BA Ware: So we agree that smoking is detrimental to health. The economic cost of smoking, cannot be supported by using research statistics generated in another country. Slight error there.
Mortality statistics are class related. Higher the social class, longer the life expectancy. The higher social groups pay higher taxation during their working lives, so that would have to form part of any calculation to arrive at those conclusions which you are trying to achieve. The lower social groups are more dependent upon State support, during their lives, than the higher social groups. (That is certainly not intended to be a criticism).
Public houses are on the decline, thousands have disappeared over recent years. The reasons are complex, demographic change, economics, breathalysers, home comsumption, competing attractions, a million reasons. The small pub, like the small workshop, appears to be in terminal decline.
The small shop, likewise, is being being replaced. Giant supermarkets, large
pubs of the wetherspoon type, are on the ascendancy. Those changes, like many changes, will confer advantage and disadvantage: that is the nature of change. Talking in terms of fascist, Stalinists, and the like, as some do, is hardly rational or relevant.
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