It’s a moot point. The people who sued for 145 billion probably aren’t going to see any of that money. Florida has a law against any reward that will bankrupt a company. A deal will be made. And the lawyers are going to prolong it as much as possible with appeal after appeal after appeal.
Jodi wrote:
I believe, however, that you don’t need to eat any saturated fat; i.e., that you’ll be perfectly healthy if all the fat you ever eat is mono-unsaturated or poly-unsaturated.
Nor do any of your unsaturated fats need to contain trans-fatty acids, which are nutritionally equivalent to the saturated fatty acids in saturated fats.
Looks like I missed mose of the action. For the record, Satan, I do think that the tobacco lawsuit is absurd. The only ones who will benefit will be the lawyers and the media. Not to say that the lawyers will benefit unfairly…
Nevertheless the comparison between fast food and cigarettes is terribly simplistic. But I don’t think I need to repeat the reasons.
MR
The sad thing is that, as somebody pointed out earlier, some people really are getting ready to sue fast food companies. Because Ronald McDonald ties you down and crams Big Macs down your throat, doesn’t allow you to exercise, and personally MADE you fat. right? um, no. Regardless of what some may claim, everybody is responsible for what they put into or do with their bodies, whether smoke, grease, drugs, what have you. I chose to eat a whopper today. But I also choose to run & lift weights so it doesn’t hurt me. My girlfriend chose to smoke 1/2 a pack of cigarettes today. But she chose not to smoke the other half, and chose to run and stay in shape. Those bastards at Columbine H.S. chose to go in and shoot everybody. The guns didn’t magically leap into their hands, take over their minds, and kill everybody for them. (aside: making guns illegal wouldn’t have stopped those killings. Explosives have been illegal for YEARS. did it stop them from planting bombs throughout the school? negative. you can’t stop sombody bent on causing destruction. they will find a way)
This (suing people who make things that are legal, but “we” don’t like them) is a bad, bad, bad, dangerous, evil trend. Politicians have learned that they cannot outlaw [fat in food|cigarettes|guns|whatever] because of those annoying “rights” thingies, so they came up with a clever but WRONG way to subvert and circumvent proper legal procedure. “If we can’t make it illegal, we’ll just tax and litigate until it’s too expensive to make it!”
It’s a really clever way to look like you’re doing something good, pretend you’re defending people from the evils of the world, etc. But in reality they are making new “laws” without having to answer to anybody. Don’t like guns? Well, we can’t make them illegal because of the bill of rights, so we’ll just tax them to death, and sue manufacturers so they can’t afford to stay in business. Don’t like cigarettes? Same thing. Freedom of speech? huh. Probably next on the list.
People in this country are so desperate for convenience that they will gladly give away their rights and their liberty for more of it. And the ruling parties are all too glad to take that liberty in trade for further control over our lives.
I don’t smoke. I don’t like smoking. I think it’s gross and unpleasant. But damn it, there’s no reason it should be illegal and these farcical trials with obscene awards make me F-ING SICK!!! If you want to smoke I may choose to step away from you while you do it, I may bug you about how it’s bad for you and you should probably stop. But if you’re an adult, it’s none of my business or anybody else’s business to stop you from doing it.
The really scary thing is that this strategy will work on anything that the government doesn’t like. Cigarettes are only the first step on this journey of a thousand miles. And it worries me.
YOu are missing my point. From a liability standpoint, the usefullness does not matter. we have many things in our life that are not at all usefull other than to give us pleasure. If those items cause injury, their overall necesity to supporting the huiman organism is not going to come into play.
teh question will be, was it used as intended, did it cause injury, could it have been forseen and avoided.
Now, you may feel that this is an important difference, and jurors may feel the same as you do. but legally, the utility is not really important. If it were, it would be a great defense for food borne illness claims, faulty atuomobiles and defective building design. “sure our product keilled the plaintiff, but we are not at fault because he needed a house. Too bad it was full of radon and asbestos.”
