tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8425465111546757985.post4689173913053702737..comments2022-02-14T14:44:32.834-05:00Comments on En Primeur: Wine: Menace to Public Health?Jeffreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00840669464766451347noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8425465111546757985.post-60492499533015358112007-06-07T17:13:00.000-04:002007-06-07T17:13:00.000-04:00"The idea of the social insurance state is to prov..."The idea of the social insurance state is to provide benefits to citizens, not to justify re-ordering their lives."<BR/><BR/>Come on Jeff, you're smarter than this. I'm hardly a right wing crazy and tend to think that people stupidly employ econ 101 arguments too often in the political arena, but this is just silly because it completely ignores that people respond to incentives such that having a social welfare state will inevitably cause people to reorder their own lives. You seem to assume that we should all act according to what you (debateably) term our genetic predispositions. But the amount of wine I drink will inevitably be affected by the costs I will have to bear as a result. If the costs are going to be borne by society, I have an incentive to drink more. I don't think this outweighs the arguments in favor of a safety net, but to treat the decision to adopt a social welfare state as independent from behavioral choices is just naive. Moreover, if society is going to bear the costs of the increased drinking that social welfare policies encourage, shouldn't it be allowed at least to regulate far enough to counter-balance that effect?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8425465111546757985.post-67947014038852463392007-06-07T15:52:00.000-04:002007-06-07T15:52:00.000-04:00Please remember, England and Britain and UK are no...Please remember, England and Britain and UK are not synonymous (ask any Scot). In this instance, you need to use the UK, as it is a nationwide initiative.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8425465111546757985.post-37032946650679363772007-06-07T00:40:00.000-04:002007-06-07T00:40:00.000-04:00And even more importantly in the case of restauran...And even more importantly in the case of restaurant and other public place smoking bans, the motivation is not only to protect other patrons, who could, after all, simply go somewhere else, but to protect the workers in that establishment from a significant workplace hazard.lukenesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18079946330393822305noreply@blogger.com