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> Ah, the classic question asked of every overbearing economically-intervening government. STORY TIME! So I come from Slovenia, the land of wine that you've n
by Swizec 9y ago
> Ah, the classic question asked of every overbearing economically-intervening government.
STORY TIME!
So I come from Slovenia, the land of wine that you've never heard of. One of our things is that everyone with even a little bit of land grows vines and sometimes makes wine. There's at least a few vines growing in people's backyards even if they just eat the grapes.
People with slightly more land have vineyards and sidehustle making wine and selling it. This has two effects, 1) there's a lot of very very crappy wine out there, 2) crappy wine still gets you drunk so people keep buying it. As a result a liter of wine cost about 30 euro cents at one point.
So the government stepped in and put a stop to it. Gotta avoid crashing one of the bigger industries in the country right?
How do you do it? You pay people to cut down their vineyards. Cut it down and we'll give you X0,000 euro.
Now people have a choice, if they're making less than that much by selling their wine, they can take the government subsidy, cut down their vines, and go do something else with their life. This is a lucrative opportunity for all small-time wineries. Many people took it.
As a result, people who were making more than the amount of the subsidy, didn't cut down their vineyards AND they can now sell their wine for more than they could before. Very lucrative situation for them as well.
We now have a stronger wine industry, less crappy wine, and fewer pesticides and stuff making it into nature. Hobby vineyards tend to overspray because they really really really care about every little vine.
We still drink most of the wine ourselves though, so you are not likely to ever hear about Slovenian wine outside our country. My French girlfriend says it's the best she's ever had.
- wavefunction 9y ago>>you are not likely to ever hear about Slovenian wine outside our country. My French girlfriend says it's the best she's ever had. Sounds like an opportunity to market an entire country's wine culture. Once you get some recognition internationally, vineyard tours, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, etc with wine tourism.
- bisRepetita 9y agoYour girlfriend is in love... congrats! ;)
- Swizec 9y agoI also gave her the most expensivest bottle I could find to taste ;) And she had to say she likes grandpa’s wine. No other option there.
- deepnotderp 9y agoShhhh, don't say that, government cannot be good! You'll scare the libertarians!
- summer_steven 9y agopersonally i'd be outraged if my taxes were used to destroy edible food that could be given away to those in need
- Swizec 9y agoNo food destroying. This is about stopping grapes from being grown in the first place. Money going straight to taxpayers, too. It’s literally perfect.
- logfromblammo 9y agoIt's Broken Window Theory economics. You don't increase the wealth of a nation by destroying things. It probably would have been better to build some distilleries to buy up all the cheap, crappy wine and turn it into blended fortified wines. That would at least be easier to export.
- Swizec 9y agoThe problem is you’re not dealing with rational actors. A lot of this wine was somebody’s hobby and they would use it for personal consumption and sell to family only, or maybe to a local restaurant or two. No interest in selling to real businesses/distributors. Is it really broken windows if you encourage people to avoid producing negative economic output? Making wine is a veeery labor and chemical intensive process.
- logfromblammo 9y agoPeople doing what they want is never negative economic output. It is positive economic output that probably just isn't getting counted by your favorite metrics. If you can't sell someone a €2 bottle of wine because they make their own, which costs them €10 a bottle but could probably only sell on the market for €1, that just means they are deriving at least €9 per bottle of entertainment value from participating in the act of winemaking. That wine tastes better to them, because they made it. And that €10 is still going to the producers of winemaking equipment and support services, rather than to other makers of wine. The economist may say, "That bottle is negative output, because that €8 difference between making your own and buying at market is €8 that could be spent elsewhere!" But that person didn't want to spend it elsewhere. They were perfectly happy burning that €8 on their hobby, just like someone else might pay €8 to see a movie in a theater. Rational actors don't make themselves more miserable so that someone else can make another buck. And you can't say that €8 is wasted because the owner of it didn't spend it on what you wanted them to spend it on. Burning down your vinyard is actual negative output. The productive resource is gone. There are no grapes. There is no wine. There is no money paid to maintain the vines. There is no money paid for bottles or corks. There is no entertainment value from DIY winemaking. All that remains is the desire to drink wine, which can be fulfilled by someone else, whose wine is now worth relatively more only because it represents a larger slice of a smaller pie.