Thursday 12 April 2012

Sod The Truth, Greed Must Be Satisfied

It was only a couple of weeks ago when I urged you - on behalf of Big Tobacco Control - to forget everything you thought you knew about economics.

It has all been changed, you see. Lies are truth now; and what is actually happening in the world is a fantasy, apparently.
"Well, it's very interesting because [...] the tobacco companies always say that. If the tax goes up, this is going to increase smuggling. And they say it, it's one of their many deceits as it's not true."
Yeah, course not, love.

But they really seem to believe this barking nonsense. The Framework Convention Alliance - a grand name for an illiberal collection of tax-leeching tosspots - recently held a big beano in Geneva on the issue of illicit tobacco trade and came to this startling conclusion [pdf].
"it is important to point out that the blame for the present contraband problem lies with the tobacco industry"
Yep, that's right. It is bugger all to do with eye-watering duties imposed by governments as a result of nagging from career prohibitionists like the FCA, instead it is entirely down to those who would - in an ideal world - prefer to pitch their prices to match affordability for those who consume their products. You know, like traders have done for millions of years.

This is self-delusion on a superlative scale. There are primary school children in this country with a better grasp of market forces than these morons, yet governments listen to them.

They get worse too.
The tobacco industry, which in the past has been complicit in the illicit tobacco trade, has been working relentlessly to insert itself into the fight against the trade, by signing deals with governments to train their Customs officials, for example. Such agreements open the door to industry interference with public health policy, a violation of FCTC Article 5.3 and its Guidelines.
"How mad is that?", they say, that a manufacturer of a consumer product would want to actually get involved with stopping their goods being ripped off.

If anyone suggested that Nike should butt out of ensuring their trainers aren't counterfeited, and leave the job instead to people ideologically opposed to trainers, we'd call them a crank. Yet here anti-smoking lunatics are insisting that the businesses most harmed by such shenanigans have a damned cheek attempting to protect themselves from counterfeiters.

Where do they recruit tobacco controllers? From the funny farm?

No they're not mad, of course - well, not all of them - just lying ... again. As in the example above, deliberately conflating legally tax-paid genuine tobacco with what most people would term 'illicit'. And, just to drive the whole tax-funded exercise further into farce, they quote a supra-national edict written by the WHO on which no-one on the face of the planet has ever been afforded a democratic vote.

Absurd? Yes, of course, but you have to understand that these people don't want to curb illicit supply at all. Their only goal is feathering their own nest, as this telling segment proves conclusively.
"Quite a number of Parties pushed hard to amend language to ensure that obligations to protect tobacco companies’ intellectual property do not make their way into this public health protocol. In the end, Parties agreed on references to “illicit manufacturing”, with a proposed preambular paragraph clarifying that the protocol “does not seek to address issues concerning intellectual property rights”."
A perfect opportunity to lock in the incorrect use of brands and trademarks as a brilliant tool for prosecuting counterfeiters, but they argued against it.

Tobacco companies are currently engaged in fighting through the courts to protect their intellectual property from government thieves advocating plain packaging. Why, then, would the tobacco control industry be bothered to protect the public comprehensively when it might interfere with their future grants to usher in plain packaging?

It seems that these people really care about 'saving lives' only to the point at which it might threaten their own finances. Once that benchmark has been reached, public health can go screw itself as far as they are concerned. They claim to be thinking of the children, but not if it might stop them from trousering more cash. The children or that new conservatory the missus has her heart set on? Hmmm. Call the glazier and book him in Darling, sod the kids.

Greed is good for the tobacco control community. The proof is how they do and say the most ridiculous things to protect it.


18 comments:

Curmudgeon said...

Sigh. They really do get themselves in some intellectual twists over this. 

Ian R Thorpe said...

My ancestors were very deeply involved in the wine, brandy and spices trade around Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire. It's good to know the contraband trade is doing well. I can advise my kids it's time to restart the family business.

Tom said...

What's that saying, what a wicked web we weave, when we start out to deceive. That's what the anti-smoking industry is all about, based on a lie, weaving wicked webs to keep pasting over all the holes where the truth might ooze through and become noticeable. Thus they have to have it all ways, against logic, against nature, against reason and against truth - all ways at the same time.

Old,skint and ready said...

The BRITISH Government in connivance with a BRITISH tobacco Supplier restricts the supply of a BRITISH product made in a BRITISH
FACTORY  to wholesalers and retailers in the BENELUX(NETHERLANDS,BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG) states
Clear contravention of Rome,Maastricht and Lisbon conventions signed by
UK Prime Ministers.
Buyers of these products are driven to purchasing similar (cheaper)
alternatives from other EU states
Now then,Ladies and Gentlemen
allowing for a certain amount of paralysis of intelligence in the state
educated brains of most,can some flea ridden ,moth eaten sub intelect
explain to this superior intelligence, the motives behind this senseless,
mind blowing stupidity
Please remember ,any half wit,brain dead clown ptting an X on a
nonsensical ballot paper in May, YOU  are encouraging the idiots.

Polite note to our Tory friends
Cameron pleads for a liberal freedom in Burma
I would',nt mind some of  that when I stand between the wheely bins
under an umberella with the old veterans behind a near empty pub.

It is about time we sorted out ,who will fight and wants to carry on waffling

Enough is Enough    

Smoking Hot said...

How can you argue with idiots like that? ln a sane world all these fruitcakes would've been sectioned ... instead they are in positions of power and it just carries on and on. 

Smoking Hot said...

