I love that they need evidence for "taxation works". It doesn't take a prophet to tell if you charge $10 for a can of soda, sales decline. The question is how much can we tax
New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
51–60 of 127 posts
Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#52This is an article that suggests the pro-tax side of the argument never came to understand the anti-tax side. Possibly the anti-tax side were being misleading about their complaints. Of course a soda tax will reduce the amount of soda consumed and there was a decent chance it would reduce the amount of sugar too. And if there is a goal to achieve, keep raising the tax until it does what you want. The problem with thi…
> The problem with this sort of strategy is that we make laws by voting, and so it assumes that we can determine what is healthy by popular vote. This isn't true and it is very easily corrupted if the option is open.
Well, we don't really know of any better option for taking collective decisions of high impact. The public and their representatives are informed of the science (and for nutrition information, it's really much more "science" than science at this point) and they decide by voting whether they choose to believe the data presented enough to try to impose tax burdens or other regulations.
What alternative is there? Have nutritionists be able to unilaterally decide what stores are allowed to sell and at what prices? That would get much more easily corrupted, as many nutrition studies have been in the past.
Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> It is exceedingly likely that people just ate more fat instead of sugar.. Why do you believe this is so likely? To be honest I don't see the connection. People notice in the supermarket that their favorite soft drink became more expensive, and decide to switch to eating an extra hamburger instead?
You're hungry, so you eat something. When you run low on food, you go to the supermarket. Soda has increased in price, so you spend your soda money on something else. The next time you're hungry, that's what's in your kitchen. This is only better if the thing you replace the soda with is better for you than the soda. Without any data on what that is, you don't know if that's true.
Drinking soda doesn't make you full, though. If you are hungry and drink soda, you will eat something anyway. Probably the same amount, if not more (soda may actually provoke feelings of hunger).
Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#54This is an article that suggests the pro-tax side of the argument never came to understand the anti-tax side. Possibly the anti-tax side were being misleading about their complaints. Of course a soda tax will reduce the amount of soda consumed and there was a decent chance it would reduce the amount of sugar too. And if there is a goal to achieve, keep raising the tax until it does what you want. The problem with thi…
> The problem with this sort of strategy is that we make laws by voting, and so it assumes that we can determine what is healthy by popular vote. This isn't true and it is very easily corrupted if the option is open. Well, we don't really know of any better option for taking collective decisions of high impact. The public and their representatives are informed of the science (and for nutrition information, it's reall…
> What alternative is there?
You could let people who think soda is unhealthy avoid it, and people who don't care buy it from the soda makers. Maybe set up some official nutritional advice [0].
There doesn't have to be a centralised determination on whether soda is to be encouraged or discouraged.
[0] https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/the-austral...
Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> It is exceedingly likely that people just ate more fat instead of sugar.. Why do you believe this is so likely? To be honest I don't see the connection. People notice in the supermarket that their favorite soft drink became more expensive, and decide to switch to eating an extra hamburger instead?
You're hungry, so you eat something. When you run low on food, you go to the supermarket. Soda has increased in price, so you spend your soda money on something else. The next time you're hungry, that's what's in your kitchen. This is only better if the thing you replace the soda with is better for you than the soda. Without any data on what that is, you don't know if that's true.
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Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quote from start if thread said " total sugar sales are down by almost 20 percent, driven largely by falling soda purchases", so at least we know they didn't buy candy with the money.
We know they didn't buy only candy with the money. Maybe they bought candy and cigarettes.
That's a cool theory, do you have any data to back it up or is this just an unfounded assertion?
Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quote from start if thread said " total sugar sales are down by almost 20 percent, driven largely by falling soda purchases", so at least we know they didn't buy candy with the money.
We know they didn't buy only candy with the money. Maybe they bought candy and cigarettes.
not for the price of even large amounts of soda for the same consumed time period
Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eating sugar makes your body/mind crave more sugar though… regardless of consumed calories.
Evidence? I use sugar as an energy source. The more energy I use (or plan to use) the more sugar I need. That's a biological necessity, not a craving.
It's not that simple, sadly, if it was my job would be way easier. Yes, your cells (usually) run on glucose but that glucose can be produced from a variety of dietary sources including sugar (sucrose, fructose, etc), other carbohydrates, and fats.
Reduced dietary sugar (particularly the added sugars) is an amazing public health outcome.
Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#59Armed with three years of grocery shopping data, researchers found that total sugar sales are down by almost 20 percent, driven largely by falling soda purchases. This isn't the right definition of success. The first minimal requirement for this to be a successful initiative is that the community lost weight overall. Or even gained weight, but more slowly than other communities. If they could prove that it would be a…
To be honest your post sounds like it's coming straight out of the sugar industry PR book. 1. Increase burden of scientific evidence/cast scientific evidence in doubt by saying it's not conclusive enough 2. Assert that reducing sugar is not working because people will just get their calorie input otherwise. 3. Blame fat/daemonize fat, that's what the sugar industry has done very successfully over the last decades.
I don't drink sugary "soda" drinks at all, so I don't have a horse in the race, but I think it is a valid question to ask whether the tax really decreased sugar consumption or people just bought bunch of cookies instead.
Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well
#60Did they also study whether total sugar sales rose in the cities next to Seattle? I can imagine that some price sensitive soda drinkers just drove to the nearest store outside of Seattle to buy their sodas.
This makes zero sense. A gallon of gas is about $4.00, the idea that someone would spend all that gas money to avoid a tax of 1.75 cents/oz just doesn't pass the sniff test.
The tax is 1.75¢ per ounce? That nearly doubles the price of a 12-pack depending on whatever brand is on sale that week. When I buy soda during my shopping trips, I usually get three 12-packs for $9.99. With this tax, the total would be $17.55.
If I still drank sugary soda, I'd go out of my way to avoid this tax.
I find the idea people alter their shopping habits to avoid it totally believable. probably not enough to offset the reduced consumption (or else it'd show up in lower gross receipts at stores within city limits), but it wouldn't be surprising to see increased sales in neighboring towns.