloInStereo]

I was working with the homeless community in 2009. Cash For Clunkers was a complete disaster for the poor community! It's really hard to find employment, or find better employment, without transportation, but the CFC program put reliable transportation well out of reach of the people trying to escape poverty. Also, as mentioned in the video, the donation of cars to charities dropped very quickly from a steady flow to a tiny trickle. It's almost as if the same politicians who are always talking about "helping the poor" and "fighting poverty" don't actually want people to become self-sufficient instead of relying on government handouts to stay poor.

[@bontskubrothers2049]

In finland they had a similiar program where if you scrapped old cars you would get subsidies to buy electic cars, so some who had dozens if broken cars lying around could basically get a free new car if they sent them all to the junkyard.

[@REXOB9]

I'm always fascinated by the scenarios in these videos. Thanks.