Coca-Cola

Today's Wall Street Journal has a front page article about how some U.S. retailers are importing Coca-Cola from Mexico rather than the U.S. They do so not because it's cheaper -- it's actually more expensive -- but because customers who grew up in Mexico say it tastes better. Initially I found that hard to believe -- a U.S. product tastes better when made in another country?

So I went over and asked my Argentinean coworker Maria if she notices a difference between U.S. and Argentinean cola. "Yes, Argentinean coke tastes better. I think it's because it uses real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup."

I suspect she is correct. The reason producers use corn syrup instead is because sugar is so expensive -- more so than it should be because of price supports courtesy of the U.S. government and Big Sugar. Meanwhile farmers in the Midwest aren't exactly blameless either, they go along with the current program because it's an additional market for corn.

This is the price we pay for getting government involved in the farming sector -- bad-tasting Coke.