Didn't Southwest Airlines announce a new price discrimination policy which would be tantamount to exceptionally obese passengers paying double for their coach seat? This sheds new meaning to the marketing concept of two for the price of one. I personally don't see how Rauch's optimal fat tax proposal would avoid those annoying "Harberger triangles" and attendant welfare losses. Furthermore, I heard on NPR earlier this week that some researchers have found that junk-food, believe it or not, can be a contributor to helping high school kids raise their academic performance. While these studies may have the same incredulity/hyperbole associated with cold fusion findings from a decade past, they do suggest caution in the "war on fat" campaign.
Bill Dickens (FL) -----Original Message----- From: Alex T Tabarrok [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 3:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: fat tax Jonathan Rauch has a very clever piece on the recent idea to tax fat foods. Only Rauch has a much "better" idea. Now why didn't I think of that? Alex http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/12/rauch.htm -- Alexander Tabarrok Department of Economics, MSN 1D3 George Mason University Fairfax, VA, 22030 Tel. 703-993-2314 and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621 Tel. 510-632-1366