Yes, but a product that has no usefulness and is harmful is very difficult to defend. I can defend a product that is harmful but societally useful on the grounds of its usefulness; I can defend a product that is not useful but is harmless on the grounds that it doesn’t harm anyone. It’s hard to defend a product that actually damages people and is of no measurable good to anyone
MR. Z, forgive me if I get a little tart, but it bugs me when people put forward as asolute truths things that are, quite simply, incorrect. You say:
It absolutely does. To me, this is so obvious as to be self-evident. If a product has a utility and is being put the the use for which it is designed, the inherent dangers of using the product with be considered acceptable, to a certain point, as part of a trade-off for the utility provided. In other words, TNT is defensible because it has a particular use to which it can be put for the good of those seeking to employ it. Remove the utility and you have an indefensible product – TNT that people just play with, for example.
Well, obviously. If they are “not at all useful other than to give us pleasure,” then “their overall necessity” will not “come into play” – because, by definition, they don’t have any. And such products – like cigarettes are infinitely more difficult to defend than products that do have utility – that’s my point.
That is not the extent of the question; the question also encompasses whether there is any reason for the existence and marketing of the inherently dangerous product in the first place. If there isn’t, then the product is very difficult to defend, for reasons I would have thought were obvious.
Yes, it is. Jurors, by the way, are instructed as to the law they are to apply to the facts before them. Hopefully, they are more fully aware of that law than you appear to be.
First, you are mixing apples and oranges. A “food-borne illness claim” is not a claim regarding a defective product; it is a simple negligence claim. Second, I never said that utility was an absolute defense; only that it was a factor, the absence of which makes it much more difficult to defend the product in question. Third, we are not talking about products that are defective, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Big Macs, cigarettes, and race cars all function exactly as designed and as intended; they are not defective. The question is whether the utility of the product, put to its intended purpose, outweighs the inherent danger of using the product. With Big Macs and race cars (and houses, though not those defectively constructed), you could argue that the utility outweighs the danger. (Now, we might disagree on whether the argument would be successful, but it could be made.) You can’t make that argument regarding cigarettes, because they have no utility at all.
JOE COOL, again, the difference is that cigarettes are addictive and Big Macs are not. So you may be consuming that Big Mac 100% of your own free will, but your girlfriend is probably engaging in an activity she’d probably rather not do if she was acting entirely out of her own free will. But she smokes anyway, because her free will is, to some extend, overridden by her addiction. Moreover, the flipside of an argument that we all have the right to do what we want is that we don’t have that right if we unnecessarily or excessively infringe on the rights of others. There is an argument to be made that smoking does that, directly through the effects of second-hand smoke and indirectly through the costs to the taxpayers of having to pay for the treatment of thousands of smokers who are now getting sick and dying but who can’t pay their own way as they do so. I’m not defending the latest tobacco suit verdicts, just pointing out – again – that there is a legally colorable argument where cigarettes are concerned, and there probably is not where Big Macs are concerned.
Jodi, I was reading through your post, jaw agape, wondering what you are thinking. For example that the utility of the product is, as a matter of law, a factor in a third party tort action. I swas thinking about television, radios, make-up, jewelry…all things that are without much inherent benefit and none of which is necessary.
then I hit this:
as the insurnce manager for 3 pie plants and two restaurant chains, I can tell you that you are wrong about this. What kind of claim is it if our product (food) is inherently defective? Premesis liability? Advertising injury?
Now I see why to are making this argument about utility. Liability does not hinge on the value of the product in supporting human life. If a game boy ruins your eyesight, the case is the same as if your CRT ruis your eyesight.
But I can see that I will have a difficult, if not impossible time convincing you of this.
Mr. Z says:
Which amuses me because what I’m thinking is pretty obvious from anyone reading my posts.
None of which are inherently dangerous, either. This is the problem; you keep mixing up products that are not in the same class – ie, products that are defective and products that are not; products that have utility and products that do not – and applying the same analysis to them. But that’s not how it works. A stick of TNT, a radio, and a hamburger are not analyzed the same way for purposes of determining liability.
