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> For example, everybody on the planet is now familiar with soft drinks. If anybody has never tasted Coke, it's not by accident. But Coke's ad budget is enormou
by rifung 7y ago
> For example, everybody on the planet is now familiar with soft drinks. If anybody has never tasted Coke, it's not by accident. But Coke's ad budget is enormous. If all soft drink companies stopped advertising tomorrow, society would not be worse off. And we'd have billions of dollars [1] to spend on something useful.
Not that I disagree, but where do you draw the line? Sure, if Coke stopped advertising we'd have billions of dollars to spend on something "useful". On the other hand, if Coke stopped making soft drinks, we'd have billions of dollars to spend on something "useful" AND significantly decreased obesity.
If you are going to make the argument that having soft drinks improves life somehow, then that implies it's better for people to know about soft drinks, and how will they know? Advertising.
- wpietri 7y agoSoft drinks aren't an arms race where most of the money spent is pure waste. When I buy a soft drink, I value it directly, so it isn't waste. > that implies it's better for people to know about soft drinks, and how will they know? Advertising. Are you really saying the only way you have ever known about a product is advertising? I honestly have trouble believing that, but if that's the case please consider that you're an outlier. Me, I avoid ads vigorously and have for decades. I have no trouble learning about new products.
- joshgel 7y agoAs a doctor, I'm all for banning soft drinks, recognizing that it probably will never happen. But, the health externalities associated with drinking such beverages should get priced in and be used to offset eventual health complications. This is not easy because no one likes taxes, but you get what you pay for.
- solipsism 7y agoMay we be allowed cake and ice cream or would you ban those as well? Maybe you can get a special license if it's a birthday?
- conception 7y agoJust tax sugar.
- NegativeLatency 7y agoOr stop subsidizing corn
- conception 7y agoWhy don't we have both? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- sharpneli 7y agoSmall funny story about that. In Finland we do (or did, it might have changed on 2017) tax sugar. Then they added artificial sweeteners and even mineral water under the tax because it’s ”fair” that way. Thus negating the original point.
- bonoboTP 7y agoYeah, just drink tap water. Bottled water is quite a big waste with all the plastic, transport etc. Especially in countries with great water supply like Finland, it shouldn't exist were it not for marketing.
- chopin 7y agoThat's not entirely true. Artificial sweeteners are suspect of (indirectly) causing diabetes, too. For mineral water, on the other hand...
- gambiting 7y agoYou need to judge a social impact of something before you ban it. The reason why soft drinks are under fire is because there is a lot of people who drink them literally every day. I know several people who drink 8-12 cans of diet coke every single day. On the other hand people usually don't eat cake or ice-cream everyday. I mean, I have no doubt that you could find someone who does, but it's not a widespread behaviour, so there is no reason to ban it.
- dooglius 7y agoHow is there an externality? It's not like smoking where it affects other people.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoI would bet excess sugar (and carbohydrate) consumption is the second largest externality via taxpayer spending on people’s healthcare due to obesity and diabetes. The biggest externality is destabilization of the environment from pollution.
- sgeisler 7y agoThat's only a problem if healthcare is taxpayer-funded. Otherwise it's your and your insurer's problem to price this in somehow, maybe even offering cheaper plans for people living healthy (e.g. meeting weight goals).
- lotsofpulp 7y agoI don’t foresee any country with a high standard of living start to turn people away at the emergency room who are experiencing heart attacks.
- skummetmaelk 7y agoThe whole idea behind insurance is that the unlucky ones who require more care than average have their costs covered by those who require less than average. Taxpayer funding systems are literally the same thing. Yes you can get cheaper premiums by living healthy, but how far do you want to go? Are you going to let your insurance company log everything you eat and how many steps you walk every day? Seems much easier to just factor in the external cost of goods into their price.
