Friedrich --

Free marketers, rejoice. Dr. Raj Persaud reports in The Scotsman (here) on research showing that people who yearn to be looked after by the state take worse care of their health (and in fact live less long) than people who favor the market. The catch is, alas, that this research was done in Russia, and may be a phenonemon unto itself.

Sample passage:

Pro-socialists are nearly one and half times more likely to be frequent drinkers than anti-socialists. Anti-socialists are also significantly more likely to take exercise, in fact, being pro-socialist decreased your chances of exercising regularly by almost 50 per cent. Furthermore, anti-socialists were almost 25 per cent more likely to go for preventive health check-ups compared to pro-socialists.

The story is full of ain't-Russia-amazin' statistics. For instance, adult working class males, while only 25% of the population, consume 90% of the booze.

The cliche in the States, of course, is that people in the Republican heartland are slobby widebodies while the urban and coastal Dems couldn't be more sleek.

Link thanks to the Mises Economics Blog, here.

Best,

Michael

Why do Rush Limbaugh, Rosie O'Donnell and Nathan Lane live in New York, then??

Posted by: annette on July 28, 2003 02:16 PM

Would this be a bad time to mention Ayn Rand's birthplace?

Posted by: Ed on July 28, 2003 04:30 PM






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