From Becker-Posner blog: "Bloomberg’s proposal...would seem to be a joke for hosts of late night shows were he not completely serious"

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/06/controls-over-consumer-choices-becker.html

06/18/2012

Controls Over consumer Choices- Becker

"On the other side are those who claim that many consumers are not able to make decisions in their self-interest. These consumers, according to this argument, can be fooled by the way choices are presented, may have limited self-control, may rely on inefficient rules of thumb, or for other reasons make bad choices. There is even a literature on “libertarian paternalism”, which argues that governments “ … should attempt to steer people’s choices in welfare-promoting directions without eliminating freedom of choice.” (Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, “Libertarian Paternalism is not an Oxymoron” University of Chicago Law Review, fall, 2003)

I agree that consumers do not always make choices in their own interest (even aside from having insufficient information). However, I question how pervasive such decisions are, especially for important decisions, but I leave that discussion for another day. Now I concentrate on concerns I have about using the government to try to improve consumer choices.

It is not clear that government bureaucrats generally understand why consumers make defective decisions, and even less likely that governments policies will help improve these decisions. As is well known, government officials, including regulators, legislators, and executives, are subject to powerful pressures from interest groups that often greatly affect public policies to the detriment of consumers."