20 Pack, The Drinking Age, and the State of the Union

First, quite a bunch happened last night on I Love Money 2. Once again, someone on the green team (both Milf and Becky Buckwild) threw the challenge. The other members of the green team did what I thought was smart, and put those two and the weakest other team member, T-Weed, in the box. Frank the Entertainer then voided T-Weed's check. But that's when it got interesting. The guys had to choose who they thought was the most loyal guy, and the girls chose who they thought was the most loyal girl. The guys choose 20 Pack by a large margin. I thought that was a little weird. 20 Pack was an original captain, but he never took any responsibility. He just had the Entertainer choose his whole team. So I guess he has been loyal to the Entertainer, but why would Buddha vote for him? And why didn't anyone vote for Bones? He is definitely the most loyal person on the show.

The girls ended up picking Saphari, which I totally didn't get. Wasn't she paymaster last week, and didn't she send home Leilene, who shed] claimed to be great friends with? That doesn't sound loyal to me. Regardless, it turned out that 20 Pack and Saphari were the new team captains. One guess who didn't get picked. Of course it was Buddha. Well at least we don't have to deal with the Entertainer constantly bitching about Buddha anymore. But the strangest pick was definitely 20 Pack's second pick, which was Buckwild. Now Buckwild has been very open with the fact that she is in an alliance with Saphari, and has thrown challenges to keep that alliance. So why the hell would 20 Pack pick her when Saphari is the captain of the other team? He is just asking for her to throw challenges down the road. I really hope she doesn't though. My biggest complaint with the season so far is how easy it is to rig the challenges. In the game's current format, since a member of the other team gets to choose who goes home, there is a large incentive to simply throw challenges. If you do it consistently, then you will never go home because the other team will want to keep you around. It's stupid. It makes the challenges meaningless, and all that mattered was which person from the green team was sent home this week.

On a non-reality TV front, I saw a special on 60 Minutes on Sunday (it came on after the Nova-Cuse game, and i was too lazy to change the channel as I was doing dishes) about the 21 year old drinking age in the U.S. Now 60 Minutes is usually a liberal, populist, crappy show designed to scare old people into thinking that young people want to kill them and that government, not personal responsibility, is the solution to all of liefs problems. However, this week they highlighted the failed system we have in the U.S. to stop drinking under the age of 21. Personally, I think a minimum drinking age is ridiculous. Everyone always makes the point that you can be drafted and go to war at age 18, but you can't drink a beer. I think there is an even more fundamental problem with a minimum drink age. As any young person will tell you, there is a very strong and entrenched market for underage drinking. People are going to do it regardless of what the government tries to do about it. Now if the enforcement penalties are made stronger, it will deter people at the margin up to a certain point. No matter what the government makes the penalties, there will always be some people who want alcohol (see prohibition).

Now when a market exists for a product, the market can be governed by one of two sets of rules: either the rules imposed by the government, or the rules of a black market controlled by an illegal, non-governmental group. When it comes to underage drinking, the supply for its black market is provided by a variety of groups: people over the age of 21, teenagers with fake ids, theft, and corrupt store owners. The problem that occurs in a black market is that there is no forum for resolving disputes created in the market. The government's court system provide this service in a governmentally regulated market, but I doubt a 17 year old is going to file a fraud claim when his 22 year old neighbor rips him off when he picks him up some delicious keystone lights. Now this isn't as big a deal for underage drinking, because there are so many suppliers the market can regulate itself. Unhappy with your neighbor's service? Just go to your cousin.

However, there are many other black markets where this is a much more serious problem.
For example, take the market for illegal gambling. Historically, this market in the U.S. has been shunned by the government and controlled by racketeering organizations like the mafia. Because the official governmental position in most jurisdictions is total prohibition, there are many fewer suppliers for the market. In order to serve this illegal market, the supplier must be well organized, powerful and able to defend its market share. Due to the government's non-participation, governmental rules will inevitably be disregarded by the market's service providers. Think about it: if you are serving an illegal market, and one with strong penalties no less, why would you act legally to maintain you market share. There are limited incentives to do so. The same can be said for today's inner city gangs controlling the illegal drug market.

The moral of the story is that when a good or service has an inherent market, there will always be people who are going to be willing to serve that market. When the government creates a prohibition for that market, they are doing nothing but taking themselves out of the game. Obviously the government prohibition will deter some people, but as the number of suppliers drops, as will happen with a prohibition, the cost of the goods or services goes up, creating a larger incentive to enter the market. Eventually the price will reach a point where it is extremely profitable to serve the market, and since the service is already illegal to provide, there are few incentives to maintain market share in a legal way. At the end of the day, the suppliers will eventually become the people who will do the most, usually violently, to maintain control over the supply.

Now I'm not saying we should immediately make drugs and gambling legal, and end the minimum drinking age, but I do think we need to rethink some failed strategies. If you could buy currently illegal drugs at the store, you would be able to take away a major source of power and wealth from inner city street gangs. It is also one of their largest sources of conflict. It may be possible to reduce the number of violent crimes related to this illegal market by allowing the government to step in and regulate its sale. Additionally, it would vastly reduce the number of jailed inmates, eliminate the costs of fighting the war on drugs that has failed over the past 40 years, and take power from violent criminals that currently control the market. Just some food for thought.

Lastly, Obama's first state of the union address is tonight. I'm definitely going to watch it and am interested in what he is going to emphasize. I'm sure I'll be back in a day or two to complain about it, but for now here is a cartoon I found funny (click to make it larger).