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Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

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Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#181

Post by boobsbr »

chiph wrote: post #48

The SC mini-bottle law has an interesting history. It was originally promoted by the Baptists to prevent alcoholism by limiting how much you could get in your glass (open-pour became illegal) The waiter or bartender had to crack the seal on the mini-bottle in front of you and pour the entire contents into your glass. No more, no less. This quirk in the law caused an unintended side-effect. Mixed drinks became very po…

> to prevent alcoholism by limiting how much you could get in your glass

because people couldn't possibly concieve the idea of drinking more than one mini bottle... /s

I really can't understand this kind of thought process.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#182

Post by boobsbr »

baddox wrote: post #140
lucisferre wrote: post #24

You should try Canada's laws for a while. Some of the highest taxes on alcohol in the world, almost no province allows drinking outside homes or licensed establishments (so be prepared for a $300+ fine for having wine at a picnic). All of this managed through archaic licensing systems run by bureaucratic power-tripping morons.

What's so good about that? That sounds approximately as bad as the situation in the US as described in this article.

it's sarcasm.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#183

Post by tptacek »

Crito wrote: post #147
tptacek wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's referring to the liquor licenses, I think.

I see... I guess one possible solution would be to make liquor licenses non-transferable, and then only issue them to businesses that are not located close to some threshold of other license holders. Calibrating those thresholds to not generate more traffic (as people barhop with cabs instead of walking between bars) and to not kill the nightlife completely would probably proof challenging though.

If you only issue licenses to businesses that aren't close to other businesses, you've created an artificial scarcity. That's fine, but the economically optimal solution to scarce licensing is auctioning or, if that doesn't work, secondary markets.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#184

Post by boobsbr »

wtbob wrote: post #60
gallerytungsten wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among other reasons, it's relatively easily to have a catastrophic fire. Unlike winemaking and brewing, where your end product will be in the range of 4% to 13% ABV, which generally won't burn, you can easily distill to 150 proof (75% ABV) with a simple pot still (or 190 proof with a column still). 150 proof is a highly flammable liquid. The vapor is flammable. If you have a vapor leak it can ignite. The flame is inv…

Yeah, catastrophic fires are an issue. And yet we've no problem with home storage of gasoline for lawn mowers (and yes, we don't typically collect gasoline in gaseous form over heat sources). Catastrophic fires are also an issue with deep-frying turkeys, and in fact with deep-frying anything. And we do already have a well-formed body of law dealing with responsibility for fires, damage to neighbour's homes &c. 'Someo…

Also, houses are made of wood and have carpeted floors. Highly flammable.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#185

Post by pbhjpbhj »

potatosareok wrote: post #171
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NY doesn't have enough road capacity to handle all of the taxis that would be profitable in a free market. // Are you sure it will increase the overall number of vehicles on the roads? There can only be more taxis if there is sufficient demand to pay for them and their drivers. If there are more taxis then there's a downward pressure on prices which, yes, creates the possibility of more demand. But reality doesn't…

I can't speak to this as a subject I've done a lot of research on, but this reminded me of a story I heard on NPR a few years ago. The story argues that taxis actually spend a disproportionate amount of time on the street, relative to other cars, and so have a disproportionately large effect on the overall city congestion. This is because cars drive point-to-point but taxis stay on the street all day. The conclusion…

You got me, it was more assertion than science!

Taxis here don't drive around without fares generally. [Private] Cars often park on the street too. Cars are most often used for 2-4 journeys per day making the cost of resources per day quite large - taxis are used for ... well I don't know the statistics but a lot more than 4 journeys in a day and they do far more people miles.

So, just looking at street space, if instead of parking my car on a road all day a taxi occupies that space occasionally whilst also doing far more people miles ... the taxi gets more efficient use of space and the resources locked up in the vehicle get more people-miles per unit time.

Of course private cars park in lots too, as do taxis here. Private cars don't often do one way trips in a way that is possible to get a proximal one-way journey in the other direction.

Thanks for the link - I've only read the summary but it doesn't say what the $500million of lost time is compared against? If instead of doing those journeys by taxi everyone walks will they really save enough time to create $500million of benefit? Or, will it just be $500million benefit to the richer folks (their delivery will cost 5¢ less or whatever) vs. $5 work time lost to a poorer person who relies on public transport [blind, hand-wavy, analysis!!].

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#186

Post by twic »

avn2109 wrote: post #83
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a license trade-able when you care about limiting the supply, but you don't care who gets it. The purpose of a taxi medallion is to limit the total number of taxis, and the purpose of a liquor license is to limit the number of establishments that sell liquor.[1] But the government doesn't care who has the license. Making it trade-able ensures that the license goes to the person or organization that values it…

>> "Taxis generate undesirable congestion..." Jane Jacobs rolls in her grave when you say stuff like that. The overwhelming majority of transportation engineers will tell you that taxis alleviate congestion by raising asset utilization. And they also reduce the need for vast parking facilities and block-circling in search of parking (which turns out to be a large fraction of traffic in some areas). It's a triple-win.

You're assuming that private cars are the current dominant form of transport. That's not always the case.

Transport planners i've come across would probably start wittering about modal shift. If introducing more taxis into a city leads to a modal shift from taxis to cars, it's a good thing. But if it leads to a modal shift from buses to taxis, it's a bad thing.

A Machiavellian transport engineer might even consider restricting taxis so as to maximise the available modal shift to buses (or rail etc), to make projects to introduce those easier to sell.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#187

Post by dragonwriter »

baddox wrote: post #175
dragonwriter wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we as a society can't aggregate our desires effectively enough to avoid a market failure (e.g. to fund a public good, like a highway system [0]), why should we expect to be able to aggregate our desires effectively enough to give legal authority to an organization to use violence to avoid a market failure? What if the problem isn't inability to effectively aggregate desires, its inability to redistribute externa…

Internalizing costs is certainly a part of what I meant by "effectively aggregate our desires."

