Saturday, 11 January 2014

A reminder of the effect of protectionism...

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Amidst all the nannying fussbucketry about sugar, I stumbled on a consequence of making the evil white stuff more expensive:



In the 1980s when the US price of sugar was pushed as much as four times higher than the world price there were many smuggling schemes if not actual sugar-runners. In our textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I discuss one scheme where Canadian entrepreneurs shipped super-sweet iced tea to the United States where the “tea” was then sifted and the sugar resold. 


Bans, tariffs, price-fixes - all the things so beloved by the fussbuckets - are just a recipe for cheats and criminals to thrive.

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In the 1980s when the US price of sugar was pushed as much as four times higher than the world price there were many smuggling schemes if not actual sugar-runners. In our textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I discuss one scheme where Canadian entrepreneurs shipped super-sweet iced tea to the United States where the “tea” was then sifted and the sugar resold. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/01/is-the-sugar-quota-justified.html#sthash.FHa9wuS7.dpuf

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