Great Moments in Unintended Consequences (Vol. 3)

Good intentions, bad results.

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Window Wealth
The Year: 1696
The Problem: Britain needs money.

The Solution: Tax windows! A residence's number of windows increases with relative wealth and is easily observed and verified from afar. A perfect revenue generator is born! 

Sounds like a great idea! With the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?

To avoid higher taxes, houses were built with fewer windows, and existing windows were bricked up. Tenements were charged as single dwellings, putting them in a higher tax bracket, which then led to rising rents or windowless apartments. The lack of ventilation and sunlight led to greater disease prevalence, stunted growth, and one rather irate Charles Dickens. 

It took more than 150 years for politicians to see the error of their ways—perhaps because their view was blocked by bricks. 

Loonie Ladies
The Year: 1992
The Problem: Nude dancing is degrading to women and ruining the moral fabric of Alberta, Canada.

The Solution: Establish a one-meter buffer zone between patrons and dancers.

Sounds like total buzzkill! With puritanical intentions. What could possibly go wrong?

It turns out that dancers earn most of their money in the form of tips, and dollar bills don't fly through the air very well. Thus, the measure designed to protect dancers from degrading treatment resulted in "the loonie toss"—a creepy ritual where naked women are pelted with Canadian one-dollar coins, which are known as loonies.

Way to make the ladies feel special, Alberta. 

Gallant Grocers
The Year: 2021
The Problem: Local bureaucrats need to look like they care.

The Solution: Mandate that grocery stores provide "hero pay" to their workers.

Sounds like a great idea! With the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?

Besides the fact that these ordinances may preempt federal labor and equal protection laws, a 28 percent pay raise for employees can be catastrophic to grocery stores that traditionally operate on razor-thin margins. As a result, many underperforming stores closed, resulting in a "hero pay" of sudden unemployment.

Don't spend it all in one place!

Written and produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg; narrated by Austin Bragg

[toolittletoolate]

My favorite aphorism about government: “Government is an elephant who, having accidentally trodden on a mother bird, locates her nest and sits on her eggs to keep them warm.”

[dans]

i don't think you'll run out of material for this series anytime soon

[LucidDreamer]

There is usually a bad outcome when politicians try to look like they care.

[fearthehoneybadger]

Wow. You'd think that politicians don't look ahead to determine the consequences of their laws before they make them.

[Threedog]

I just retired from the Postal Service. Employees got "hero bonuses" too... as long as they were in management. As a delivery carrier, coming in contact with hundreds of people every day, I didn't get any extra. Buy my boss, who sits at her desk inside the building, exposed to no new faces, got her bonus, on-top of her already high salary. And those bonuses went all the way to the top.

[juanmanuel]

Reminds me of how governments hired privateers to raid enemy ships, then they stopped paying them after the war ended, the privateers turned to pirates, which began the Golden Age of Piracy

[bigbadword]

"Don't spend it all in one place heroes" lol

[seanoleary]

#3 reminds me of the "I care" moments from politicians over the opioid "epidemic", people are dying from overdoses on legitimate pain medicine, so even though we have no medical training, we're going to tell Drs what to prescribe, but we care so much that now we make cancer patients, the elderly, and disabled combat veterans suffer, and the CDC has seen a mass uptick in pain related suicide, and a rising heroin market, which obviously leads to MORE OD's

[climaxingwalrus]

This should become a recurring video type that gets expanded on and uses and provides sources. This could go a long way to prove how good intentions go wrong. I'm sure there are plenty of examples to choose from.

[cameramanj]

We all know what they say: “The path to hell, is paved with good intentions”

[RationalEgoism]

On one of Peter Schiff's recent podcasts, he talked about buying a golf cart in Puerto Rico where he lives. A few years ago, the government passed a tax on inventories at the end of the year. As a result, no stores keep any inventory to avoid the tax. It hurts the economy and barely raises any revenue, but the tax isn't repealed because then the politicians would have to admit they were wrong.

[zunalter]

I think we should start challenging the assumption that the intentions are good.

[rodneykantorski]

This was Really, Really Good. Please make these regular videos. There's plenty of laws to pick from for sure 👍

[arthasmenethil]

"Local bureaucrats need to look like they care"
Isn't that the root of most of our problems?

[SkylerJCollins]

Government has only two legitimate roles: peacekeeping and dispute adjudication. That's it. Let people and market forces handle everything else.

[HVACSoldier]

The “Loonie Toss.” We would like to thank the Canadian government, for creating a problem that probably wasn’t.

[tylermarkham]

This series should be shown in all schools.

[TryNotTUnSubcribe]

I love these videos, please make them a regular occurrence!

[Tim_the_Enchanter]

We're from the government, and we're here to help.

I can't imagine ever running out of content for this topic.

[classixdrummer]

The grocery store debacle was absolutely the intended consequence. Remember you are actually watching the systematic dismantling of the modern nation state.