[Forbo]

>Billionaires don't drive billions of cars or eat billions of beef steaks

No, they just continue to produce them, all while influencing policy that could curtail that consumption. I'm not saying that the individual is blameless, I'm saying that the average Joe's sphere of influence is orders of magnitude smaller than that of any billionaire.

Edit: Thank you for the link, it does give a bit of a palette cleanser.

[makx]

They produce them for the average Joe. They don't force anyone to buy their products.

And if they would stop producing the products, what would happen? As long as people buy, someone else would produce them.

And, yes, a billionaire would have more power to change the world, if just buy giving them the ability to run a massive media campaign to change peoples minds. Yet here we are in this very article blaming them for using their financial power to try and influence the public opinion.

[stainforth]

This is the fallacy of the rational consumer that we need to move on from.

[Nasrudith]

Consumer rationality is irrelevant here - it is about markets being fungibile and stepping away being replaced by others. There is nothing fallacious about that. Arresting or killing drug kingpins didn't solve the drug problem - the demand mechanism ensured that others would try to fill the vacuum.

What would be fallacious is assuming that consumers are rational enough to avoid problems from usage especially when externalities are involved. See the many fentanyl overdoses for example.