Stuff You Should Know - This Custom of Customs

Episode Date: August 25, 2016

Customs may be a pain when you're traveling, but it's a necessary instrument the government uses to regulate trade. And it has a very fascinating history. Your passport please? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HouseStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and this is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And then, most of all, there's Jerry over there,

Jerome, the jayster. Most of all? Yeah, and this is Stuff You Should Know. That's right. Jerry's all dirty from shoveling coal from the Steam Technology episode. She is, and if you don't mind, I would like to point out something very exciting.

No, I do mind. Let's keep going. This is the very first episode out of 870 plus episodes where Josh is wearing short pants. Why would you say that? I do mind, I do mind, I take it back. Because I've seen you wear shorts like twice in my life. Mm-hmm.

Well, hold on, hold on. Get a load of this. Well, aside from every morning when we tumble out of our bunk beds, of course, when you're wearing your off-tuxedo pants. Those are boxers. But yeah, you never wear shorts as a rule, so I was astounded that you wore them into the office.

Well, I like astounding you. I like to just, you know, mix things up once every eight years. I look forward to what's gonna happen in- In year 16, 2032. That was some quick math, Chuck. Hey, I used to play darts. Oh, you know, there's a dartboard here, but no backboard. Yeah.

It's just like freewheeling who cares about the drywall kind of situation here. Pretty much. Crazy. 16 is a big number in darts, so. You get used to adding and subtracting it. Is it? Yeah.

What's a bullseye worth? A million? Well, I mean, it depends. There's historically two games that you'll play in darts, either Cricket or 01, 301 or 501. I've never heard that second one. Well, that's really the main game. Like if you watch professional darts

when they show it once a year on ESPN, which is great fun, by the way. Sure. They're playing 01, which is where you start with 301 or 501 and you work your way down to zero. Oh, so you're getting rid of points. Yeah, so you're throwing just for as high numbers as you can,

like a triple ring. And like a ton 80 is the most you can hit. That's three triple 20s in one throw, which is amazing. So what's the bullseye worth then? The bullseye in 01 is worth 50 on the red and 25 on the green. And then you have to, boy, we should do a show on this. Yeah, I guess we are right now. And then you have to go out on a,

like let's say you have 32 left. You have to go out on a double. So you have to do double 16 to go out. Man, this sounds tough. And everybody does this drunk. Yeah. That's really impressive. Right?

I didn't know you played darts at all. Yeah, I played in Athens in the league and then Atlanta in the league. And, you know, Justin is, he's like chairman or something of the dart league in Atlanta, of course. At least he makes everybody call him that. Call me chairman. We should do on a darts, man.

I used to love playing. I just don't do it much anymore. Okay, let's do it. So shorts, darts, and now we, and now we podcast. Yeah. And on Wednesdays, we wear pink. Today's Tuesday though. So I'm wearing shorts.

I'm wondering how many things I got wrong just in that little five minute. I was wondering the same thing. Anytime we explain something, we get something wrong. Have you noticed? Sure. And our job is to explain things, which is sad. I know.

So Chuckers, you know how when you go through the airport? Yes. And you come back into the country from out of the country when we were in the UK. Did you notice it took longer than usual to get through the airport to your stuff and out? Yes, although Emily and I got pretty lucky. It was a pretty speedy experience.

Oh, was it? Yeah. That's great. But it can vary wildly. Yeah, and the thing that can vary wildly is called customs. Yeah. Passing through customs. And actually, it used to be customs and immigration,

which depending on the port you were flying into, whether it be a sea port, an airport, space port, interdimensional port. Heliport. Heliport. Yeah. Scuba port. Sure.

Submarine port. Yep. Then airport. Ooh. I guess that's the same as an airport. Those might have been two different agencies, customs and immigration. Right.

Not so in 2003. As of 2003, in the United States, they were mixed together and put under Department of Homeland Security and now they're called Customs and Border Protection. That's right. And they're one agency now. Yes.

But the point is when you come through there, if you encountered back in the day the customs agency, they would have said, hey, you're a person. We don't care about you. We don't care where you've been. We don't care where you're going. We don't care where you were born. But we want to know what's on you.

Right. What did you buy while you were out of the country? Did you buy something? Tell us. They might grab your shirt and shake you a little bit if they're tough guys. And you'd start crying for sure. They'd see to it.

Yeah. And then if you say, well, I got this $1,000 watch, they say you owe the United States government some money, buddy. That's right. It is a way to regulate importing and exporting. Yeah. And trade.

Right. Trade, exactly. And trade is obviously a very old concept, right? Yeah. Any time one group had a surplus that another group wanted. I got lots of potatoes. Well, I got lots of wheat. Right.

Let's trade. Let's trade, right? Well, at some point, people said, wait, wait. This is going way too smoothly. We need to interject a federal entity to extract some sort of tribute from this trade. Sure. That's what a duty is.

That's what a tariff is. It's a government coming in and saying, we want a piece of that action. And depending on how you look at it, it can go one way. Like you can say, well, the federal government is actually promoting domestic business, which is true in a way, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's a good way to discourage doing business overseas is by imposing heavier and heavier tariffs on imports. If somebody's manufacturing potatoes overseas cheaper than they're manufactured here, the American people are going to say, well, we want these Irish potatoes. They're way cheaper. Yeah.

And it tastes better, too. Sure. And the US government will say, well, we want you guys buying domestic potatoes because it helps our economy. Yeah, have you ever been to Idaho? Right. Everybody lives in Idaho.

