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	<title><![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for The soda wars heat up&#8212;and the possibilities are thrilling]]></title>
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            <title>Comment #1 by Dave from Canada</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:35:17 -0700</pubDate>
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				"Economists, on the other hand, are far more skeptical..."

Huh?

Economists are most definitely NOT skeptical about the ability of prices to influence consumer decisions.  

The "price elasticity of demand" is a measure of how much demand will be reduced by higher price; increase price adequately, and decisions will change.  Price increases have proven extremely effective at reducing tobacco consumption, especially among youth.  

I think the only skeptical economists you are likely to find are those funded by AgriBiz and Big Junk.
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				"Economists, on the other hand, are far more skeptical..."

Huh?

Economists are most definitely NOT skeptical about the ability of prices to influence consumer decisions.  

The "price elasticity of demand" is a measure of how much demand will be reduced by higher price; increase price adequately, and decisions will change.  Price increases have proven extremely effective at reducing tobacco consumption, especially among youth.  

I think the only skeptical economists you are likely to find are those funded by AgriBiz and Big Junk.
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            <title>Comment #2 by Tom Laskawy</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:47:12 -0700</pubDate>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/2</guid>
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				There's been a lot of economic work on the subject of food taxes and obesity and much of it claims it will have minimal effect. These studies are often cited as an argument against using food/soda taxes to address obesity. I don't agree -- but <a href="http://feeds.voices.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=71b412c70d34344b55f6b0e2720d8c8d" rel="nofollow">that's what they're saying.</a>
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				There's been a lot of economic work on the subject of food taxes and obesity and much of it claims it will have minimal effect. These studies are often cited as an argument against using food/soda taxes to address obesity. I don't agree -- but <a href="http://feeds.voices.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=71b412c70d34344b55f6b0e2720d8c8d" rel="nofollow">that's what they're saying.</a>
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            <title>Comment #3 by Dave from Canada</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:09:29 -0700</pubDate>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/3</guid>
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				Your instincts are good - trust them.

The problem with the study in that link is that it looked at a price change on "all calories", not on soda or junk food.  

When you raise the price across the entire range of a class of essential goods (all food and drink), with no substitutes available, you shouldn't expect to get much demand movement.

When you raise prices on one group (like sodas), and not its substitutes (like water, milk, or other beverages), you will get a move away from that group and toward the substitutes.
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				Your instincts are good - trust them.

The problem with the study in that link is that it looked at a price change on "all calories", not on soda or junk food.  

When you raise the price across the entire range of a class of essential goods (all food and drink), with no substitutes available, you shouldn't expect to get much demand movement.

When you raise prices on one group (like sodas), and not its substitutes (like water, milk, or other beverages), you will get a move away from that group and toward the substitutes.
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            <title>Comment #4 by ElliotH</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:32:43 -0700</pubDate>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/4</guid>
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				A sugar soda is not simply abour obesity or just instituting another tax.  This needs to be framed around the idea of honest, or true costing.  Being transparent and honest about the costs associated with producing, marketing and consuming products and services.  Just like NY city increased taxes on cigarettes to cover the cost of health care associated with smoking, people who choose to dring sugar and cause harm to themselves and others (like their children) must bear the real costs of those choices.  At 1 penny per ounce and $15 billion per year, that equates to about 45 gallons of soda per person in the U.S.  My wife and I each drink perhaps 1 can of soda per month, if that.  This means others are  drinking our combined 90 gallons per year.  

Coca Cola and Pepsi objecting - shocking, isn't it.  We need to begin to understand - and pay for - the real consequences of our actions.  We can no longer pretend that "everything is just going to be OK". Denial is not a river in Egypt. Elliot H.
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				A sugar soda is not simply abour obesity or just instituting another tax.  This needs to be framed around the idea of honest, or true costing.  Being transparent and honest about the costs associated with producing, marketing and consuming products and services.  Just like NY city increased taxes on cigarettes to cover the cost of health care associated with smoking, people who choose to dring sugar and cause harm to themselves and others (like their children) must bear the real costs of those choices.  At 1 penny per ounce and $15 billion per year, that equates to about 45 gallons of soda per person in the U.S.  My wife and I each drink perhaps 1 can of soda per month, if that.  This means others are  drinking our combined 90 gallons per year.  

Coca Cola and Pepsi objecting - shocking, isn't it.  We need to begin to understand - and pay for - the real consequences of our actions.  We can no longer pretend that "everything is just going to be OK". Denial is not a river in Egypt. Elliot H.
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            <title>Comment #5 by djean</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Sat, 19 Sep 2009 05:31:03 -0700</pubDate>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/5</guid>
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				My family drinks more (diet) soda than we should.
What has happened, though, is that when I do buy soda, I buy the cheaper store brand.  Same with ice cream - I rarely buy it, but when I do, I don't buy the name brands with smaller boxes and bigger prices.
And I guess they figure I am too dumb to notice the difference between "3.5" and "3.15" pounds in bags of cat food.

I have noticed that Pepsi and Coke are resorting to deeper and deeper sales.  When they jacked prices up due to "fuel costs", or started juggling the number of cans in a box to give the illusion of a sale price, even though to make soda is pitifully inexpensive, they lost customers, or at least sales volume. When gas got cheaper, they did not lower prices, and people like me are quite happy with store brands or else nothing.
I have never understood the quickness to raise prices - if people only have, say, $100 to spend on food, some food items are just going to be left out completely.

