Posted on 09/30/2003 5:59:04 AM PDT by CSM
Begging to differ with you, there are some farmers I know who have yet to see one dime from their crop confiscated in the name of a "buyout". If the farmer can't get paid for his crop, and lawyers and government(s) are making loads from tobacco lawsuits, my idea to go offshore can't hurt the farmer very much.
As I stated elsewhere, if I were CEO of RJR, I'd announce today that I'd no longer sell tobacco products outside of North Carolina, but I'd ship them to an offshore retailer immune to gov regs who in turn exports them back into ONLY the states that request them. Then, I'd tell the Feds, if you want any more money find a constitutional means of getting it.
I've been rolling for 5 years.
I'm already planning for when I'll have to grow it as well. It's just a matter of time.
When it becomes illegal to grow, it won't matter anymore. McConnell and Kennedy will have turned us into a communist country by then.
Plenty of hypocrisy to go around. For many years, the French government has been clucking its tongue about tobacco, while raking in huge profits from it. Now, our own government is following suit, adopting tobacco as a major government cash cow while stigmatizing both the product itself and the consumers who are getting gouged.
If a certain portion of restaurant demand consists of diners who will prefer any smoking restaurant to any non-smoking restaurant, another portion of consists of diners who will prefer any non-smoking restaurant to any smoking restaurant, and the balance consists of people who will eat at either, then in a free market the proportion of smoking to non-smoking restaurants will roughly mirror the ratio between those first two categories.
If smokers are underserved in the marketplace, then odds are very good that a non-smoking restaurant would improve revenue by catering to smokers. Likewise if people who can't stand smoke are underserved, a smoking-allowed restaurant would benefit by catering to them.
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