Why don't you want to help out the Idahoans? And so they'll place a tariff or a duty or just basically an extra tax on potatoes that are sourced from outside of the country coming in so that they cost about the same so that any red blooded American will say, well, it's about the same to buy Idaho potato as it is to buy Irish potato.

I'm going to buy the Idaho potato. And the federal government goes, yeah. Yeah, they say, look at it. It's stamped with a pesticide that says, made in the USA. Yeah. They stamp it with a pesticide. I was thinking of how that would work. Should we talk a little bit about the history of this?

Yeah, because this is actually this technique of the US federal government. Certainly not just the US that does this, but there's customs agencies. It's just about any developed country around the world. And I would say developing as well. Yeah. This custom of customs is about as old as the United States

itself. Yeah. And like everything in the United States, it starts with Alexander Hamilton. It's true. That guy is so hot right now. He's so hot. I just bought some Alexander Hamilton futures the other day.

So I'm sitting pretty. You just broke my brain. So what happened was Hamilton said, here's the deal, dudes. We don't have taxation yet because we were fleeing that kind of junk. But we're in trouble because we need some sort of revenue going to support our growing government and our growing nation's infrastructure.

Plus we have a lot of debts from the Revolutionary War. Loads of debts. Apparently the early Congress used to decamp from one city to another because they were being chased by war veterans who were owed money. Oh, I'm sure. They had nowhere to go.

They had no Washington DC yet. No, but I mean, it was Congress. And they were on the run from Revolutionary War vets who wanted their money. So while Hamilton did not himself start the US Custom Service the way, where did you find this? The National US Customs Museum Foundation. Yeah, straight from the horse's mouth.

They counted him as the intellectual father of customs, which I think is a great way to put it. Because he said, look, we can't have a federal government unless the federal government can support itself. And the only way the federal government can support itself is if it imposes levies on things that it really has nothing to do with. Yeah, so President George Washington, the number one guy,

said, Hamilton, you're on to something here. I like the cut of your jib, Hamilton. But it's a little weird with domestic taxation right now. Yeah, we can't do that. Yeah, people aren't keen on that just yet. Right. Well, we'll screw people far worse in the future, don't you worry.

Yeah, just wait. But right now, people aren't hip to the idea. Yeah, we tried to tax corn and the whiskey rebellion happened. So why don't we do this? Why don't we impose tariffs on imports and raise money that way? And let's create the first Congress. Let's get together and create the US Custom Service. Four months after we ratify the Constitution.

Yeah, pretty quick. Really quick. And it quickly grew to be for many, many, many years. In fact, for most of the history of the United States, the single largest government agency in terms of size and revenue. Yeah, for the first 122 years of its existence, it was the number one revenue generator.

And then the IRS came along and they said, you can collect revenue. Just watch this. Yeah, and they did. In 2015, the customs agency collected, I think, $35 billion. Crazy. Yeah, the IRS collected $3.3 trillion.

Oh, my god. That was so big turns of the thought. Yeah. Wow, that really threw me out. And that's enough to make you a libertarian, isn't it? All right, so I mentioned Washington DC. When? Earlier, like we don't even have the money from tariffs

built Washington DC, money from tariffs built the transatlantic transcontinental railroad, built all those lighthouses that we talked about. The Louisiana Purchase, the purchase of Alaska, AKA Seward's Folly. 1.5 million square miles of land purchased using tariffs via the customs office. If it hadn't been for the customs agency,

the United States would have only been able to expand its territory through broken treaties. Yep, which we were fine doing. Sure. But apparently, they wanted to legitimize it somewhat. Yeah. So we said, well, we'll just pay for some of it.

Yeah, pennies on the dollar. Give us that area, OK? Like we said, they were the first and only federal law enforcement agency. And for a long time, they handled kind of everything. Oh, yeah. Like they were doing way many more things than they should be doing.

So out of the Custom Service was born things like immigration, like you said. Sure. Coast Guard, Border Patrol, the VA, Public Health Service, and the DEA all were formerly, all that stuff was under the purview of the Custom Service. And the Census Bureau and the Standards and Measures Agency, all those cats.

Because apparently, Congress would say, oh, we need this. We need to start doing this. Just have Customs do it. And Customs would do it for decades. And then finally be like, dude, you've got to just, we have to cav this off as its own agency. Yeah. Eventually, they got smart.

Yeah. And now, that's what makes what happened in 2003 so curious. Customs itself got folded in with other agencies and then put under the banner of another larger agency. The exact opposite of what has historically been the case. Yeah. I didn't think of it that way. So the Customs Agency in service is a long tradition

in its early years of what was called the spoil system. And that's basically cronyism, political loyalties, and hooking your buddies up and your donors up. But like fat cat jobs. Not in any kind of underhanded or shady or back room deal way, like overtly. Yes. Like you raised a lot of political funds for my campaign.

So here's a cherry position in the federal government's bureaucracy. Yeah, via the Custom Service. Yeah. And there have been some famous men over the years. Yes, some of our best writers, actually. Yeah, weirdly. Nathaniel Hawthorne, he was not too distant.

He was an ancestor of the Pilgrims. The descendants. The descendants, right. They were his ancestors. Right. Had it backwards. And he's the great grandson of the judge who sat at the Salem Witch Trials.

