Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I think that's a gross exageration. Tobacco companies kill people.
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And incidentally though off topic, there are studies (not that well publicized since they are not popular) that show that the tobacco companies are not actually causing financially harm to society overall, since the lack of productivity and the medical care required due to tobacco, if tobacco would not exist would be balanced by the high medical costs of those people growing in old age; from a moral point of view this argument is perverse, but from an economical point of view (and remember that a lot of court cases against tobacco companies rest on economic not moral arguments) people did the math and it seems that tobacco by killing many people younger than normal save society more than it's lost in care and productivity loss.
Of course the tobacco companies (which again personally I detest insofar as it makes sense to detest an entity that has no will of its own but has a legal obligation to do the best for its owners first as long as it stays within the law) are not suicidal to make that argument however true in court and anger the people ("we kill some of you for the greater good"), they take their lumps, go sell their products to poorer and more desperate people in sadder parts of the world and so on... A survival trait which sadly RIAA seems to lack.