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Non-Tech : Philip Morris - A Stock For Wealth Or Poverty (MO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Merlo who wrote (1617)	5/19/1998 12:42:00 AM
From: John Carpenter	Respond to of 6439

I think what Congress and the President is doing to the tobacco industry is deplorable. I thought the U.S. Constitution provided protection from this type of plunder and rape. The smoker(many who are low to middle income) will pay in the end. MO should never even considered settling anything. MO should have run a huge PR campaign that basically said-we employ millions of Americans(directly and indirectly), we pay tens of billions in taxes already. If you destroy us, we'll have huge layoffs and you won't get any tax revenues. I also think that MO should have much more aggressively financed any congressmen who would help them, thus letting its enemies know there's a price to be paid. MO would have had to pay much less in the end if they settled no cases and fought them all one by one. Sure, they'd lose a couple-probably not half a trillion dollars worth. There's always Chapter 11 if the lawsuit judgments are insurmountable. This would call the bluff of politicians who want to severely weaken, but not destroy MO. For if MO is destroyed, they won't have MO to plunder and kick around. Politicians need MO at least as much as MO needs politicians. (Probably a lot more)