[logfromblammo]

It'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]

The 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]

People 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.

[Swizec]

I don’t think you realize how much labor and arable land goes into wine making. It also creates a lot of alcoholics.

When the normal culture in vast regions of the country is to drink 6 liters of wine per day (yes one person) you have a problem. One way to fix it is to incentivize people to stop hoarding hectoliters of wine in their basements.

My grandpa stopped making wine 5 or os years ago and still has about 1,000 liters of inventory. Now that he drinks less it’s almost def gonna last him for as long as he stays kicking.

How’s that for broken window?

[logfromblammo]

I can't even drink 6L of water per day. I can only assume that young Slovenians must have a routine operation to install a wine bladder somewhere along the gastrointestinal tract.

Can you hear the sloshing as people walk? Do you have to salt the wine to avoid a nationwide epidemic of hyponatremia? Do people actually eat food, or do they just get all their dietary calories from sweeter wines?

Six liters? What the hell? I might have had 750mL of wine total so far this year. How do you even... What do you... No, I literally cannot fathom the depths of this aspect of Slovenian culture.

This has to be an exaggeration, so let's check.... "Slovenians drink on average almost 100L of beer per year." "Economic improvement in Slovenia leads to increased sales of alcoholic beverages." "Slovenia ranks 5th in alcohol consumption in EU." "...between 10.3 and 13.5L of pure alcohol per year." "Slovenia: Could a Country Be Addicted to Alcohol?" "According to official data, every fifth man and every 25th woman in the country is an alcoholic."

The alcoholism rate in the US is maybe 5% to 5.5%. I think it's safe to say I don't understand the problem. At least you're not Estonia, I guess.

[sol_remmy]

Except you've now abandoned your old justication this is good for the economy and are now acting as if you always meant this is good for reducing alcoholism

Bait and switch, motte and bailey

[Swizec]

It’s good for both

[deepnotderp]

I suspect that if you account for opportunity costs, the "broken window problem" with Keynesian economics is fixed.