As I said, negligence. Did you read my post? Did I say anything about premises liability or advertising? This is from Black’s Law Dictionary:
My emphasis. In other words, if your pie plants are packaging and exporting pies carrying e coli, that’s arguably products liability. If, however, your cafeteria is serving contaminated food because the employees don’t wash their hands, that’s negligence – not products liability. Now, in your case, products liability may be the more appropriate way to raise the allegations in the complaint, but that doesn’t make it so for every person who contracts hepatitis from a fast-food joint. Don’t assume that your experience with the law dictates how it will proceed in situations that are not analogous. In any event, you you are again assuming a defective product. A Big Mac, cooked properly and served properly, is not a defective product, and that’s what the OP was talking about.
I never said it “hinged” on it, and I never said “supporting human life.” Yes, a game boy and a CRT are arguably the same. But we are not talking about game boys and CRTs; we are talking about cigarettes and Big Macs. Do you seriously argue that the liability analysis for the former is the same as the liability analysis for the latter, and that the utility of the product will not be considered? Because, if you do, you are wrong, wrong, wrong. In any event, I refuse to allow you to extropolate wildly from what I did say to try to pigeonhole me for something I did not say.
Yes, you will. Because you are incorrect.
If we’re going to continue the discussion, I would suggest you try to limit yourself to examples of products that are not defective and still give rise to suits. Except for guns and cigarettes, there are precious few of them. But I will no longer attempt to draw the distinction between the law regarding defective products (of which you apparently know something), and the law regarding products that are not defective but yet are unsafe (of which you apprently do not). You either see the difference or you don’t, but I can’t explain it any clearer than I already have.
Well, first of all, most food borne illness claims do result from the prodoct being made in a way other than it was designed. A burger certainly is not designed to have e-coli. An undercooked chicken sandwich was not “manufactured” properly. If someone slips on a Rueben that fell on the floor, then yes, the injury is not really arising out of the product. But if our products coverage covers it, teh complaint pleads it as a product liability claim, and the allegations are that teh product is defective, I think it is a product claim.
no, I do understand the difference. If a big mac has glass in in, or is prepared in a way that it injures the consumer, that is a defective product that is unsafe. Cigarettes are a product that is unsafe when made the way it was designed and used as was intended. I understand the case against Big Tobacco, but I strongly disagree with it.
My point is that Big Macs (or one of our super high fat pies) will cause injury if made as designed and used as intended.
I just do not think that you can absolve (or diminish if you prefer) a manufacturer of liability because their product has utility. If the product kills, what matters the value of the product? I can see where this could come up in a debate over whether to make illegal a product; I can’t see how it matter in a liability suit.
Of course, I strongly disagree that any lawsuit for either should be brought. I can’t believe the tobacco suit outcome. I find it hard to believe that cigarettes and booze will not be driven from production soon.
One last though: can’t deriving pleasure from something give it utility? Or are movies on the same ground as cigarettes?
MR. Z. says:
And, see, this is so self-evident to me. The question of whether the manufacture of an inherently dangerous product should be allowed or even tolerated obviously turns on whether the product has utility and, even if so, whether the utility is such that the danger associated with the product should be tolerated.
Lets say I genetically engineer an organism or bacterium that kills the AIDS virus. The problem is, in a certain percentage of cases, the organism or bacterium also kills the individual who is innoculated with it. Will the manufacture and distribution of the innoculation be tolerated? Depends – what are the chances it will kill you? 2%? 10%? 50%? 75%? Obviously, as the mortality rate goes up, the utility of the product goes down. The liability for the manufacterer for distributing the product will therefore take into account whether the result obtained by its use outweighs the danger inherent in its use – in other words, the product’s utility.
We, as a society, allow TNT and guns because they are products having a utility that outweighs, in the minds of most, the dangers associated with their use. If that utility was reduced or removed, the product would be indefensible. It’s that simple. Moreover, I don’t think you really disagree with this yourself. A gun is obviously a product that kills; do you argue that the “value of the product” for hunting and self-defense should not mitigate liability, just because the product is one that can kill?
And as to entertainment as utility, I think, yes, there is a utility argument to be made there. However, the question is one of degree. A product that keeps people alive (like insulin) is obviously way more useful than one that keeps people entertained (like television). Moreover, more people are willing to risk their lives to be kept alive than to be entertained.