So he got a fat position with the Boston Custom House as the wayer and gaiger. Yeah, which apparently was pretty important, because you'd be like, let me gauge that steel to see how much money you owe. Right. You know? Yeah, and it allowed him to make money enough

to go to his writing on the side. Don't you think it's a more or less expensive gauge than what you just got? And he would say, lay it on me, string bean. Yep. And he'd say, I'm going to knock off at noon today and go write some more stuff. Yeah, like the museum website makes this case,

like not just for Hawthorne, but later on for Melville, too. Yeah. That both of them were able to pursue their writing careers because of the stability that the working at customs gave them. They credit the customs agency for bringing Herman Melville out of an alcoholic depression following his failed attempt at a career in writing. Yeah, and I didn't even, I mean, this is a side note,

but I didn't even realize that Melville was not popular until after his death. Yeah. Moby Dick didn't blow up until, what, like 24 years later? Something like that. Yeah, everybody's like, this book stinks. I still haven't read it, have you? No.

Have you ever read Bartleby the Scrivener, though? I made it through that. No. It's one of his better short stories. It's just weird. No, I don't think I read any, Melville. That's a good one. I've got Billy Budd, and I've read maybe a third of it.

It's just so tough to read that guy's writing. Yeah. I think probably even back then it was tough. But, you know, to be a century and a quarter, a century and a half removed from that type of thought and that type of language in writing, it's even harder. It's dense. Yeah, for a while there, I was kind of of the mind of,

like, can I die without having read Moby Dick? And I kind of struggle with that. And then I was like. You could be just about everybody else. I was like, yeah, I could totally. I'm fine. Yeah. So you're not going to do it, huh?

No. I'd rather see a movie I haven't seen that only takes a couple hours of my waning years that I have in front of me. 30 movies. Like Casablanca. I've still never seen that. And I need to see that before I die. Not die without seeing it.

Yeah. And you should see Trainspotting. Sure, why not? The two classics, right? I guess we need to talk about prohibition a little bit, too, with customs and their history, because we had a great episode on prohibition. Sure.

Or they call it the noble experiment? Yeah, I never called it that. The dumb experiment. But this article points out that never in the history of customs has it been more dangerous to work for customs than during prohibition, like straight up gangster stuff who were much more well-funded than customs was.

And they would whack you for getting in their way. Yep. There was also a high time for bribery, too. Customs agents were bribed mad. Oh, I'm sure. And actually, there was a general accounting officer. Somebody did an investigation of customs and said, we haven't found any systematic bribery going on.

Right. Or systemic bribery. But just the very presence of drugs in the United States, like in the massive quantities it's in, indicates that somebody's getting bribed somewhere. It's just impossible not to. We should do a show on rum runners, too. Sure.

Because just this little piece tickled my fancy. They had much better boats and much faster boats than customs did. So they would bring this mothership, they called it, park it a few miles offshore, where it was legal to be there. International water. Loaded with rum.

And then the speed boats would, or for the time, speed boats, would just make runs out to this boat as fast as they could. And the customs people were like, we need speedy boats, too. Right. Well, that's where speed boats came from, was prohibition. And I think we already talked about the NASCAR thing with the fast cars.

Came from prohibition. So a lot of speed came out of prohibition. Yes. And not the druggy kind. No. That came out of the Nazis in World War II. Oh, really? Oh, that's the rumor.

Oh. I don't know. Well, let's take a break. And then we'll come back and talk a bit more about what customs means today. That's what you should know. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor,

stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in,

as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road.

Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear.

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Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Chuck, so we're back. We're talking customs. And when you talk customs, like you're talking again about the line of defense between unfettered trade across borders and not just among major companies, like importers and exporters and manufacturers and consumers

and all that, but also on an individual level, which is why it takes so long to come into the states or another country, because you have to go through customs, right? Their aim is to regulate trade no matter how large or how small. Yeah, and I kind of was surprised that they generated the kind of revenue they did,

because I was only thinking about schmoes like us. But big businesses, I mean, I was a dummy. I wasn't even thinking that they play obviously the biggest part in revenue, because they pay those big tariffs on millions and billions of dollars worth of goods that they import. And it's tough to regulate that kind of stuff. You can't inspect every shipping container that comes in.

No, although. So it's very random. There is something called the Safe Ports Act that was passed in 2006. And it called for 100% of containers that enter US ports of any type to be scanned, either with X-rays or CAT scans or something like that, but to be noninvasively scanned 100%.

And it was supposed to be up to 100% by 2012. Didn't happen. They gave it to your extension. Didn't happen. Give it another two-year extension. Which would be now, right? Yeah, still hasn't happened. But they're ramping up, though?

Here's the thing. There's a big debate. Like, a lot of the National Retail Federation, I think, is the big mouthpiece for manufacturers in this argument. They're saying, dudes, you can't do it. Like, if you do this, it will cease trade. It will wreck trade in the United States.

And other people are saying, well, you guys need to figure that out, because we've got to have our port safe. We need to know everything that's coming in. Why would it wreck trade? Because it will just hold up. Delays everything. Yes, the delays will.

I remember when this first got proposed and they were trying to implement it, I think it was an NPR piece about the port at Long Beach. And there was all this fruit just sitting there rotting off shore, because there was a line to get the stuff inspected. Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. And so they're saying, still, they're

pushing for this 100% mandate. And other people involved in importing and exporting and manufacturing and stuff are saying, like, you can't do it. You just can't do it yet. There's got to be other ways. And some of the other ways they're talking about are having like e-seals,

where a container is verified to have X amount of weight or whatever. And then it's sealed digitally. And then when it enters a port, it goes through like an RFID scanner, and the e-seal is verified intact somehow. And then you know, or you have a pretty great idea that the container has not been messed with since it's point of origin.

That's an awesome idea. It is, but at the same time, you have to rely on the people at the point of origin not to be like, yeah, sure, there's the same amount of cocaine that we put in there at the port where we sent it from. So yeah, it weighs the same, but it's still cocaine that you don't want in the country. Right.

