Today I Learned...

First, I think that we, as a governmental unit, have a problem when there is actual case law deciding whether or not the X-men count as human.

The issue arose because many years ago, US doll manufacturers wanted to stave off foreign competition, and so got the tariff on dolls raised. This created a legal distinction between things-to-be-played-with-that-are-human (dolls), and things-to-be-played-with-that-are-not-human (toys), with dolls having something like 2x the tariffs. Marvel's lawyers went to court to argue that because the x-men were not human, they should be taxed at the lower toy rate.

Regardless of how the case was decided, this was a stupid argument. I think people everywhere on the political spectrum recognize this. But they (tend to) think the solution is to remove this one stupid law and move on (with liberals and conservatives disagreeing on exactly which laws are stupid). I view this as merely merely the most ludicrous example of the problems that arise from writing very specific laws, and that as long as you have that power, it will lead to bad results. This would be true even if there was an actual reason to tax dolls higher than toys: the burden isn't just to prove that we'll experience n% more growth if we tax dolls at a higher rate, it's to prove we'll experience experience n% more growth if we tax dolls at a higher rate after we've spent a bunch of money arguing exactly what a doll is. The money spent on lawyers and judges for that court case is a completely dead weight loss to society.

To use a more serious example: I'm conceptually fine with taxing junk food at a higher rate than food with nutritional value. But I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs of legally defining junk and not-junk, and the creepy symbolism of the government deeming what we should eat.

Second, there is an DEA created shortage of anti-ADD meds. They don't see it that way, of course. They don't even think there's a shortage, because you can still by full-priced name-brand Adderall and Ritalin. Every year the "the D.E.A. accepts applications from manufacturers to make the drugs, analyzes how much was sold the previous year and then allots portions of the expected demand to various companies." The original patent holder can choose how to distribute their allotment between the (expensive) name brand or (cheaper) generic. In something that comes as a complete shock to all of us, when there's no competition from other generics (because demand exceeds supply), they choose to make the thing that makes them more money. The DEA's official response to this is that there's no shortage if the name-brand is available, and if people can't afford it, that's the manufacturer's fault for being mean.

Supply restrictions create price increases. That's what they do. That's not even econ 101, it's just true. All this is being done against the scourge of college students using ritalin as a study aid/party drug. Which may not be good for the individuals in question, but I'm not seeing how stopping them is a public good. And no one else would either, if they hadn't been trained through generations of drug wars to expect that fun + chemical = government crackdown.

And the people using it recreationally are probably less affected by the shortage than legitimate-but-poor users. The recreational users will have on average more money and more connections. The poor people with ADD will find it harder to go to 20 pharmacies to find one with generics, not only because the usual transportation-while-poor-issues, but because they have ADD and I hear that sometimes makes it hard to focus on a finicky but boring task.