Is It Paternalism When You're Right?

This interesting (but factually thin) article on CSM on Americans' bad investment choices puts me in mind of our frequent paternalism discussions. The author aptly comments at the end that the problem isn't really that people couldn't be good investors, but they don't bother to do it. I'd add that it probably isn't a matter of sheer laziness, but that there are a hundred other common areas where people fail similarly, and they have only so much time and attention to go around. And, of course, there's the factor that economists have been known to be spectacularly wrong from time to time as well...