Originally posted by ModernAcademia
Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Well Warren my friend, it's like I mused to the cashier at the Supermarket earlier this afternoon as I provided the legal tender for one Italian Submarine Sandwich and one pack of cigarettes...
"Hey these bailouts sure are working aren't they...only 15.00 for a sandwich and a pack of smokes!"
You thik so?
I mean here you are buying poison for what $10 or so during an economic crisis.
Let me ask you, how much money did you spend in the last quarter on smokes?
I mean I don't feel i'm going off-topic here
Informed people themselves aren't even saving during an economic crisis, but not only that they are buying cigarettes.
Are tobacco companies better than big pharma?
No? Than it's time to reasess
I just mean, if informed people haven't reach their point of no return how can you expect unimformed people to>
Yes yes, you don't care
You want your freedom to smoke
big. govt. can't take that away from u
ya ya
but that's not at all the point
imagine people now living in tent cities because of foreclosures
What would people with such smoking habits think in hindsight?
I have a few vices in the world, very few, just sex, drugs, rock and roll, and cigarrettes oh and gambling of course, ok so more than a few...
Life is after all a human experience and I don't buy into the scarcity paradigm.
At the start of the economic crisis (officially) last September a pack of cigarettes at my local super market was 4.17 with tax (I usually buy them cheaper at bulk outlets but on occassion get them at the supermarket for convenience sake) today after 9 months and 3 seperate tax increases that same pack of cigarettes at the supermarket is 7.33 the submarine sandwich was 7.43.
The joke of course between I an the cashier (who also smokes) is that she and I are both 'young' enough to remember when the cigarettes would have cost .35 that's right thirty five cents and the sandwich would have cost .99, that's right ninety nine cents and the transaction would have cost 1.50 versus 15.00.
Yes you too can see 1,000 percent inflation in your lifetime, and you my friend may have as well in yours.
Now the actual cost to a retailer for a pack of cigarrettes is about 1.70 and the rest is all tax. Increasingly the state and Federal Government are looking too people with vices to pay for the short falls in their fiscal and economic planning.
It's a double edged sword though because they are causing some people to have to give up their vices and I am sure if there is a G-d this is something that they certainly will go to heaven for, which I have on good authority is no where near as fun as Hell and has no casinos, bars or ciggarettes let alone race tracks and nude jello wrestling contests...Hell on the other hand, is reputed to be a fun place with not only a lovely tropical climate but ammenities to die for!
States are desperate to raise cash now through any means they can, speeding tickets, zoning violations, code violations, parking violations, I voted for that idiot violations etc., etc., etc.
In many ways Americans have helped kill their own economy by seeking out alternatively either foreign goods they percieve have a higher quality than domestic ones (Toyotas and Hondas verus Chevys and Fords) or cheaper than American goods but of lesser quality (every last little thing on the shelves at Wal-Mart). They have bought into the emotional jealousy appeal of the big corporations to villianize union workers that make a living wage to help the big corporations break up the unions and keep ALL workers from making a living wage, and bought into the foolish notion that some workers make 'too much' instead of realizing they themselves make 'too little'. They eat where they know illegal aliens make up a fair portion of the staff, they buy new homes that they know illegal aliens worked the construction jobs for less and the electician jobs for less that union workers would, they cross picket lines where union workers have tried to stem the tide, they are like the proverbial Las Vegas vacationer who might as well just send their paycheck to Vegas stay home and get some rest instead because they are such terrible gamblers only in this case they should have just sent their paychecks to China and America they do this to 'punish' the few American businesses that still manufacture in America for either not being inexpensive enough in their pricing or not making as nice a product in their eyes even though they often base that on assumption and word of mouth not actual critical comparisons.
The average citizen who can't understand what a critical part they play in the economy and could play in the economy simply chalks their own foolishness up to the Government not preventing them from doing this even while they complain the Government mettles in to many things already and for American businesses that still do struggle to make products here who don't understand their insatiable need to buy things as innexpensively as possible from companies and countries that have a much cheaper labor pool and much cheaper raw materials and usually much lesser quality standards, warranties, customer service and gaurantees too.
The citizen is as responsible for the mess the country is in as the government lets face it the government really is just an extension of the people who elect and live in that nation. We decry illegal aliens but tolerate them when it saves us a buck, gets our lawn mowed cheaper or the rolls and water to the table faster. We decry our corporations for exporting jobs but will buy from them anyway once they do. We decry the banks for extending too much credit but borrow too much to finance a lifestyle that we don't demand a living wage for our labors and live in fear of loosing our job and make do.
In reality I don't do any of those foolish things, it's Virginia Cigarettes I am buying, grown and made in America, and the high Taxes most of which go to the State of Florida and some of which go to the Federal Government are the only form of taxes I pay...over the counter sales taxes, and I wouldn't pay those if I don't have to and often look for ways not too.
I ride my bicycle everywhere now to avoid paying gasoline taxes, and I usually buy my cigarrettes at the nearby Indian Reservation in bulk to avoid Federal and State taxes on those.
Sure I still do a few harmful things and I look for ways to correct them but the reality is few people will even consider how they earn and spend their money could be harmful to America and the economy let alone look for ways to correct it.
I like to smoke, I don't buy into this idea that we all must suffer now, I think if people stopped buying into the idea we wouldn't be suffering so much.
Government can't do it all, in fact it already does too much and costs too much, they love to try to legislate political correctness and Christian right wing morallity but you will never, ever, see them try to legislate now use common sense.
Sadly neither do most Americans and that's really why we are in such a G-d awful mess.
Our forefathers would have started another revolution over the Federal Reserve, if not that the National Security Act, if not that the Patriot Act, we have turned into a nation of retarded whiners, complainers and hypocrites who just love being lazy and stupid and passing the buck and blaming everyone and everything for the things we did to ourselves.
Government can't stop that, not even Ron Paul, and if you listen to Ron Paul the reason most people who aren't Ron Paul fans think he is a nut, is because every word out of his mouth is something all to uncommon and foeign to most people now days...it's called common sense!
