Early Riser
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Hi Odyssey
We have €200 billion of national debt and €300 billion of unfunded pension liabilities. No one is paying their way. I think we should begin to do so.
Brendan
Perhaps there is a way of addressing this issue and the related Nursing Home and Housing issues in a way that that is win-win for everyone. This from a recent British economics analysis:
The free market Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) calculated the cost of smoking at £4.6 billion, including treating diseases, tidying up dropped cigarette butts and putting out house fires.
But tobacco duties brought in £9.5 billion a year and the Government saves £9.8 billion in pension, healthcare and other benefit payments because of the premature deaths of smokers.
The think tank accused politicians of "scapegoating" smokers, drinkers and the obese, claiming the £24.7 billion revenue from "sin taxes" far outweighed the costs they impose on the public finances.
"Taken together, Britain's public finances would be £22.8 billion worse off if there were no drinking, smoking or obesity," the IEA research paper said
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/06/smokers-good-economy-think-tank-finds/)
Extrapolating from this, we could improve the national finances by over €2 billion per year, reduce nursing home needs and free up loads more houses if our Government would just reverse tack on public health policy ! Maybe they could even reduce duties to encourage "appropriate" lifestyles and we could all die a few years younger and happier, free of national debt ?