Nothing says we're doing something quite like a fresh round of economic sanctions. They're cheap, they're popular, and they let politicians look tough without adding much pain at home for Americans. But do they actually work? From Iran to Cuba, with oil tankers quietly dodging the rules in between, Lou and Phil look at who really ends up picking up the tab when a nation gets cut off. Pour something strong and press play on this episode of Happy Hour Econ.

Somewhere between tariffs, resurrected 1930s legislation, and a rebranded Great Lake, the United States decided to start a trade war with its most polite neighbor. Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act—yes, that Smoot-Hawley—has been dusted off from the legislative graveyard to justify slapping Canada with tariffs nobody can quite explain the reasoning behind. Lou and Phil sort through the legal mess, the retaliatory liquor store bans, and a history lesson on the one war America actually lost, all while asking who really foots the bill when two friendly countries start slapping tariffs on each other. Pour yourself a drink and settle in for an episode that's equal parts economics lecture and international incident.

Dolly Parton was so beloved that her passing briefly brought the nation together. She was a country music icon and savvy entrepreneur who built a genuine business empire from a childhood spent in a one-room Appalachian cabin. Lou and Phil look at how she held onto her publishing rights when so many artists signed them away, turned a struggling stretch of Tennessee into a tourism powerhouse with Dollywood, and quietly gave away hundreds of millions of books through her Imagination Library. It's a rags-to-riches story that somehow undersells just how much she actually built. Pour one out for Dolly and tune in for Lou and Phil's full toast.