First off, let me identify myself as a reformed rabid anti-smoker. While smoke bothers me, I can choose to leave or not to associate with people who do it, if it bothers me that much. My gf doesn’t quit because she doesn’t want to. She enjoys smoking and has no desire to quit. I’m sure if she did, she would.
I am firmly of the opinion that the vast majority of research on both sides of the tobacco argument is biased and chock full of propaganda and agenda. I agree that it’s harmful, but probably not much more so than inhaling ANY foregn substance into your lungs on a regular basis. I suspect that if you made a habit of inhaling wood smoke, plastic smoke, silicon smoke, ANY kind of smoke, you would find a similar rate of emphysema, cancer, what-have-you as with tobacco.
I agree that it is addictive, but (as somebody who has never been a smoker, I admit that my opinion lacks punch…any smokers able to back me up?) I believe that the psychological aspect of the addiction is far greater than the physical. Food addicts are not addicted to cheeseburgers, as such, but I suspect to the habit of getting a cheeseburger at lunch every day, or eating to cure boredom. It’s more adherance to a routine than it is a physical addiction. I know many people who have quit smoking cold. Just one day decided that was the last cigarette they would have. Because they wanted to quit. I also know many people who have tried and failed, because they were not ready. They quit for reasons other than “I really don’t like doing this and I want to quit”, and so doomed their efforts to fail.
There is also an argument to be made that second hand smoke is not nearly as bad for you as people say (Cecil himself tackled it here). I grew up in a smoking household (my father smoked heavily for the first 17 years of my life) and have never had any respiratory problems, and I’m certain I’ve never had cancer. I recently moved to Newark, New Jersey, and I think the standard air here is by far the worse of the two. In fact, I think a little 2nd hand smoke would do me some good, by displacing some of the crap in the air around me.
I’m certain there are people who will disagree with you vehemently here. You’ve heard that tobacco addiction is harder to kick than heroin? That’s only because tobacco is (was, until recently…) socially acceptable and readily available. It’s easier to drop an addiction you have to go far out of your way to keep up than when you can indulge your habit at any corner store. And Big Macs are just as available as even cigarettes, not to mention more acceptable socially. Oh, one other thing. As has been said already, Nobody under 40 can use the excuse “I didn’t know it was bad!” It’s been known plenty long enough that smoking is unhealthy. And nobody starts because “Big Tobacco” (another label that has no real meaning other than to elicit an emotional reaction, similar to “religious right”, “liberal” and “gun nut”) made them do it. Since high school I have had a strange habit of asking smokers I know why they started. With only a few exceptions, they have all said “because X did and I wanted to [fit in/look cool]” or something to that effect. The vast minority said something like “because I heard you get a rush from it”, which is a small argument in favor of the addictive-additive camp. But even so, it’s not the manufacturer’s faults.
Satan said:
and:
And I agree on both points. This suit is stupid, and another indication of our victim mentality. Sorry you smoked and F-ed yourself up. It’s a shame, but stuff happens. But nobody made you do it. A friend of mine used to work for the forest service in NM, and witnessed a lawsuit where a man sued the US forest service, claiming they were negligent when he walked off a cliff in the mountains. His argument? They should have put fences and signs at every cliff telling him not to walk past the edge. This is the same thing. People trying to lay blame where there is none, because they don’t want to take responsibility for their actions, and don’t want to acknowledge the fact that your actions have consequences.
wow. that came out way longer than I meant it to.
Bravo. very good point. For the record, I don’t think utility has anything to do with this issue though. Tobacco has utility, as much as chewing gum or fast food does. Entertainment, enjoyment, convenience, whatever. One other comment though: Just as with dynamite or a gun, personal responsibility is required with tobacco. If you smoke/chew/dip, it’s your ass (figuratively). All the tobacco companies do is put out a product for which there is a huge demand. They don’t make you use it. Do they artificially try to increase demand for their product? Hell yes. But then, can you show me a company that doesn’t do the same? My own employer (a large computer retailer) centers its entire business model on talking people into buying crap they don’t want or need. Our sales staff have mounds of literature and hours of pitches to convince you that you need something you don’t want or need–solely to increase revenue. Maybe we should sue [company name deleted. :)] too!
