Nation's Alcohol Excise Tax Reaches Inevitable Point Where Australia Becomes 1920s Chicago

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2020s Australia now looks like 1920s Chicago.

From the public gangland hits, to the firebombing attacks on rival speakeasies - It's almost exactly the same.

Just Australian gangsters don't wear fedoras like they used to in the heyday of a blackmarket liquor trade.

In the 'roaring twenties' - as this era is now remembered, Chicago liquor kingpin Alphonse Capone ruled an empire of sin.

From gambling, prostitution, bribery, robbery, “protection” rackets and murder - everything revolved around the untaxed and free-flowing illicit alcohol trade that saw Al 'Scarface' Capone earning over $100m in revenue per year.

This underworld liquor market only existed thanks to The Prohibition - which was a nationwide ban on alcohol in the United States from 1920 to 1933, enforced by the Volstead Act under the 18th Amendment.

With 'Canadian Club' liquor being smuggled over the northern border, and moonshine being distilled by hillbillies in the Appalachian mountains - Americans were always going to get a drink - and Al Capone was just one of many gangsters ensuring that they did.

Even if it meant he had to massacre a few rival outfits and pay off a few politicians and cops. However, there was no such thing as a 'dry county' in 1920s America - and during prohibition it was even cheaper to get a drink than when it was legal - thanks to the lack of federal or state taxes per glass.

And this is how Australia has come full circle to emulate the prohibition-era American midwest, as the Federal Alcohol Excise Tax has been increased well past 'affordable' - thus pushing Australians towards a blackmarket.

In fact, beer and spirits may as well be outright banned in Australia - that's how expensive they've become to consume legally.

And almost overnight, the bullets are flying and nightclubs are burning to the ground - as Australia enters a roaring twenties of their own.

It is not known how the Federal or State governments plan to tackle this boom in organised crime that is directly related to their own taxes of grog - or if they will even acknowledge given the fact that they have spent so long convincing themselves that 'young people don't drink anymore'.

MORE TO COME.