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Re: The power of cigaette companies extends beyond the US

Posted by Neda on December 6, 2001 at 23:31:02:

In Reply to: The power of cigaette companies extends beyond the US posted by blueberry on December 6, 2001 at 10:48:29:

The cigarette companies advertise so heavily to get thousands of new people addicted each day to make up for all of their long-time smokers who die everyday. The way that you phrased "the aim of companies is to maximize profits in the short term" reminded me of when we discussed the slave trade in the Caribbean. We talked about the discount rate and how the slaves were worked to death because the short term profit that was made off of them was worth more right then to the owner than keeping the slaves for a longer period of time. The slave owner, like the cigarette companies, makes more money off addicting people quickly and making them smoke a lot. Although this kills off their consumers, they still make a huge profit by just advertising and getting more people addicted, similar to how the slave owner would simply buy new slaves.

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: The cigarette companies advertise so heavily to get thousands of new people addicted each day to make up for all of their long-time smokers who die everyday. The way that you phrased "the aim of companies is to maximize profits in the short term" reminded me of when we discussed the slave trade in the Caribbean. We talked about the discount rate and how the slaves were worked to death because the short term profit that was made off of them was worth more right then to the owner than keeping the slaves for a longer period of time. The slave owner, like the cigarette companies, makes more money off addicting people quickly and making them smoke a lot. Although this kills off their consumers, they still make a huge profit by just advertising and getting more people addicted, similar to how the slave owner would simply buy new slaves.

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