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When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

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Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#31

Post by nkurz »

saagarjha wrote: post #21
newyankee wrote: post #7

When India liberalized in 1991 and welcomed foreign investment again rick Coke simply bought out a lot of local competitors. Even today my favorite local soda 'thums up' is marketed as a separate drink by Coke in India. A water scarce country like India should really not promote high consumption of soda and sugar based drinks. However the same cannot be said about other industries. Pre liberalization India used to be…

> A water scarce country like India should really not promote high consumption of soda and sugar based drinks. I mean, I can see not promoting sugary drinks in general…but what does this have to do with water scarcity?

I'm dubious about the numbers as well, but this article tries to do a full calculation of water usage for a .5L bottle of Coca Cola produced in the Netherlands: https://www.waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/CocaCola-TNC-...

It concludes that each .5L bottle requires 35L of water as input. The majority of this is from the water required to grow sugar beets, which comes primarily from natural rainfall. Obviously, India is not the Netherlands, but I'd guess the same principle applies: growing the sweetener takes a lot of water, and theoretically there could be better uses for this water.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#32

Post by reaperducer »

Mekantis wrote: post #2

People like to pretend that protectionism is such a bad thing. But Western nations built themselves through protectionism, it's something China has been doing to great success and the Asian tiger economies (primarily South Korea) did as well. After all, there's only so much you can do for your population if you never ensure a steady supply of high quality jobs that provide a path into the middle class, and you don't…

The problem is that so many people have an all-or-nothing mindset. It's part of the tribalism that's running rampant through society as a whole, and is very destructive.

Free markets are great. So are some closed markets. There has to be a balance.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#33

Post by WalterBright »

Mekantis wrote: post #2

People like to pretend that protectionism is such a bad thing. But Western nations built themselves through protectionism, it's something China has been doing to great success and the Asian tiger economies (primarily South Korea) did as well. After all, there's only so much you can do for your population if you never ensure a steady supply of high quality jobs that provide a path into the middle class, and you don't…

When one company tries to punish another, it imposes embargoes and sanctions. I.e. protectionism.

The "embargoes bad", "protectionism good" doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#34

Post by bobthechef »

Mekantis wrote: post #2

People like to pretend that protectionism is such a bad thing. But Western nations built themselves through protectionism, it's something China has been doing to great success and the Asian tiger economies (primarily South Korea) did as well. After all, there's only so much you can do for your population if you never ensure a steady supply of high quality jobs that provide a path into the middle class, and you don't…

Friedrich List[0] made exactly this point. The United States, for example, is often portrayed as the paradigmatic example of the unregulated free market, but it is actually quite protectionist (some of the measures lead to perverse economic incentives like those surrounding the corn industry) and its economic power rose precisely because it exercised protectionist measures against the emerging industrial powers of Europe like Britain and France who would have been able to crush nascent American competition. List believed that free markets make sense within a domestic economy, but that import tariffs may be legitimately imposed when it results in domestic benefits.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_List

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#35

Post by nabla9 »

Mekantis wrote: post #2

People like to pretend that protectionism is such a bad thing. But Western nations built themselves through protectionism, it's something China has been doing to great success and the Asian tiger economies (primarily South Korea) did as well. After all, there's only so much you can do for your population if you never ensure a steady supply of high quality jobs that provide a path into the middle class, and you don't…

Joe Studwell's book "How Asia Works" explains how to do protectionism well (as how Asian tigers and others did it)

1. Land reform so that people can generate money from farming and generate financial surplus.

2. Controlled domestic finance sector protected from external competition..

3. Export oriented manufacturing where products are exposed to global competition but financing comes from domestic sources. This kind of partial protection allows capital accumulation even when products are inferior at first.

Asian countries that failed in the first step never became tigers or are still trying. Incidentally China had partial land reform that started from bottom up (illegally) but was later accepted.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#36

Post by [deleted] »

nkurz wrote: post #31
saagarjha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A water scarce country like India should really not promote high consumption of soda and sugar based drinks. I mean, I can see not promoting sugary drinks in general…but what does this have to do with water scarcity?

I'm dubious about the numbers as well, but this article tries to do a full calculation of water usage for a .5L bottle of Coca Cola produced in the Netherlands: https://www.waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/CocaCola-TNC-... It concludes that each .5L bottle requires 35L of water as input. The majority of this is from the water required to grow sugar beets, which comes primarily from natural rainfall. Obviously, Indi…

[deleted]

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#37

Post by bobthepanda »

jariel wrote: post #26
adi2907 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China never allowed unfettered access to global firms. Since Deng Xiaoping opened up, the rule for a foreign firm to gain access was 1) to tie up with a local company which will have significant stake and 2) ensure technology transfer to the local company over a period. This was a pre condition for market access, and basically how electronics components makers were built. The recent stars like Huawei, Xiaomi and Leno…

" You will not find a single example of any country becoming developed following free trade except for island nations like Singapore" Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in reality, the US as well. The US has always been pretty open. But yes, if a nation is in shambles, it may very well make sense to make major strategic investments for the national good, but ultimately, it can't last. Korea, Japan etc. would be much…

The US being open is mostly the postwar period. Tariffs were huge pre-WWII, in fact the Great Depression was probably exacerbated by rounds of tariff retaliation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_in_United_States_histor...

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#38

Post by vl »

Mekantis wrote: post #2

People like to pretend that protectionism is such a bad thing. But Western nations built themselves through protectionism, it's something China has been doing to great success and the Asian tiger economies (primarily South Korea) did as well. After all, there's only so much you can do for your population if you never ensure a steady supply of high quality jobs that provide a path into the middle class, and you don't…

Free trade advances human race as a whole and raises average standard of living. But it’s important to understand what is at the end of this advance: irrelevance of labor.

Not only hyper-optimization produces fragile systems (i.e. look at the mask and sanitizer shortages at the most wealthy nation on Earth), it also eventually will make most of the labor uncompetitive.

You can only consume so much on credit, I’m not sure how world will reshape when most of the humans cannot contribute anything of value.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#39

Post by icebraining »

amelius wrote: post #25
chrisco255 wrote: post #22

When Austin kicked out Lyft and Uber, local ride sharing thrived. However, the problem was they paled in comparison.

I'm sure that customers still reached their destination just fine like before ride-sharing was a thing, perhaps with only some minor inconveniences.

Or, just like before ride-sharing was a thing, they wouldn't go at all. Lots of teenagers / young adults I knew who lived in areas with poor public transport got a massive upgrade to their social and cultural lives when ride-sharing appeared. For example, they could now join a band, since they could get home afterwards.

Some elderly people I know also started going to the doctor more often, because walking to and from the bus stops was difficult, and the taxi was quite expensive for their low pensions.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#40

Post by markdown »

adi2907 wrote: post #15
mardifoufs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latin america and even india are proofs that "pure" protectionism does not work. Even China is an example of free trade working. China opened up massively , reduced customs, reduced costs of doing business etc for 3 decades before moving towards more restrictive and more protectionist policies. After learning as much as possible from foreign corporations that flocked to China. Even now, free trade would be much more…

China never allowed unfettered access to global firms. Since Deng Xiaoping opened up, the rule for a foreign firm to gain access was 1) to tie up with a local company which will have significant stake and 2) ensure technology transfer to the local company over a period. This was a pre condition for market access, and basically how electronics components makers were built. The recent stars like Huawei, Xiaomi and Leno…

> You will not find a single example of any country becoming developed following free trade except for island nations like Singapore

So you will.

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