OK, Jodi, I think I have figured out why we differ on this (the reward for not just flaming each other.)
You see this as a utility issue. I see it as an assumption of risk issue.
An individual who takes the vaccine, knowing the possible outcomes, weigh the risk and the reward. If for the individual, the reward is high enough, he will take the risk.
Where we differ is that I think that once the individual assumes that risk, he waives the right to file suit (philosophically,of course. You can file suit for anything.) So I see it not as a matter of law to be heard at trial in the form of utility argument. Rather, it is a matter of the individual taking on risk.
The difference to me is that if we are weighing utility in the manner you seem to suggest, then the duty of the individual to act reasonabley is changed with his desire for the product and it’s use to him. So a smoker who knows full well that he has a 50% chance of getting some horrible disease, has almost no duty to act reasonably because the product has little utiltiy (other than making one feel good) whereas the person who uses an equally dangerous product with more utility has a much higher duty.
All things being equal, individuals in both cases should be held to the same starndard, as should the manufacturers. THe difference should be how dangerous the product was and if this were known.
JOE COOL says:
Based on what? The tobacco companies have a vested interest in misrepresenting the danger of their product and in making it seem cooler/less harmful/better for you than it is. That they will stoop to tactics including lying (even before Congress), intimidation, misdirection, and general duplicity has been well established, and their motive is obvious – money, and lots of it. I see no such “agenda” on the part of the people who have conducted the zillions of studies showing that tobacco is (a) very bad for you and (b) addictive. Are some of the anti-smoking zealots just as rabid as the smoking zealots? Sure. But they lack the obvious nefarious agenda the tobacco companies possess.
Sure, but nobody purposely inhales those things into their lungs on a regular basis. Why? Because they are not addictive. Do you think smokers would smoke if they weren’t addicted? I think the vast majority would not. It’s a habit with few redeeming qualities – it makes you smell bad, taste bad, it robs you of breath, and sticks you out in the cold outside your office building, shivering as you attempt to light a smoke. Sure, some people might try smoking (especially young people) for the “cool” factor, but I doubt they’d stick with it. They stick with it because it is addictive.
I don’t believe this is correct; to the contrary, I believe it has been conclusively proven to be incorrect. Nicotine is physically addictive, and it seems obvious to me that a physical addiction will outweigh a psychological addition – the former being something your body is convinced it needs, the latter being something your mind is convinced it wants.
I do not smoke, so I will leave it to a smoker to tell you how difficult it is to quit, and how it is so much more than a matter of willpower and being “ready.” I know it is possible to overcome an addiction to nicotine – people do it every day, including people on this Board who have taken that difficult and admirable step. But I doubt the would tell you that merely not wanting to do it anymore would normally be enough to overcome the addiction.
I never said that nicotine was the most addictive substance on earth; whether it is or not, I don’t know. I said it was addictive, which it is, and therefore difficult to do with out for those who are addicted, which it is. Your argument seems to be that smoking should be tolerated because anyone who wants to can give it up at any time. I think the premise is faulty and I also think the argument is misplaced, since I have never said that smoking should be banned.
So you totally absolve the tobacco companies for making a product that addicts people and eventually kills them? I do not. I recognize that it is difficult to win a lawsuit if you started smoking after the labels were put on cigarettes and the dangers of smoking were widely known, and I think that’s as it should be. It’s called “assumption of risk” and such plaintiffs probably are (and, IMO, should be) SOL. That is not inconsistent with recognizing that tobacco is a product with no redeeeming characteristics whatsoever, that addicts its consumers and places a measurable economic burden on society at large – and, as has been proven, that it is an industry run by liars and opportunists. Having found the market in the United States so heavily regulated, they have turned their marketing efforts to third-world nations, where they sell unfiltered cigarettes, made with specially-bred, high-nicotine (and therefore highly addictive) tobacco, and without warning labels. I have zero respect for them, and my general approval of a free-market economy does not prevent me from saying that I would not care in the least if the entire tobacco industry sank into the sea.
