#Altenatives to soda player series#

#Altenatives to soda player series#

Popkin proposed the idea of a fat tax as part of a series called Dangerous Ideas. Option #2: Propose a ban on sugary soft drinks over 16 ounces, which is the baby step that Bloomberg took.ĭon’t like either of those options. Sugar is as addictive as heroin, and that’s just fine. Forget about the 23% of America’s teenagers who have prediabetes or diabetes. In other words, keep ignoring the problem of obesity and let the health care system absorb all of the costs. So who bears the burden? There are several options. $1,850 more per year in medical costs for an overweight person than for someone of healthy weight $190 billion in annual medical costs due to obesity Here are two sobering figures for the United States:

There are other forms of behavior, however, that may not necessarily be crimes, but certainly could be considered vices, and they cost the public dearly. Smoking it might be harmful to the individual but that action has no demonstrable cost to society. Bloomberg’s “controversial” solution to this problem has a lot to do with common sense and very little to do with the mayor’s desire to nanny, play Big Brother, or “assault personal freedom.”įrom an economic standpoint, we can afford to allow so-called “victimless crimes.” There’s no perfect example for this, but let’s choose marijuana. There is an enormous public cost to obesity, and there are clear culprits, namely, fast food and the soft drink industry. Like a good businessman, Bloomberg looks to find the source of a problem and then cuts the head off the snake. As Bloomberg sees it, if something costs the city money, like guns, cigarettes, or traffic congestion, it hurts the city’s bottom line. Indeed, there is a remarkable consistency with the mayor’s initiatives. And after all, he’s doing, by most accounts, a good job. He is thought of as a businessman running what was once regarded as an “ungovernable city,” and he is running it as a business. New Yorkers tend to like him and give him the benefit of the doubt because his motivations seem transparently rational. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not an ideologue.