- waterhouse 7y agoWhen I got my driver's license at age 17 (or possibly the learner's permit? I forget), we learned that the car insurance company would reduce the premium for me if we regularly submitted them some kind of proof that I was getting good grades. It's possible this was some kind of "public-service program to encourage desired behavior", but I suspect that at least part of why they did it was because straight-A students are less likely to get into accidents. For medical insurance, it seems they could at least do something like "if you send us evidence of healthy exercise/diet/weight, then we'll lower your premiums; otherwise you'll get a premium based on the estimated risk of the set of people who don't do this". (If the government doesn't forbid it. healthcare.gov says "They also can’t take your current health or medical history into account", which sounds like it might rule out some of that.)
- JudgeWapner 7y ago> and be used to offset eventual health complications that would be predicated on an honest and direct pricing scheme for healthcare. taxing soda may be a feel-good thing to do, but how can you say - with a straight face - how much dialysis treatment or 'beetus meds actually cost? The whole business model of healthcare is built on information hiding.
- scarface74 7y agoWow. Banning something unhealthy. That didn’t work out so well for alcohol or drugs. The last thing I want is more government power.
- n0mad01 7y agohe also said "health ... associated ... should get priced in" - how about 6€ for a can of coke? people would drink it, but far less.
- SilasX 7y agoIt still has the same problems, in that people can bootleg it. Just at a smaller scale. Remember, they have low-grade turf wars in NYC over cigarette sales due to the really high taxes.
- scarface74 7y agoAnd that also goes to my other point. They have the police another tool to harass people and the police ended up choking a man to death for selling cigarettes illegally that he brought across state lines.
- randcraw 7y agoCigarettes have cost $6 a pack in the US for over a decade and nobody bootlegs these. Same for beer, at $6-12 for a 6-pack. Bootlegging is generally a short term response to diminished access. But soon after the controls arise, demand generally shifts elsewhere to less inconvenient alternatives. I can think of no examples of continuing bootlegging in the US, aside from piracy of media, which is another kettle of fish.
- scarface74 7y agoThis is the result of giving the police yet another tool to harass people for minor offenses. Whether Eric Garner was bootlegging cigarettes or not - do you think it was worth it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner
- Gibbon1 7y agoI think not in terms of should, but as a bare minimum. You sell a product with little socially beneficial upside and significant negatives. Then you should be happy to only have to pay a Pigouvian tax instead of being banned outright.
- CamperBob2 7y agoAs a doctor, I'm all for banning soft drinks, recognizing that it probably will never happen. Just curious, what are some of your hobbies? Things you like to do in your spare time? LOL, looks like some people can see where I'm going with this.
- bonoboTP 7y agoThere is no epidemic of dangerous hobby-related health issues, but obesity is aone of the biggest health problems in the developed world, especially the US.
- CamperBob2 7y agoThere's no epidemic that can be ascribed to one food item in isolation, either. Why pick on soda? Where are the (reproduced!) studies that justify that? (Standing by for the inevitable authoritative-sounding pubmed link that actually proves nothing of the sort.) Meanwhile, why should my health insurance rates go up because Dr. Joshgel is into cave diving or parachuting or enjoys the occasional track day in his GT3? Or because someone else leads a sedentary life playing video games? How about banning those? There's no valid science behind claims of an "epidemic" of soda-induced obesity, but if you're going to generalize the argument to include all common causes of obesity, I'd respond by pointing out that there's certainly no shortage of studies showing the harmful effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Rest assured, after the Dr. Joshgels of the world have come for my soda, they WILL come after something you enjoy. Maybe your steak, maybe your beer, maybe your guns, maybe your Playstation or your sofa. The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy, but these people aren't logical. They're too busy being right.
- bonoboTP 7y agoPeople who are seriously into extreme sports already have pay for extra insurance as related injures aren't covered for such high risk activities. There's also huge taxes on alcohol and tobacco for instance. There's also a lot of other stuff that is banned already or strongly regulated or taxed heavily. Recreational drugs, medicine, certain additives that turned out to be harmful. Or rules like having to buckle up in your car. A lot of nanny state stuff that saves people from themselves.