You know what I mean? Sure. Depending on who you are. Well, then maybe the country of export, their regulations need to be stiffer, I guess. Sure, yeah. And there's an international proposal called the Safety of Life at Sea, I think,

where it's mandating 100% of all containers worldwide need to be weighed and verified before setting sail. Interesting. So I guess if you put those together, you could have a pretty legitimate international trade network. We should do one on shipping containers sometime, because apparently that changed the world.

Well, this sounds like it could be a big part of our platform for our run for the presidency in 2020. So are we in favor of the 100% mandate, or do we think it's insane? Well, I'll say we figured that out. OK, but either way, that's going to be a big point. I like your RFID thing. OK, it's not mine per se.

Not sure it is. I just said what somebody else came up with. As far as I'm concerned, it's yours. Thanks. So all right, we were talking about business, of course, just then. But before you teased with the single individual, which is what most of us, unless you're an importer or exporter,

have had more experience with. Sure. So what happens is you come into the United States. Or any country. Yeah. But we're US citizens, so we'll come back home. OK. From abroad.

Sure. Which we just did after our wonderful trip to Ireland in the United Kingdom. That is true. And they count on you just as though they can't inspect every shipping container. They can't investigate each of our individual shipping containers, which is our body and our suitcases.

So they count on you to honestly declare, say, I declare that I bought. I'm not going to pay a lot for this monthly. That I bought in France. I bought my daughter a little backpack. I think it's ugly, but she likes it. And I bought my mother a tea towel at Q Gardens. Which I just think it's gross.

And that's it. That's all we bought. It was all $45 American dollars. And I'm going to write this down in a piece of paper and hand it to you and take my word for it. Yes. And we should talk about this, Chuck. I found a great explainer from Mental Floss that really

breaks down the procedure and the expectations of when you, the individual traveler entering the United States, are expected to say to customs, right? Yes. So $45. Surely you can just be like, who cares about a tea towel and a backpack that my daughter is using? That's just luggage now.

So anyway, you would think, obviously, you don't have to say anything about this, right? It's $45. Well, if you're a dummy. Yes. Supposedly, not only are you supposed to declare this and write down the value of what you think it is, or what you think the value is, or the actual value based

on the receipt, if Chuck, you take your daughter's backpack now that you've bought it and already brought it into the country. If you take it back out and one of the straps comes off and you get it fixed abroad, you have to write down that you got your daughter's backpack fixed abroad and how much that cost you. Yeah, or if like, boy, I've been loading up on pastries

in Paris, I need to have my pants let out an inch. Supposedly, you have to cover that and claim your new larger pants. Anything you buy, inherit, or have repaired abroad. Or altered. Yep. You have to pay. You have to declare.

Right. You don't necessarily have to pay a duty on it, though, and that's where the exemptions come in. Yeah, and it varies from country to country in the United States. What is it, $800? It depends on where you are. $800 is typical, but it can go up to $1,600

if you're in an insular possession, like Guam, American Samoa, or the US Virgin Islands. Right. You can buy $1,600 worth of stuff and bring it in duty free. Or if you're married, you can declare as a family and each individual gets that allotment, correct? Right, so if you have something that's like $1,200, and Emily's bringing in something that's like $400,

you can combine the two and both jointly declare them for $1,600. You can combine your exemptions. But let me say that on vacation, you've never bought anything for $1,000, except food and wine. And that's a cumulative amount. Right, maybe an exotic lizard. But that's a whole other bag.

Yeah, but there was a good rate going on those. Right, or bush meat. Like it's almost cheaper to buy it than not buy it. Oh, abroad? Sure, what are you going to do? Buy one here? Get ripped off? I remember I might have said this one before.

My friend Andrew, one time, his old grandmother was talking about how it's cheaper to go on a cruise than to just stay in New York. So she cruised all the time. Is that right? She was like, oh, it's cheaper to go on the cruise. I don't know if that's true, but for her it was. Yeah?

Or at least she said it was. I thought it was very quaint and funny at least. You mean I went on a cruise and there was a legendary woman on there who'd been on. We went in May. Oh, she lived there. There was a woman who'd been on since December. Wow.

She just kept signing up for the next cruise stayed on the boat the whole time and was just having the time of her life. Crazy. We never saw her, though. I think they just used that to be like, yeah, don't you want to sign up for the next one? And then when you say no, they don't speak to you

for the rest of the cruise. That'd be great, actually. Don't bother me. Yeah, me alone. Where else? There are different growth programs in certain countries like the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan's Africa, where you can bring back more duty-free items.

So I guess just trying to encourage more trade with those places, which makes sense. So you have an exemption up to 800 bucks. And after that, after the 800 bucks, you have to start paying duty on stuff, right? Duty. And obviously, if you go over by $100, you're going to get hit hard.

No. Not the case. Oh, OK. I thought you were being serious. No. Now, duty's still not that much. It's nothing. So I think the first $1,000 after your exemption,

so you would have to spend $1,800 on stuff that you're bringing back in, right? It's still just 3%. Yeah. So if you're trying to like. So what is it, $30 on $1,000 worth of stuff? Yeah, if you bought things for a couple hundred dollars and you're trying to sneak it in there to avoid duty,

you're just being foolish. You're a dummy. Yeah, it's like a few dollars. Right. On that level. And the mental false article actually makes it the point that you won't even necessarily be charged that extra additional duty

because that requires paperwork. Right. That the customs officer has to fill out to collect, you know, five or 10 bucks from you. Yeah. They're probably just going to be like, just keep it go. Right, if it's not a whole lot. Yeah.

