New York tried and failed to crack down on liquor

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00:55:45

Live on Election Night! The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

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00:10:55

How the Pope really views capitalism

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00:01:00

3 reasons to take the lab leak seriously

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00:00:29

Who is the 'worst president'?

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00:00:48

Vermont cops did WHAT!?

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01:21:48

Trent Horn: Can a Catholic be a socialist?

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00:09:34

Julian Assange FINALLY FREE; Fox News REACTS

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00:09:05

Does weed cause strokes and heart attacks? | Wrong Number

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00:00:30

Are greedy landlords raising your rent?

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00:00:58

Whole Foods’ John Mackey on socialism

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00:01:00

Do you have to show cops your ID?

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01:37:29

Mike Solana: Can San Francisco Be Saved?

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00:14:57

COVID's 'synthetic fingerprint'?

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00:13:00

A lab leak 'smoking gun'?

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00:01:00

What happened when Sri Lanka went organic?

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00:00:51

Why aren’t U.S. cities more walkable?

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00:07:14

Is there an 'invasion' at the southern border?

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01:20:46

The GOP's debt disease: Q&A with David Stockman

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00:01:01

Why minimum wage hikes are a bad idea

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00:11:31

How Argentina got poor

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00:08:34

Milei's message to Davos: You're the problem

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00:00:59

Is Javier Milei right-wing?

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00:10:06

What a Princeton professor gets wrong about capitalism and poverty

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,Matthew Desmond's analysis never goes deeper than his facile assertion that "poverty persists because some wish and will it to." https://reason.com/video/2024/01/23/princetons-matthew-desmond-gets-everything-wrong-about-povertys-root-causes/ --- Matthew Desmond is a Princeton University professor and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Pulitzer Prize, a PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, and a National Book Critics Circle award. His recent book Poverty, by America—a New York Times bestseller that was ecstatically well-reviewed in many mainstream outlets—attempts to reframe the national policy debate around poverty. Like the muckrakers of the Progressive Era, Desmond is a master storyteller who gathers firsthand anecdotal material to illuminate social problems. But his novelist's eye for detail can cause readers to overlook the absence of big-picture analysis or useful solutions. What causes poverty in America, according to Desmond? He answers with bland, awkwardly worded slogans, such as: "Poverty persists because some wish and will it to." He says we need "policies that refuse to partner with poverty, policies that threaten its very survival." Desmond gets more specific about what doesn't cause poverty. He dismisses cultural explanations, such as single-parent households and declining marriage rates. He quickly dismisses the idea that the welfare state traps people in cycles of dependency, claiming that these arguments rely on anecdotal evidence, even though there's a vast systematic literature on the subject. Desmond doesn't take up political scientist Charles Murray's basic challenge to explain why it is that between 1949 and 1964 the American poverty rate dropped by 22 percentage points before the government did practically anything to help. After President Lyndon Johnson launched his war on poverty, the decline leveled considerably. Desmond approaches his firsthand investigations with the preconception that poverty is a byproduct of capitalist exploitation. Prices aren't set in a competitive marketplace, in his view; they're just a projection of greed. It's "tempting," he writes, "to blame rising housing costs on anything other than the fact that more than a few of us have a god-awful amount of money and are driving prices higher and higher through bidding wars." A chapter on the real estate market titled "How We Force the Poor to Pay More" argues that it's twice as profitable to be a landlord in the inner city. Desmond doesn't bother explaining why even more unscrupulous people don't tap into this lucrative business opportunity. His evidence for this claim is a 2019 paper he co-authored in the American Journal of Sociology that uses data so crude that it really tells us nothing. It omits important costs—like return on equity capital—and benefits—like real estate appreciation—that strongly bias the results in the direction Desmond wants. It ignores how landlords in poor areas are shamed, sued, occasionally jailed, forced to go to court to evict families, and must routinely travel to dangerous areas. Those headaches scare away most investors, which means that those who stick it out can charge more. The way to reduce costs in poor areas is to do the opposite of what Desmond advocates and make it easier for landlords to do business, such as streamlining the process of evicting tenants who don't pay rent. "Abolishing poverty," as he sees it, means looking inside ourselves and finding the will to act. His books have had such a wide reach, I fear that this simplistic nonsense will cause policy makers to forget the hard-won lessons of the '60s in favor of policies that leave the American poor worse off than they already are. Photos: Brandon Kruse/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Antonio Suarez/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; David H. Wells/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Ron Adar/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Renee C. Byer/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Laura Embry/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Lannis Waters/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Jvillegas@Sacbee.Com/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Michael Goulding/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Charlie Neuman/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Joe Sohm / Visions of America/Newscom; Ken Cedeno/UPI/Newscom; Gary C. Caskey/UPI/Newscom; Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA/Newscom; Teun Voeten/Sipa USA/Newscom; VARLEY/SIPA/Newscom; Jonathan Alpeyrie/SIPA/Newscom; MARILYN HUMPHRIES/ 2023 Marilyn Humphries/Newscom; Maxppp/MAXPPP; Max Faulkner/MCT/Newscom; Judy Griesedieck/MCT/Newscom; Andrew Councill/MCT/Newscom; Katherine Jones/KRT/Newscom; imageBROKER/Jim West/Newscom; Peter Bennett/Ambient Images/Newscom; DPST/Newscom; Remsberg Inc/Newscom Music:"Human," by Rex Banner via Artlist; "Knowledge," by Colors & Carousels via Artlist; "Upward Motion," by Rex Banner via Artlist; "Hidden Side," by Russo via Artlist; "Boardwalk," by Generation Lost via Artlist. Produced by Aaron Brown. Edited by Adani Samat & Regan Taylor.

