Potatoes, Tobacco, Petrol and Tax
Centuries ago when potatoes and tobacco were introduced to Europe they were both considered as life changing items. That is the same today, but for different reasons. Originally, the potato was introduced to the diet and remains a staple part of modern diets, even though the chip has wrecked all that. The unchipped potato is an excellent source of carbohydrate to provide energy, but like many things: in moderation. It is a source of good health. However, add butter/margerine/salt and it becomes fattening and very unhealthy. Interestingly, salt ruins the taste of the potato. Add salt and you cannot taste it anymore! Then you will need butter or something else to provide the taste.
The potato is not taxed. Yet.
Tobacco has never been a source for anything but misery. Nicotine is a mind altering drug. It must be as those who use the substance delude themselves into believing they enjoy smoking when really it is simply getting the ‘fix’ of nicotine. A trace of this very addictive drug, the most addictive natural substance known to man, is taken into the body with a huge quantity - everything else in this smoke pollution - of toxic and extremely dangerous impurities. Actually, an impurity is defined as a trace amount so the nicotine is, in fact, only one of the many impurities in tobacco smoke. Most of the nicotine will be destroyed by the heat of burning, which generates the smoke to be inhaled. Only a minute fraction of the original nicotine will ever reach the receptors in the body to satisfy the cravings of the brain. Smoking is lethal and it is taxed. The cost is nearly all taxation. And it is destroyed by burning.
This is like petrol: otherwise a completely waste product from the refinement of crude oil. Totally useless until the petrol engine was developed to use it. It has in the last few decades become a useful product. An essential product. An excellent target for taxation. And it has been taxed. Nearly all tax from a waste product. The petrol engine was a masterful invention that has changed the world for ever. Until, of course, the oil runs out or we all die because of the pollution. I believe, pollution will get us all first. And quite soon. Global warming is not a faddish term. It is here and it is happening now. Consider the many cancers of the last 20 years or so. Do you really believe they have always been around before records were kept? The dreadful health of countless millions worldwide. The living dead? And a source of taxation for governments. The ‘spin’ goes that people are living longer and so the older person is more likely to become unhealthy - naturally! Really? Define ‘spin’ for yourself. And speak your answer out loud.
I remember reading once that tobacco was seen as the perfect product: when people use it during their working life they pay tax on it. Then these same people will die before they get ill. So, maximum in from the cash cow and nothing to pay out. Cynical? I think not.
Environmentalist thinking has always been visionary thinking. It has always been right and if we don’t wake up it will be too late, if it isn’t already. Negative thinking? No. It is being awake and thinking.
The potato is not taxed. Yet.
Tobacco has never been a source for anything but misery. Nicotine is a mind altering drug. It must be as those who use the substance delude themselves into believing they enjoy smoking when really it is simply getting the ‘fix’ of nicotine. A trace of this very addictive drug, the most addictive natural substance known to man, is taken into the body with a huge quantity - everything else in this smoke pollution - of toxic and extremely dangerous impurities. Actually, an impurity is defined as a trace amount so the nicotine is, in fact, only one of the many impurities in tobacco smoke. Most of the nicotine will be destroyed by the heat of burning, which generates the smoke to be inhaled. Only a minute fraction of the original nicotine will ever reach the receptors in the body to satisfy the cravings of the brain. Smoking is lethal and it is taxed. The cost is nearly all taxation. And it is destroyed by burning.
This is like petrol: otherwise a completely waste product from the refinement of crude oil. Totally useless until the petrol engine was developed to use it. It has in the last few decades become a useful product. An essential product. An excellent target for taxation. And it has been taxed. Nearly all tax from a waste product. The petrol engine was a masterful invention that has changed the world for ever. Until, of course, the oil runs out or we all die because of the pollution. I believe, pollution will get us all first. And quite soon. Global warming is not a faddish term. It is here and it is happening now. Consider the many cancers of the last 20 years or so. Do you really believe they have always been around before records were kept? The dreadful health of countless millions worldwide. The living dead? And a source of taxation for governments. The ‘spin’ goes that people are living longer and so the older person is more likely to become unhealthy - naturally! Really? Define ‘spin’ for yourself. And speak your answer out loud.
I remember reading once that tobacco was seen as the perfect product: when people use it during their working life they pay tax on it. Then these same people will die before they get ill. So, maximum in from the cash cow and nothing to pay out. Cynical? I think not.
Environmentalist thinking has always been visionary thinking. It has always been right and if we don’t wake up it will be too late, if it isn’t already. Negative thinking? No. It is being awake and thinking.
posted by Louis Brothnias at 11:03 pm
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