Yeah. You don't have any bags of cocaine in pellets in your stomach, do you? No. No. Come on. Look at me. And they go, all right, we'll go through.

And what's funny is you're allowed one liter of booze. Right. 200 cigarettes. Yep. And 100 cigars. Yes. Just a lot. Just a lot of cigars.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Unless you're an infant or a baby. Right. You can have the $800 exemption as a baby, but it doesn't apply to tobacco or alcohol. Right. But so you're allowed one liter per person through customs duty free.

And what's funny is everybody stops right there. Oh, well, I can't have more than one liter. Right. You can buy more than one liter. And if it's like $25, you're going to spend $0.75 extra cents on the duty. Right. It doesn't matter.

Yeah, and I just, I want to go on record of saying, I hate duty free shops. Why? Because they are awful. It's just like one giant, and especially in an international airport, you're forced to walk through this giant cosmetics, a salt of cosmetics, and perfumes since.

And me and my smells, I start sneezing walking through there. And it's all just, I mean, duty. I was looking up, I was like, how much of a deal is this? And it really depends on what you're getting. Well, with alcohol and tobacco, especially, it's usually a much better deal. Well, it depends on where you are and what you're buying. Like I looked up this one site that

compared a lot of airports and boozes. And like this one booze, I don't even know what it was. It was something, some Italian booze. Kristall? In Germany, it was 50% cheaper. Oh, really? It's a very good deal. But then I looked up Jack Daniels,

and they listed 14 airports around the world. And it was no more than $3 cheaper at any of them, or three euros. I think it's more like the thrill of buying some booze at an airport. That's what I think it is. It's just a big scam. You have duty-free everybody.

Well, what's funny is if you buy $1,000 worth of booze, you will get that first leader exempted. But then after that, you'll have to pay a duty on it, even if you bought it at the duty-free airport. Right. Because duty-free, when it's a duty-free store, like they're saying, we don't have to pay duty on it. Right.

We're going to pass the savings on to you. But if you're passed your exemption, when you go into your home country, you have to pay duty. Right. Because the duty-free refers to the owners of the store. Yeah, they should be called duty-free for me. Right. And maybe for you, depending on where you're at with your

exemption. Yeah, which is a clunky thing to call an area of the airport. Instead, they just call it things remembered. Well, I didn't know this, because I haven't been on a transatlantic flight in so many years. But they sell that junk on the plane. Oh, yeah.

They were walking up and down the aisle, hawking watches. That doesn't bother me as much as the credit card, pushing the credit cards. But they have a seven-minute announcement about how they have this great credit card deal. And get it now, and don't you want this. And then they send the people up the aisle, a credit card, credit card who wants a credit card.

I just want to fly in peace. Yeah, that's what I want. All I want to do is just fly on Delta. And listen to stuff you should know and watch internet roundup. Hey, shout out to Virgin Atlantic, though. I had a good experience flying with them. They're a partner of Delta's.

I wouldn't expect anything less. Yeah, it was very nice. They don't nickel and dime you. And I said that on the website. Now they're pretty awesome. Or on Facebook the other day. And someone from the UK said, what does nickel and dime you mean?

Shilling and tuppence. Yeah, I guess pints and farthings. Maybe. No, I said I guess it's a strictly American term for just charging you little bits for every little thing. The pillow is this much. The movie is this much. The earphones are this much.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, all the movies were free. They give you headphones, which I'd already had my own. And give you an eye mask and a toothbrush. And it's all just very nice and civil, like it used to be. They'll put you in a sleeper hold until you fall asleep if you ask them to. Yeah, this lovely English gentleman put me in a sleeper.

It was hilarious. He said, night to night. I've been asleep. We covered duty in its fullness? No, but we should probably take a break. All right. And we'll more duty after this. Definitely should now have.

On the podcast, Paydude, the 90s called David Lascher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal?

No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy,

blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to

when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody

about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Chuck, we're back and we're talking about duty. I hate duty. Do you?

No, I just hate the, I already went off on duty free. Yeah. Oh, I've got a tip for you, though. It feels like just this, that gross consumerism, like Black Friday. Oh, yeah. No, no, it's me. Duty free, let me buy booze and perfume.

I know what you mean. The thing is, a smart traveler tip for you here, if you ever have a layover at an airport, make your way, and especially if it's early morning or yet an overnight flight or whatever, make your way to the duty free section. Go to that cosmetic section and look for stuff like toner or under eye balm or something like that. And brother, it is refreshing.

Really? Yeah, they've got all the samples there and it's just stuff that will make you feel human again. I like this taste spray. Just a little boost, just enough to get you where you're going. All right, back to duty. Well, here's a few things I thought

Mental Floss is always so great about. I want to point out, Chuck, every single time one of us has said duty, Jerry's like snickered over there. She has, because she thinks it's spelled D-O-O-D-Y. Mental Floss is always so great about adding fun little lists to their articles. Yeah, listicles. Yeah, well, this isn't quite a listicle,

but they gave a few examples of some weird regulations. And they have one on absinthe. You can bring absinthe back, but it has to be that cannot have the ingredient. How do you pronounce that? T-H-U-J-O-N-E, through Joan? Yeah, sure. So June?

