Sunday, January 07, 2007
Forseeable Victory for Free Trade?
As we all know, most soft drinks in the US are made with corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup. Corn syrup, though, has negative effects that exceed that even of your basic granulated sugar.
Another major use for corn, of course, is in ethanol fuel. Ethanol, a corn-based alcohol, is such a major component of fuel that we can expect ethanol and grain prices to climb quite a bit as the need for more corn will grow rather quickly.
High fructose corn syrup is used in soft drinks for the same reason that oil-based gasoline is still used in automobiles: it's cheap. Thanks to tariffs imposed to protect the US sugar industry, it is cheaper than sugar in the US. So it seems simple enough: once there is more demand for ethanol, even if we do nothing, it will be more profitable to use sugar more often because the soaring demand for corn will raise its price, making sugar relatively cheaper; even if corn syrup were more still a little cheaper, soft drink makers would be more apt to selling drinks with sugar because they would be a bit healthier for consumers.
The difficulty, of course, lies in the politics of this whole issue. Politicians do not want to disappoint the sugar lobby, and the corn lobby would have it in their interest to make sure that sugar remained expensive enough that people still used high fructose corn syrup. Fortunately for the marginally health conscious (the truly health conscious would drink juice, milk, tea and water), all that needs to be done is to explain to the American public that foreign sugar means cheaper fuel, because Americans love cheaper fuel. This fixation on cheap gas, which led to nostalgia for gas price fixes of the 1970s, can be used to promote freer markets, potentially quite soon.
Another major use for corn, of course, is in ethanol fuel. Ethanol, a corn-based alcohol, is such a major component of fuel that we can expect ethanol and grain prices to climb quite a bit as the need for more corn will grow rather quickly.
High fructose corn syrup is used in soft drinks for the same reason that oil-based gasoline is still used in automobiles: it's cheap. Thanks to tariffs imposed to protect the US sugar industry, it is cheaper than sugar in the US. So it seems simple enough: once there is more demand for ethanol, even if we do nothing, it will be more profitable to use sugar more often because the soaring demand for corn will raise its price, making sugar relatively cheaper; even if corn syrup were more still a little cheaper, soft drink makers would be more apt to selling drinks with sugar because they would be a bit healthier for consumers.
The difficulty, of course, lies in the politics of this whole issue. Politicians do not want to disappoint the sugar lobby, and the corn lobby would have it in their interest to make sure that sugar remained expensive enough that people still used high fructose corn syrup. Fortunately for the marginally health conscious (the truly health conscious would drink juice, milk, tea and water), all that needs to be done is to explain to the American public that foreign sugar means cheaper fuel, because Americans love cheaper fuel. This fixation on cheap gas, which led to nostalgia for gas price fixes of the 1970s, can be used to promote freer markets, potentially quite soon.
Labels: Economic Stuff, Politics
# posted by StolenMonkey86 @ 2:01 AM 
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You can get sugar-based sodas. They taste slightly better because the corn-based sodas are too sweet.
If you're a coke person, you should switch to sugar-based sodas. If you're a Pepsi person, you should stick with drinking corn-based sodas.
As for the gasoline, we almost have enough petroleum to last forever. Algore doesn't know what he is talking about.
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If you're a coke person, you should switch to sugar-based sodas. If you're a Pepsi person, you should stick with drinking corn-based sodas.
As for the gasoline, we almost have enough petroleum to last forever. Algore doesn't know what he is talking about.
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