struck down Bloomberg\u2019s 16-ounce soda ban<\/a>\u00a0as arbitrary (banning restaurant sodas but leaving convenience store Big Gulps in place, for example) and outside the boundaries of his executive authority. \u201cWe feel the justice\u2019s decision was strong,\u201d said a spokesman for the American Beverage Association, the chief plaintiff in the case.<\/p>\nBut beverage companies should be so lucky that Bloomberg\u2019s edict targetsconsumer choice<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 not soda makers. As a result, the beverage industry has consumer opinion behind them, with 60 percent of New Yorkers objecting to pols restricting their drink choices.<\/p>\n
But imagine if Bloomberg has regulated the\u00a0beverage industry<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 not consumer choice.<\/p>\n
Under perverse\u00a0government fuel laws, by contrast, the feds force auto companies to reduce MPG by 2015 by 40 percent to an\u00a0average<\/i>\u00a035.5 MPG. That is, the government doesn\u2019t force customers to buy 35.5 MPG cars \u2013 it forces automakers to make them. The regulations are widely popular with the public (who doesn\u2019t want more fuel efficiency?) while forcing the automakers to pay millions in lobbying fees in order to queer the regulations lest they have nothig left but Smart cars to sell.<\/p>\n
What if Mayor Nanny applied the MPG lesson? What if he mandated that Coca Cola make every 16-ounce drink with 90 calories (a 50 percent decrease from the current 187)?<\/p>\n
The law would surely be popular \u2013 customers don\u2019t know how soda is made any more than they know engines \u2013 even as soda companies understood that removing that much sugar would crater soda sales. But with public opinion against them, they would take the easy way out \u2013 just as auto companies have done. Beverage companies would hire lobbyists to negotiate loopholes and credits in the calorie mandate to ensure that popular, 187-calorie soda would still be sold.<\/p>\n
For example? GM gets credit against the 35.5 MPG law by selling plugin Chevy Volts \u2013 so that it can keep on selling popular, gas-guzzling Chevy Tahoes. Under similar soda regs, Coke Zero\u00a0might grant Coca Cola credits against the 90 calorie law \u2013 so that it could keep selling popular, sugary Coke.<\/p>\n
And government would grow ever more powerful. And pols would get ever more lobbying money from Big Business. Let\u2019s just hope the pols don\u2019t figure this one out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the risk of inspiring New York Nanny Michael Bloomberg to even more despotism, the mayor\u2019s mistake in regulating pop was in not regulating soda calories like the EPA regulates auto MPG. New York State Judge Milton A. Tingling\u00a0struck down Bloomberg\u2019s 16-ounce soda ban\u00a0as arbitrary (banning restaurant sodas but leaving convenience store Big Gulps in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12570"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12572,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12570\/revisions\/12572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i.huffpost.com\/gen\/1034029\/thumbs\/r-BLOOMBERG-SODA-BAN-large570.jpg?6\")
<\/p>\n