Through Haune. I don't know what the country origin is. I didn't even know that was in there. I thought a wormwood was the active ingredient. Well, it may not be the active ingredient, I don't know. And then Custom says, the term absinthe cannot be the brand name, and it cannot stand alone on the label. The actual word absinthe, and this one's hysterical,

the artwork cannot project images of hallucinogenic, psychotropic, or mind-altering effects. Like it can't have on the bottle like a guy going, whoa. It can't be wowie-zowie brand absinthe. Yeah, which, of course, yeah, that would be psychedelic. Sure. Everybody knows how we zowie means. Oh, I thought you were going to say wavy gravy,

that's what I was thinking. That one, that would work, too. What else? Oh, oh, you can't, as of 2000, the year 2000, you can't bring in anything made of dog or cat fur. Awesome. Yeah, I can't believe that this is a law that had to be passed. Well, in other countries, they do different things

with dogs and cats, you know? So you can't, if you have a dog skin cap, you'd better prepare to have that thing confiscated at the border. Yeah, and spanked by me. You need to hang out at Custard's Boy. I do, let's bring him over here. This one is interesting.

Haitian animal hide drums from animal skin. You can't take it back because of anthrax. And remember our own Stuff You Should Know TV show had a subplot in an episode about a disease from a drum brought back by fake Jerry, played by Lucy Wainwright. Yes. She brought back a drum that had, was it anthrax? Was it necrotizing fasciitis?

Is that what that one was? Yeah, it had some disease on the drum head. But apparently, and we wrote those episodes, so I guess we got it from the fact that it's a real thing. I just don't remember. I don't either. I don't even recall our TV show. I don't either.

I drank to forget. So Chuck, we haven't really talked about the big thing that customs is known for, not just regulating trade and shipping containers and all that, but thwarting smugglers, right? Yes. Because you talked a little bit about rum runners. That kind of thing still goes on.

There's B-Boat Chases. Yeah, they can search you in an airport. Sure, yeah, that's the thing about customs is they do not have to have a warrant to search you. They don't even have to have probable cause. No, they can just take everything out. Yeah, I don't like what your hair looks like. I think you look like a drug smuggler.

Yeah, and come into this room and take your clothes off. And there's a storied history, I guess, of customs agents like just looking at somebody and being like, that guy's drug mule. And the person turns out to be a major drug mule. And they tried, I read this article in Los Angeles Times. I can't remember what it was called, but it was about how the customs agency is

trying to quantify that or turn it into a seminar, like take these decades of experience and intuition and figure out how to sniff somebody off the case. And apparently, they've turned to behavioral science and really there's courses that they teach customs and border patrol or border protection, how to suss out lying or deception. How to racially profile?

Probably. But I think in this particular, so that's a different course. This one is they say, well, if somebody has a hat or a newspaper or something like that, they might put it between you and them because they're putting up a barrier because they're deceiving. Like a micro expression.

Right, micro expressions, body language, speech patterns. Like I guess if you have a very pat, streamlined answer of where you are abroad, that's going to raise a flag. Interesting. If you're too smooth, that's way, way more unusual than somebody being like, well, also, I went to Canada and I wasn't going to go to Canada, but one of my friends said, let's go to Canada.

So we went, but we were just going to hang out in New York. So that's how I'm here. Yeah, that's a step over here. No, that's gone through. Oh, it is? You're such an obvious idiot. You couldn't possibly be trusted with a bunch of drugs. I thought there was a middle ground.

If you're like, I just went to Montreal, why do you ask? Right. Then they would say, take those pants off. You clearly have a suitcase full of Faberge eggs. What do you have in those shorts? But you were talking about drugs, which is the big thing. Yeah, and again, I think you said that the DEA finds its origins in customs, right?

That's right. And everyone works in concert today. The Custom Service will work with the DEA and the Coast Guard and Immigration and Naturalization, because they all want to keep the drugs out. So the Custom Service will have a plane, one of those radar planes that flies very high above looking at boats.

And then they'll see a boat that looks shady, and they'll call down to the Coast Guard, or maybe their own office who calls the Coast Guard. They should go out and let's see what's going on in that boat. Yeah. And what I think, the description of this is hilarious. They basically just chase them in a boat until the guys decide to stop.

What else are you going to do? They board the boat and say, put up your hands. Yeah. And they do. If they have a plane, they will get a couple of things going on them, a jet plane to track from way behind, and then a Black Hawk helicopter to follow right behind the plane, then they don't see them.

Yeah, behind and beneath. Yeah. And apparently, yeah, you can't see. And I was thinking about them, like, yeah, there's no side view mirrors on a plane. It's hysterical to think about a drug plane just flying along. Like, this is great. There's a Black Hawk helicopter right below them.

Just like, all right, suckers, just go ahead and land. And then we'll introduce ourselves. Right. And that's what they do. Yep. And some people just say, I'll take my chances. Yeah. Walking through an airport with cocaine taped to my body.

These are the people that make for the best crazy stuff smuggled through customs or crazy ways to smuggle drugs. But I wonder how many, like, you hear about it on the news when someone gets caught. Right. People get away with it a lot, I bet. Right, because that's what they're doing. They're playing the odds.

That you're just not going to get sniffed out. No, right, exactly. And I think it's probably exceedingly difficult these days to make it through, especially if you don't actually have it physically deposited inside your body. Right. Because of not just the drug dogs, but they have devices that can smell air.

Essentially, it's a sniffing device. Yes. And it figures out what molecules are floating around the air. And if it's like, oh, well, this is cocaine, there's probably cocaine in that person's suitcase or whatever. Yeah, an electro vacuum is what that's called. Right. Amazing.

