1. In Hanoi, under French colonial rule, a program paying people a bounty for each rat tail handed in was intended to exterminate rats. Instead, it led to the farming of rats.
2. In British India, colonial officials paid a bounty for dead cobras. People began breeding cobras to collect the bounty. Officials then quickly canceled the bounty, which resulted in countless cobras being set free. The cobra population became larger than before the bounty.
3. From 2007 to 2010, Maryland had a tax just for millionaires. It was projected to increase revenue. Instead, the state collected $1.7 billion less than before and had a net population loss of 31,000.
4. In Ireland, a campaign to get to people to pledge not to drink alcohol led to an increase in people sniffing gasoline.
5. In 1990, Congress passed a luxury tax on planes, yachts, and jewelry that was projected to raise $31 million in revenue. Instead, it cost $24.2 million in lost revenue and unemployment benefits for the more than 100,000 people who lost their jobs as a result of the tax.
6. In China, Mao launched a campaign to rid China of sparrows which ate grain and reduced harvests. Sparrows were nearly wiped out, but their absence led to an explosion in the locust population, which led to even greater crop losses than from the sparrows.
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