If I have to make do with less money, then business has to make do with less profit.  The inability to accept that, coupled perhaps with the Wall Street dictum that profits must rise quarterly, is running things right into the ground.
JMO.
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				My family drinks more (diet) soda than we should.
What has happened, though, is that when I do buy soda, I buy the cheaper store brand.  Same with ice cream - I rarely buy it, but when I do, I don't buy the name brands with smaller boxes and bigger prices.
And I guess they figure I am too dumb to notice the difference between "3.5" and "3.15" pounds in bags of cat food.

I have noticed that Pepsi and Coke are resorting to deeper and deeper sales.  When they jacked prices up due to "fuel costs", or started juggling the number of cans in a box to give the illusion of a sale price, even though to make soda is pitifully inexpensive, they lost customers, or at least sales volume. When gas got cheaper, they did not lower prices, and people like me are quite happy with store brands or else nothing.
I have never understood the quickness to raise prices - if people only have, say, $100 to spend on food, some food items are just going to be left out completely.

If I have to make do with less money, then business has to make do with less profit.  The inability to accept that, coupled perhaps with the Wall Street dictum that profits must rise quarterly, is running things right into the ground.
JMO.
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            <title>Comment #6 by arlani</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:26:10 -0700</pubDate>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/6</guid>
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				Any soda tax should also include other products that contain sugar or the various forms of corn syrup.  Or, if the intent is truly to decrease calorie consumption, tax processed foods by the calorie content per serving.  Or, horror of horrors, decrease subsidies on beet and cane sugars, and corn sold to be processed into HFCS in favor of subsidizing fresh fruits and vegetables...  I see the logic in taxing sugary beverages, but I also think a soda tax probably will not be the panacea it is being made out to be.
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				Any soda tax should also include other products that contain sugar or the various forms of corn syrup.  Or, if the intent is truly to decrease calorie consumption, tax processed foods by the calorie content per serving.  Or, horror of horrors, decrease subsidies on beet and cane sugars, and corn sold to be processed into HFCS in favor of subsidizing fresh fruits and vegetables...  I see the logic in taxing sugary beverages, but I also think a soda tax probably will not be the panacea it is being made out to be.
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            <title>Comment #7 by cricket</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:35:26 -0700</pubDate>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/7</guid>
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				Why not just stop subsidizing corn (and soybeans and cotton).  Nothing else I know of will do nearly as much for the health of the average American, from improving the quality of meat and other animal products (lowering cholesterol, fat, etc) and ending the cheap production of all the junk we eat from corn syrup.

But no, we just keep producing obese people and failing to care for them.
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				Why not just stop subsidizing corn (and soybeans and cotton).  Nothing else I know of will do nearly as much for the health of the average American, from improving the quality of meat and other animal products (lowering cholesterol, fat, etc) and ending the cheap production of all the junk we eat from corn syrup.

But no, we just keep producing obese people and failing to care for them.
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            <title>Comment #8 by Albionwood</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:59:03 -0700</pubDate>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/8</guid>
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				Yes, exactly this!  Taxing sugar is a bizarre idea, since we subsidize its production in the first place - the whole reason it's so cheap!  Eliminate the corn subsidies.  Corn production would drop, HFCS prices would rise (maybe a lot), and sugary drinks would get more expensive.  One government bureaucracy could be reduced, and another avoided.

Providing a taxpayer subsidy to produce corn, then taxing the resulting product, is the kind of foolishness that makes our government a laughingstock.
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				Yes, exactly this!  Taxing sugar is a bizarre idea, since we subsidize its production in the first place - the whole reason it's so cheap!  Eliminate the corn subsidies.  Corn production would drop, HFCS prices would rise (maybe a lot), and sugary drinks would get more expensive.  One government bureaucracy could be reduced, and another avoided.

Providing a taxpayer subsidy to produce corn, then taxing the resulting product, is the kind of foolishness that makes our government a laughingstock.
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            <title>Comment #9 by thabby</title>
			<link>http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:23:34 -0700</pubDate>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-17-the-soda-wars-heat-up-and-the-possibilities-are-thrilling/9</guid>
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				I completely agree with Ellioth about the income of the tax being welcome when it comes to take care of all the problems obesity brings. Same way that people choose to smoke and harm themselves and the others, they also choose to have a unhealthy lifestyle and again, harm themselves and their children. And that costs a lot, to the state, and to people themselves.
I see a very symbolic side to this tax: sugary soda is the essence of the unhealthy food. Of course, it seems unfair to think of it as the only villain, but it's a start. Some people just become more aware of certain things when it hurts their pockets, so the tax could, hopefully, be a way to make Americans more aware of how much it cost to get and be obese.
The extra income is also welcome, and I really don't see it as being that bad, since you can always choose to buy the product or not, and soda was never, ever, a necessity.

In a perfect world, all obese people, specially the ones who blame their condition on something or somebody else, could realize that being healthy is much cheaper. Maybe hey would spend the extra bucks on veggies.
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				I completely agree with Ellioth about the income of the tax being welcome when it comes to take care of all the problems obesity brings. Same way that people choose to smoke and harm themselves and the others, they also choose to have a unhealthy lifestyle and again, harm themselves and their children. And that costs a lot, to the state, and to people themselves.
I see a very symbolic side to this tax: sugary soda is the essence of the unhealthy food. Of course, it seems unfair to think of it as the only villain, but it's a start. Some people just become more aware of certain things when it hurts their pockets, so the tax could, hopefully, be a way to make Americans more aware of how much it cost to get and be obese.
The extra income is also welcome, and I really don't see it as being that bad, since you can always choose to buy the product or not, and soda was never, ever, a necessity.

In a perfect world, all obese people, specially the ones who blame their condition on something or somebody else, could realize that being healthy is much cheaper. Maybe hey would spend the extra bucks on veggies.
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