Difficult to get around that. Difficult to get around a dog. Plus also, you're also being scrutinized by the customs agent himself or herself. So I would imagine it's very tough to get it through unless you've ingested it. And some people have. There's a dude who got caught in, I think, Miami

or Fort Lauderdale. In 2015, he'd swallowed 148 pellets of Coke, three pounds, yet in his stomach. That's so dangerous. And another woman got busted with three pounds in her breasts. I remember that one. His breast implants. Crazy.

So you'll still get busted. But I think you make a good point. I really wonder what the estimate is for how many people who actually do make it through, unmolested. Yeah. Here was our deal coming back in this time. It was way easier and quicker than I thought.

Like, we filled out the little customs card on the plane. They didn't even ask for that. Yeah, I didn't even fill one out. They asked for a couple of questions. Like, what did you bring in? We said, a few gifts. How much was it worth? $80.

And they said, all right, welcome back. And I said, is that it? Walked through to the luggage. And I thought there would be a more heavily scrutinized process after that or something. And there wasn't. There were a couple of beagles. Very cute drug sniffing beagles.

And they were walking around. And that was it. And then we got our stuff and left. Well, your bags had already, I'm sure, been x-rayed and crazy, like exposed to some other stuff. Yeah. And it's not just like at the airport, at ports. Like, the border between Mexico and the United States,

they have truck-size x-rays that they make supplies drive through. That's crazy. They x-ray them. And that's part of that 100% initiative. They want to be able to do that to 100% of everything, all containers coming in the United States, like I said. Or they have x-ray rooms, like in Total Recall, where you just walk everyone through this room.

They look for weird bulges. Right. Or hollow, empty spots that shouldn't be there. You still haven't seen Spinal Tap, have you? I have. Oh, you did? Yeah, but I don't remember a lot of it. When the bass player, Derek Smalls,

played by Harry Shearer, he's going through. And he has metal on him. And they have the metal wand. And it's going off every time they pass over his crotch, his groin area. And he's like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. He takes a cucumber wrapped in tinfoil stuffed down his pants.

Why would it be wrapped in tinfoil? Well, that's just part of the greatness of that joke, I think. That is a good joke. You know, it was very funny. What else? One of the things that got me, which is pretty smart. So they might take a dog on a plane. Oh, like after it's de-boarded?

Yeah, and have the dog sniff around. Because they may miss it as you're walking past. But if you've been sitting on a plane for eight hours, that drug smell is going to get into the seat. Yeah, you can be farting cocaine smells. Exactly. Into that seat. And if that dog sniffs that, they'll say, well, who was in 13B?

And they'll say, oh, well, Josh Clark was. You're in the duty-free shop thinking like, I just got to be with it. Home-free. Home-free. I'm putting some moisturizer on my face, thinking about all the money I'm going to have to buy moisturizer with. And yeah, they come get me.

Yeah, next thing I know, there's a beagle sitting down next to me looking up. And I go, uh-oh. You know what you do, though? You just spray some rose water in the beagle's face and run. And make a cap out of its fur. Oh, why'd you have to go there? Another thing that they're looking for is cash money.

Oh, yeah. Laundering money and getting it out of the country is a big deal. Yeah, the Customs sees something like $53 million in bulk currency and cash. I think what is it, 10 grand that you have to declare coming back into the US? Anything over that?

And they're not going to. You can take as much in and out as you want, but you have to declare it because they want to keep track of that kind of stuff. Because I don't know if we said, in addition to goods being imported and exported, a country especially like a centralized federal government wants to know where its arms are going, they want to keep a tight control of that, and

where its money's going. Because you can destabilize a country with both of those things. And so they try to keep a pretty good eye on where it's going and where it's coming from. Not just that it could destabilize the government, but they want a piece of it. They want to tax that stuff.

So yeah, one of the easiest ways to launder money is to just smuggle it from one country to another. Smuggle it out of the US to a country that's not really paying nearly as much attention. Bam, you get some legitimate funds. Yep, and we did an episode of money laundering, correct? Yes, we did. And we did one on police dogs.

Yeah, our stink is all over this thing. And then finally, one of the things that is a big deal, if you've ever traveled in and out of California, let's say, is one example. They actually have a produce stop where you're stopped in your car, and they say, do you have any produce on you, any vegetables, any plants? Just a cucumber with tinfoil wrapped around it.

These are actually legal goods, but they are prohibited in certain areas because of infestations of various pests and notably in California in the 1980s, a couple of things happened. The 1980s was a bad decade for the med fly in California. Early on in the early 80s, it was a bad infestation, and then Governor Jerry Brown had a series of missteps on whether or not to spray the state with this gross stuff that would kill

the flies, but also have bad effects in the environment. And he was an environmentalist, and I can't remember. I think he eventually did spray, but waited too long and cost the state a lot of money. But he also angered the environmentalists. So he'll be off, it was like, eh, probably. It may have been a no in situation, and I'm sure some Californians will have a better memory of this than me.

But supposedly in the late 80s, there was one piece of bad fruit that caused a big med fly outbreak. And then I looked up, in 1989, there was an intentional, supposedly eco-terrorist attack, where a group called the Breeders unleashed med flies in response and retaliation against all the spraying, which doesn't make any sense, because that would only mean they'd have to spray more. No, it's not very sensible.

They didn't really think it through. But I think that they eventually said, I don't think this is real. I think this was a hoax letter. But we also can't explain the concentration of some of these outbreaks. And it perhaps may have been intentional, who knows. Wow.

Yeah, eco-terrorism. Yeah, that's pretty surprising. But the idea that the first one, though, was just completely accidental. It was one bad piece of fruit that one traveler brought. Supposedly, I couldn't find like mango zero that started it. And I looked around a bunch, but I couldn't find like verification on that, interesting.

