Survey: Alcohol consumption dropped in Finland after tax breaks
In a big blow to the Finnish left, Finland’s National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES) released statistics yesterday that shows alcohol purchases rose up by 10% when the government cut taxes on alcohol last year – but their survey results showed that men reported falling consumption as well as fewer negative effects of alcohol…
Researchers conclude that one explanation may be that large-scale consumers, who usually escape the scrutiny of survey makers, increased their intake even further.
Another reason may be simply old-fashioned self-delusion.
Yup, I think STAKES has a case of old-fashioned self-delusion – they can’t even fathom the possibility that purchases could go up while consumption and negative effects goes down. They must think it’s a big conspiracy put in place by the people in order to trick the government into further tax cuts. Typical left-wing mentality to take a survey and when they don’t like the results, simply discredit the respondents calling them, “self delusional”.
So how could purchases go up while consumption and side effects go down?
- Alcohol is now much cheaper in Finland than in Sweden and Norway, our neighbors have been importing more often.
- Fewer Finns journey to Estonia and bring back alcohol, it’s no longer worthwild. So no one’s drinking habits change, they just purchase more in Finland instead of Estonia or elsewhere.
- Prices of 12-packs of beer have been slashed in half, many have chosen the safe beer instead of their normal hard liquor. (less negative alcohol side-effects)
- Since alcohol prices are cheap, people have purchased in bulk and stored the drinks in the closets for later (maybe fearing that the government could raise alcohol taxes at any second)
So congratulations to the Finnish people for proving the socialists wrong!! Lefties were positive that this country would become a nation of alcoholics following the tax breaks, but the citizens proved just the opposite!
