A la Don Boudreaux, I fashioned my post on Krugman's comparison of the U.S. and France into a letter to the editor. Not surprisingly it wasn't published, but check out this piece of dopiness that did:

"Social security and health insurance cover the entire family from birth to death. The long vacations created a tourism business that did not exist 40 years ago, attracting people from all over Europe who travel in comfortable high-speed trains at reasonable cost.

All these benefits are paid with high taxation, but no one complains since it is really based on income rather than on no tax for the wealthy."

No tax for the wealthy? How much wine has the French writer of this nonsense consumed?

There were some better responses (same link as above), including,

"Yet as a French scholar in the United States, I am slightly amused by his wide-eyed idealization of the French choice.

The trade-off is far from perfect, even beyond the obvious high unemployment: unequal access to education, lack of investment in the future, and racial discrimination are also daily realities in France."

and

"When France was hit with a horrible heat wave two summers ago, 15,000 people died because the social and hospital systems couldn't care for them. Most were elderly, and many died because their families failed to interrupt their paid vacations to check on Grandmère and Grandpère.

So much for family values."