There's no reasoning with these lunayics ... for lunatics they are. ln a sane world they would all be sectioned but these lot are in power and it just goes on and on. One to beam up ... please!

Junican said...

"Quite a number of Parties pushed hard to amend language to ensure that obligations to protect tobacco companies’ intellectual property do not make their way into this public health protocol. In the end, Parties agreed on references to “illicit manufacturing”, with a proposed preambular paragraph clarifying that the protocol “does not seek to address issues concerning intellectual property rights”."I had some difficulty in getting my brain around the above convoluted munbo-jumbo. But, in connection with counterfeit packs of fags, I think that it says, "We don't want to have to defend tobacco company logos etc, so we'll just use the words 'illicit manufacturing' and not mention that it involves logos and such"Yes, it betrays self-deceit as well as the intention to deceive the public. Yes, they actually believe what they say in the sense that they have convinced themselves that their deceitful statements are true. I suspect that this is the reason that they are totally in denial that they could possibly be wrong.  

Dick_Puddlecote said...

It's looking more and more attractive, isn't it? I get my GV from the milkman - he won't need to be a milkman much longer if these pricks carry on, there'll be better profits supplying the market that UK government quite obviously doesn't want anymore. 

Michael J. McFadden said...

The tobacco industry folks are nitwits for even TRYING to appear as "good citizens" since no matter WHAT they do it will be used against them.  Here in the US about 15 years ago one of the BigT companies tried to help with the antismoking effort among middle schoolers by supplying decorative book jackets with some sort of reasonable antismoking messages on them.

Of course they were attacked for not splashing the covers with descriptions of horrible bloody deaths, but then the Antis went even nuttier!   They looked at one of the covers that had some sort of nature theme and declared that the white fluffy clouds in the blue sky were designed to make children think of SMOKE and make them think that smoke was GOOD "just like nature" !!!

No, I'm not kidding, though I don't have documentation on it.  I just remember reading the complaints from the Antis at the time.

- MJM

CDB said...

From the Beeb today - 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17698730 
"In an interview with the newspaper Mr Lansley said he was open-minded .........."Followed by""We don't want to work in partnership with the tobacco companies because we are trying to arrive at a point where they have no business in this country," he added."Clearly NOT open minded and he intends to remove controlled sources of a legal(?) product! Either he wants to ban smoking or make Pharma his approved supplier?This from a person who voted against many Tobacco Control measures before his beliefs were replaced by his new friends

Lyn said...

As I have said before, the lunatics really are now running the asylum!  And it is 'us' that have let them!

Lyn said...

As they say, Junican, when you tell so many lies for so long, you do actually start believing them yourself!

But, as we have seen, trying to recall all the lies told can also trip you up!

government and quangos, if not so vain as to believe they are untouchable, should start watching their backs, perhaps?

Lyn said...

Did he happen to mention any ideas as to where and how he will make up the lost revenue, and not just that lost from the sale of the products, but that also lost from the employees who will find themselves out of work and draining resources they once contributed to, but also the revenue that is raised from the business itself?

Here we are, already struggling, with huge unemployment and other big businesses cutting jobs due to economic pressures and he wants to put MORE people out of work and quite possibly onto NHS lists for psychiatric and psychotherapy treatment to help with the depression, stress and possible suicidal thoughts that losing their jobs with very little prospect of other jobs even existing for them to apply for!

Same old, same old, "I;m alright Jack, sod you!"

Well, just how long will he and his ilk be 'alright'?  That is up to us, I believe, to do our damndest to persuade anyone we can NOT to vote for any of the 3 main parties in ANY elections in the future!  Tough job, but we NEED to be up for it.

Kevin said...

While the WHO is enjoying it's mind numbingly expensive anti tobacco boondoggles the world is facing a very serious problem with antibiotic resistant forms of TB. This is caused by misuse of antibiotics in India (http://news.yahoo.com/drug-resistant-tb-blamed-indian-treatment-flaws-163325199.html) and the fact that many people are too poor to have a full treatment thus allowing drug resistant strains to flourish. This is (supposedly) prime WHO territory but these choose to ignore it in favour of the much more lucrative (and easier - as they don't have to show any results) field of anti smoking. With just the cost of the above conference they could pay for full courses of treatments in India and nip the problem in the bud. But they won't.

They truly are beneath contempt.

High Plains Gasper said...

There are many anti smokers and non smokers bleating about loss of
Govermental jobs,reduction of pensions,raising of pensionable age and so
on Ad Nauseam.For these chattering idiots , a reminder of who has to pay
for the £23 Billion (BILLION) loss to the Exchequer caused by the anti
smoking hysteria.
Before any babbling Gibbon mentions cost to the NHS, may I ,with due respect,suggest the following course of action
Purse your skeletal lips and press them firmly to the lower end of my
spine,
Exceptions due for the Judasgoat Lansley,for him something really
unsavoury, Any ideas ?
Oh wait a minute, maybe the Lansley Quisling has to do what he is told in order to get the goodies when he is no longer a Minister,remember Patricia Hewitt's
nice little post ministerial earner


hawkeye 

Jonathan Bagley said...

Dick, your milkman will soon be spending his afternoons making wine for £1.30 a bottle, which he can sell to you at £3.00 so you don't have to pay the new minimum price of £4.50.

Michael J. McFadden said...

I wonder if "minimum pricing" will bring "bathtub gin" back into fashion?

- MJM

Curmudgeon said...

High alcohol duties already are - last year five Lithuanian men died in an explosion at an illegal vodka distillery in Boston, Lincolnshire.