As good as it sounds amid the nation's crushing childhood obesity crisis, Pepsi's removal of sugary sodas from schools may not be all it seems. The company's sales will hardly be touched and, more importantly, it won't stop kids from drinking sugary sodas.
Bottlers declared guidelines to cut sugary drinks in kids' diets a success, claiming a 95% drop in full-calorie sodas shipped to schools and a 72% cut in all drink types. Yet sales haven't suffered and childhood obesity and diabetes rates climb unabated. So what's happening to all that soda?
Soda is the latest target of sin taxes, and New York City is at the forefront, but a recent study says soda consumers there are more than twice as likely to be low-income and almost three times as likely to be minorities. A regressive soda tax falls more heavily on the heads of New York's poor.
A severe food shortage is on its way, according to famed investor Jim Rogers. Food inventories are the lowest in decades and "[m]any farmers cannot get loans to buy fertilizer now, even though we have big shortages developing," he said.
