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Comments on: QOTD: Andrew Dickson and Bill Kaye-Blake http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/07/07/qotd-andrew-dickson-and-bill-kaye-blake/ The Visible Hand in Economics Wed, 09 Jul 2014 02:21:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: George http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/07/07/qotd-andrew-dickson-and-bill-kaye-blake/#comment-43437 Wed, 09 Jul 2014 02:21:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=11573#comment-43437 There are some alternative forms taxes can take. One that appeals to me is New Zealand, which has no food production subsidies worth speaking of, introducing tariffs that reverse the pricing effects of overseas subsidies. This would increase (by how much I don’t know) the price of the imported products of wheat, corn, sugar cane and soy that make up the bulk of processed food. See http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-03-13/that-sickening-sugar-subsidy
An alternative is to have minimum calorie pricing, set at the level of nutritious foods. For example, for the supermarket price of junk oil to be the same price as butter or olive oil (0.1c per calorie), so that poverty didn’t influence buying choices around what would still be a cheap food. However, economic effects of scale make this a harder formula to apply to industrial food processing and fast food outlets.

]]> By: Sam Murray http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/07/07/qotd-andrew-dickson-and-bill-kaye-blake/#comment-43432 Sun, 06 Jul 2014 21:21:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=11573#comment-43432 Value judgements are insidious. Always sneaking into arguments without people noticing. In New Zealand, the focus on obesity and BMI is particularly worrying as there is sometimes different cultural approaches to ideal body forms.

I remember talking to a well-intentioned person about their plan to tax fast food outlets. I asked if this plan included fish and chip shops. They replied of course not, they liked fish and chips. It only included ‘bad’ fast food outlets like McDonald’s.

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