Right, so you are using equivocation -- using the same term with two different meanings -- when you use "effectively aggregate our desires". In one use, it means "internalize externalities". In other, it means, well, its not really clear what it means specifically in terms of forming a government -- but its clear it doesn't mean internalize externalities since that's what the government is intended to do, not what is done to form it -- but you use the same term to misleading pretend its the same problem.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#188

Post by warfangle »

baddox wrote: post #178
warfangle wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[can't directly reply to nickff..hm, thread too deep?] In the dream libertarian world of Free Market, every agent has perfect knowledge for every decision they make, courts never make mistakes, transgressors are always held liable, and pot is legal. I'm assuming they'd probably have to sell themselves into sexual bondage to pay for the lawyer costs, but nickff does outline some interesting options! 1) a number of nei…

Can you explain how a government, particularly a modern republic that is at least ostensibly formed through consent of the governed, elections, etc., can solve these problems? I'm looking for a specific mechanism by which the people, who you claim are incapable of making correct decisions in a market, can make correct decisions when it comes to electing a government.

I don't claim The People are incapable of making correct decisions in a market. I only claim that they are irrational actors, and the hypothesis of Free Market sans regulations should probably be tested in some manner before being confirmed theory by its pious adherents.

You ask a very difficult question, and I know not the answer.

It's fairly obvious the regulatory bodies that exist today are corrupted.

Perhaps some sort of regulatory body that, per industry, is charged with prosecuting these types of lawsuits. A matrimony of lawyers and scientists-of-the-field instead of lawyers and business-people-of-the-field, perhaps: A bevy of prosecutorial lawyers governed by a board of scientists of the given field.

An EPA governed by environmental scientists instead of .. oh, wait! The last few directors of the EPA _have_ been environmental scientists. Perhaps if the agency had teeth and claws instead of throw pillows and accusatory fingers. But the cries of woe from Big Chemical if that ever came to pass! It would be so unfair!

An FCC governed by communications and data scientists instead of telecommunications lobbyists.

An FDA governed by doctors, toxicologists and clinical nutritionists.

But you asked specifically about electing a government. Again, I never claimed that The People are incapable of making correct decisions in a market, only that The People are, at the individual level, irrational actors without perfect knowledge of said market.

Gauss's law predicts that we will never, with a democracy or a republic, have a perfect government. We will, on the other hand, never have a truly deplorable government. We will just have an average government. We won't pick the best people for the job -- or, usually the worst. We'll pick the middle of the road, the mediocre, the Just Average, the fellow we'd like to have a beer with.

You ask about correctness -- how do you determine correctness? How do you determine that every choice was made without error? I suppose you could relegate the governing body to software written in Scheme - at least then you could prove that the software is correct!

But correct is, probably, not quite the word you were looking for.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#189

Post by tragic »

Pxtl wrote: post #58
k-mcgrady wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was one of the strangest things for me when I lived in Toronto. For some reason I always thought Canada was quite liberal with alcohol. LCBO stores were few and far between too. It was about a 30-40 min walk to my nearest one. Back in Ireland I can hit about 10 stores selling beer and liquor in that time! And there are a lot fewer drunks on the street.

Our liquor laws only look liberal because we're compared American absurdities like their 21-year drinking age and the the "no alcohol sales on Sunday" present in many states.

I feel there's a little of the old 'liberal Canadian' stereotype slipping in here. Toronto in particular has a very pious history. IIRC, there's one borough of Toronto (around High Park) that was officially dry until the early 1990s.

"Oh, for a half-hour of Europe after this sanctimonious icebox!", Wyndham Lewis famously said on visiting. Having said that, he was a bit of an old fascist - and I love Toronto dearly, however hung up about booze it is...

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#190

Post by bane »

dalke wrote: post #162
bane wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of good in the European approach to alcohol. It's not unusual to sit down with a glass of wine with lunch in Italy, but in the U.S. you might get flagged as an alcoholic. Children grow up learning how to manage alcohol better when they're adults and you don't see much binge drinking and rates of drunk driving are far lower. Then again, even the Irish are getting irritated with the Brits coming over to Du…

By "European approach" I don't think you mean "European approach." The drinking cultures in, say, the UK, Sweden, and Italy are quite different. In Sweden it's relatively unusual to sit down with a glass of wine for lunch, and the UK is much more beer oriented than Italy. In any case, does your logic extend to other forms of alcohol? Only a few decades ago it was common in the US to have a three martini lunch, and wa…

By "European Approach", I'm talking about the more acceptable normalization of alcohol as a food item. Americans treat alcohol like either radioactive poison or a moral suspension drug. I've noticed in my various times in various parts of Europe that alcohol consumption general starts earlier and the usage of it is generally better moderated in consumption than in the U.S. (there's an entirely different pattern for alcohol that I've seen in East Asia as well).

Sure, Swedes might not sit down and drink wine for lunch, but the grape/grain alcohol divide kind of is the cause of that. But I'm old enough to remember being able to purchase beer in Germany as soon as I was tall enough to look over the bar and get the bartender's attention.

You are right that alcohol consumption, particularly hard alcohol seemed to have been more common in the 1960s. Overall traffic death rates were very high before the Ralph Nader auto safety revolution, often for stupid reasons. I'm sure somebody has done a good analysis of the complex reasons why, but my hypothesis is that commonplace drinking has gone down as car safety has gone up, being attributed to traffic deaths by organizations like MADD, etc. It's become less socially acceptable to drink during working hours.

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