But yeah, Hawaii's really big on that, too. Oh, I bet, yeah. And then, I don't know if you remember, but last year, I think in May of 2015, Johnny Depp caused a huge stink. He and Amber heard. My opening his mouth. Where he and Amber heard where they were in Australia for, I think, a premiere of one of those Pirates of the Caribbean

things. And they just brought their dogs with them on a private show without sending them through quarantine. It was a huge stink. And rightfully so. Yeah, he's Johnny Depp. Just the arrogance. And Amber heard is Amber heard.

I think both of them are just like, we don't have to deal. We'll just bring the dogs. Who cares? Who cares about the stupid quarantine law? This continent's just an island. Yeah, I remember that. It's what do they call that, privilege? Yes.

Rules don't apply to me. Entitlement? Yeah, entitlement. We just shamed them. Well, good. Johnny Depp doesn't listen to this. I think you're right. Finally, I already said, finally,

cultural artifacts are regulated. Although fine art supposedly is not subject to tariffs. Is that right? Right. Duty. No, and they're big into cultural artifacts because so much of it is looted. Yeah.

I should say illegitimately looted. All those things are looted. Yeah. But ICE, apparently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is big in cultural artifacts repatriation. Right. And there's a difference between ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, or Border Protection.

Yeah. Apparently, Customs and Border Protection staffs the borders. They protect the borders. And then ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, carries out law enforcement that has to do with Customs and Immigration within the United States. Gotcha.

So once you make it through, once you make it past Customs and Border Protection, you still have to deal with ICE coming and finding. You're kicking down your door. Right. And being like, give us back that Mesopotamian tablet. And they say, who are you? And they say, we're ICE.

I think that, yeah. Yeah. It's played by the rock. I imagine the guy from The Shield as ICE. The ball dude? Yeah. I never saw that. I heard it was good, though.

Great show. Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely overshadowed by the wire, because they both came out at about the same time. Yeah, and the wire was so great. And it's just not a fair comparison. They're just two different shows. But it was nuts, man.

Like, there were several episodes that were like episode four, the first season of True Detective, just insane from beginning to end, you know? Yeah, I think I realized after our talk, when I said I didn't watch, was it NYPD Blue? I think I realized. No, you said Law and Order. Yeah, Law and Order.

I have an aversion to clop shows. Oh, yeah? I think so. Like, I watched The Wire, and I watched Hill Street Blues in the 80s. I never watched that. Oh, I love that show, which is funny, because it wasn't like a show for 12-year-old kids.

I know. And I don't think I've watched a whole lot of, like, I watched Dexter some, but that wasn't exactly. Yeah, that's more of a serial killer show than a cop show. Yeah, and it got really bad. Or a forensic show. Man, off the rails is. Yeah.

But yeah, I don't watch a lot of cop shows. I did watch True Detective season one. That kind of counts, too. That went off the rails, too. What, for season two? For season one, like the last couple episodes. Yeah, it was kind of a let down. Whatever, who cares, right?

Or it went on the rails. How about that? Yeah, who cares? It's TV. It's not important. And we can say that, because we had a TV show. Yeah, it really didn't change our lives in any way. You got anything else?

Nope. So that's customs. If you want to know more about it, there is plenty more to know. You can type that word into the search bar, howstuffworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to say this is something to open all of our eyes.

Hey, guys, as a Canadian, I was happy to spend one long walk recently listening to the mysterious feet washing up on the shores of BC, British Columbia. You said that they have a shockingly large number of missing persons cases. And while that's true, you guys expressed surprise and threw out a few humor suggestions on why. But there's one concrete factor that really contributes

to the high rate of missing individuals. It doesn't get a lot of airtime internationally, but only recently became newsworthy. Within Canada, even, disappearance and murder of native and indigenous women who live in the province. Have you heard of this? Yeah, a couple of people emailed in right after that. Oh, really?

When they came out, yeah. Very sad. She said no one likes to talk about it, it seems. One, our last prime minister even straight up said an interview that missing and murdered native women were not a priority for the government. As far as I can see, the why is pretty clear. It's happening, and it's allowed to happen because of sexism

and, more importantly, racism. You two are really great at making sure you challenge sexism whenever you can. And I commend you for that. I thought it was a missed opportunity, though, to discuss racism and open it up to a similar discourse. And I emailed her back, and I was like, well, I didn't know about this.

We totally would have. Thank you so much for continuing to do the show when people ask why I love it so much. I simply tell them that your camaraderie and ease makes me feel like I know you both. It's always fun to listen to things explained by your friends. And that is Emily Owens. Currently in Kuala Lumpur, but of Montreal.

Of Montreal, huh? Canada. And she, by the way, there's a follow-up on this, an article from MediaSmartz called Media Portrails. Well, this is the URL, at least, just Google MediaSmartz and Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women. And then she said there's also a great documentary called Highway of Tears, but heads up

will make you feel crappy for days. Let's just do one on that. Yeah, we should. She didn't say crappy either. She said cruddy? Yeah, she said cruddy. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

OK, well, thanks a lot, Emily. We appreciate that. And keep an ear out for an episode on that sometime down the road. Touch. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can hang out with me, too, on Twitter at joshumclark.

You can hang out with us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. Yeah, and I got my own little personal public figure page now, Charles W. Chuck Bryant. It's a lot of fun. Nice. Like the original stuff you should know fans are hanging out there.

Oh, yeah, that's the place to be. It is. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuff you should know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s,

called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.