Day CCIII

Junkies Us All

   Recently companies have come to terms, agreeing to pay some $246 billion over 25 years, to settle suits. Isn’t that an admission of guilty? Though it seems like a lot of money, in the great scheme of things it’s really just a pittance. That’s $9,840,000,000 a year, divided among several companies, which are allowed to continue seducing our kids, half wits, dimwits, village idiots, and the demented with their poison, and making God only knows how much. Perhaps even several times that, or more. A penalty is supposed to punish the guilty, so if they aren’t hurting from it, then it really is just the proverbial pat on the wrist. They’re just like the pushers selling dope to junkies in the ghettos. Why didn’t they make it a percentage of their yearly profits ad infinitum…like forever? IMHO, twenty percent would have been more than justified. Where’s the justice? Is it in tobacco’s purse?

     Judges are thinking in terms of amounts instead of percentages. It needs to be thought of in those terms, because it’s all relative. Any amount no matter how big, can be either a small amount to someone who has money, or a big amount to someone who doesn’t. A judge who makes, let’s say 200,000 a year may believe that 20 billion is a lot of money. Indeed it is! But he needs to look at it in terms of the bigger picture. That 20 billion next to one hundred billion is only twenty percent.

     These monsters need to be fined in terms of percentages, like maybe 50 percent of profits a year. Tobacco investors…where is your social conscience? Surely there are other ways to make money. Why do so on the backs of the mentally ill? Yea, when we smoke we are mentally ill…and don’t know any better. We need to readjust our minds.

     Also, these monies are going to go into those state’s general funds, and enjoyed by its politicians. The only win scenario here is for people to open their eyes, and decide not to be a half-wit, dimwit, or village idiot anymore. We need to stop, because they won’t stop pushing their drug on us.