00:11:48

How will libertarians vote in 2024?

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00:00:55

The media should NOT block Trump's speech

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00:03:04

Great Moments in Unintended Consequences: Coin Mail, Fertilizer Ban, and Hawaiian Mongoose (Vol. 14)

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,Good intentions, bad results. Watch the whole series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lUrH4Sbgh8&list=PLBuns9Evn1w9XhnH7vVh_7C65wJbaBECK&index=1 Do you know a great moment in unintended consequences? Leave a comment or email us at comedy@reason.com. ----- Part One: Pros and Coins The Year: 2008 The Problem: People aren't switching to dollar coins, even though they're heavier! The Solution: Allow the general public to purchase the coins at face value, directly from the U.S. Mint, and cover the cost of shipping. Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong? Turns out, people like free stuff! And some credit cards offer rewards. Consumers realized they could charge thousands of dollars worth of coins and then immediately pay off the balance with those very same coins, earning loads of free airline miles. Eventually, the Mint caught on, changed their rules and blocked suspicious buyers from further purchases, but not before many had jacked up their reward points banking free trips around the world. One frequent flier even is said to have bought $800,000 in coins helping him earn lifetime platinum-elite status on American Airlines. Now that's a coin trick. Part Two: Crop Drop The Year: 2021 The Problem: Sri Lanka's farms aren't organic. The Solution: An immediate nationwide ban on synthetic fertilizer and pesticides—which coincidently saves Sri Lanka $400 million in annual subsidy costs while they wrestle with a deep fiscal crisis. Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong? Turns out synthetic fertilizers and pesticides actually work! Six months after the presidential decree, Sri Lanka's biggest export, tea, was down 18%. Rice production plunged 20%, forcing the once proudly self-sufficient country to import rice at a cost of $450 million. Due to public backlash, the government was forced to reverse their ban and pay out hundreds of millions to compensate farmers—deepening the country's economic crisis, and fanning protests that led to the president's resignation and temporary exile. Rice knowing ya! Part Three: Wild Mongoose Chase The Year: 1883 The Problem: Rats in Hawaii are damaging valuable sugar crops. The Solution: Control the rodents by introducing a new predatory species: the Small Indian Mongoose. Sounds like…let's be honest we all know where this is going. It turns out rats are generally nocturnal while the Small Indian Mongoose is active during the day. So the two species rarely met! Luckily for the mongooses, Hawaii is full of appetizing native wildlife including sea turtle eggs and numerous species of endangered birds. With no natural predators, the Mongoose thrived! A hundred years later, they remain a massive problem on many of the islands. Great moments in unintended consequences: good intentions, bad results.