This is really a result of government regulation and subsidy, rather than a lack of government oversight. 

As I said though, the proposed law wasn’t a ban – it was an attempt at consumer pattern manipulation. I’m sure if society would allow it then buying carton of cartons of cigarettes would be a thing, but at present the largest consumer size of tobacco available is a carton. This law was more comparable to saying “um… no… if you want 1000 cigarettes you’re just gonna have to buy a bunch of cartons”.

FWIW it’s a generally-ubiquitous thing for non-Americans to, upon return from your country, tell tales of the mythically large servings/portions available in the US of A. Would it really hurt to be limited to a reasonably-sized beverage?

I also think the ‘poor cant afford the alternatives’ is a bit of misdirection because there’s always water or non-sugary soda. To be clear: I looooove soft drink. In the last year I have been drinking almost exclusively that sugar-free stuff. I dunno if it’s just that but simple changes to my behaviors of consumptions like that have contributed to my pants being looser despite continued laziness and consumption of other bad foods.

People aren’t getting obese and getting diabetes just because they are stupid. It is more likely this is occurring since they are poor. It is no secret that unhealthy mass produced foods are dirt cheap while healthy foods are expensive. The poor eat unhealthily because they can’t afford the alternatives.

You analogue to tobacco and alcohol is a fair one and I think such an argument could be made for those vices, but.. No one is talking about a blanket ban on drinking soda. If you want to get a bunch of bottles and pour yourself a bathtub of cola there is nothing that these laws would have changed about your ability to do that.

I actually thought this was a very sensible piece of legislation that *could* have made a difference (just how much of a difference is clearly debatable) but without at least trialing it we will now have NFI about such a plan’s effectiveness. Considering a whopping 1/3 of deaths in the US are attributable to sugar-related illness (diseases of the heart/diabetes) I would have thought this was a fairly non-obnoxious way of improving the health and longevity of Americans?

I’m anticipating a response that says that since everybody will soon be in the pool for healthcare, that the government has a right to force people to be healthy in order to lower costs. I’m curious if those that would use this *justification* for the actions of Bloomberg’s government would take it to the logical conclusion of banning tobacco and alcohol, which are far greater threats than obesity? Or would they consider banning the sale to minors, as well as the use of labels and funding educational campaigns to be sufficient?

A consistent blanket ban would be awesome, and hopefully this motivates one.

One of the most depressing things I have ever listened to was an Intelligence Square debate on NPR.  The resolution was something along the lines of “The government should play a large part in fighting obesity” (or something like that).  My flinch response was “hell yes”.  After listening to the two completely incompetent asshole bureaucratic arguing for the motion, I almost changed my mind.  The side arguing against sucked and argued poorly, but the side arguing for the motion so poorly and with such incompetence that they kind of swayed me towards saying “fuck it” to government intervention if that is the quality of intervention you can expect.  Go listen to it.  They have a podcast.  It is depressing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Judge,_Baron_Judge