MR. ZAMBEZI says:
Yay us. 
But those are not the same. “Assumption of risk” is the undertaking of a particular risk by an informed individual. In these days of labels and studies and the general knowledge that smoking is very, very bad, one of the strongest legal arguments the tobacco companies can make is that new consumers assume the risks inherent in smoking. (The legal irony, of course, is that they tried for so long to keep those dangers a secret; now the fact that the dangers are widely known is one of their best defenses.)
This is different than an analysis of “utility,” which deals with the usefulness of the product and not the knowledge of the consumer. Whether the consumer is knowledgeable of the product or not, its utility (or lack thereof) remains the same.
Actually, we don’t differ on this at all; I completely agree with it, provided you are dealing with a fully informed consumer. And this, I think, is why a lawsuit for a dying plaintiff who started smoking in the '30s when the ads proclaimed “Doctors Say Camels Will Cure That Cough!” is, and should be, more successful than a lawsuit for a dying plaintiff who read the warning label on his Camels everytime he opened a fresh pack.
It is if we are talking about an addictive product, because then we are no longer talking about smoking as a “voluntary” action. An addicted person “acts reasonably” when he feeds his addiction, whatever it might be. The utility aspect of it only weighs in to the extent you can say “this is a product that does Very Bad Things to its users AND it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.”
Wrong. In fact, almost completely backwards. A person who undertakes to use a product with little or no utility cannot claim that utility as an excuse for his behavior. Compare: “Why did you start smoking?” “Because I thought it looked cool.” with “Why were you using that chainsaw?” “Because I had to cut that tree down.” Just as lack of utility tells against the manufacturer – you chose to create and market a product of no earthly use to anyone and that is also extremely harmful (unlike, say, chewing gum) – it also tells against the consumer – you chose to use a product you knew or should have known was harmful, and that you had no real reason to have to use. At this point, the argument devolves back to addiction (“I used it and continued to use it even though I knew it was dangerous because I couldn’t help myself, because I was physically addicted to it”). That, in turn, devolves back into assumption of risk (“But you knew before your started smoking that smoking was dangerous and that there was a high likelihood you could become addicted, didn’t you?”) This is where the argument becomes difficult for the plaintiff to make, and rightly so. Anyway, assumption of risk and utility are not the same, but you are correct in saying that assuption of risk is by far the more important of the two.
All things being equal, individuals in both cases should be held to the same starndard, as should the manufacturers. THe difference should be how dangerous the product was and if this were known.
You make some strong points. I don’t completely disagree with you, but I also won’t take up your side.
I don’t have any actual data in front of me, so I’m not really equipped to argue this point now. But I have yet to read a report from either side that sounds like it made an attempt to be truly objective. Studies tend to be written by people who either want to promote tobacco as safe, or who are rabid anti-smokers and want to cause the whole industry to “drop off into the sea”. At least in my admittedly limited experience.
**
Yes, they do. All smokers smokes when they’re not addicted. This is called “when they start smoking”. Nobody is addicted after one cigarette, or even one pack. How do I know? When I was young I tried to start smoking because I thought it was cool, because my dad did it. I got caught trying to sneak them and got caught. I received the standard treatment (“you sit there until you’ve smoked the rest of that pack … Still want to learn to smoke?” “<cough> <hack> NO!!”) Am I addicted? Nope. Was I ever? Nope. People purposely force themselves to continue smoking for whatever reason they started in the first place. Addiction doesn’t kick in until later on.
Again, no hard data. My apologies. But the results of my informal survey of smokers whom I know personally say that the need to be doing something with your hands, the need to continue a habit of doing something, the need to get up and take a 5 minute smoke break every hour of the day, is by far the hardest part of kicking it.
Satan? Other Teeming Ex-smokers? What’s your take on this? It’s a little difficult having this debate between two nonsmokers.
This I’ll buy. Desire alone isn’t enough. But desire to stop coupled with a decision and determination to stop will overcome addiction. How do I know? I see it on a regular basis. On the other hand, lack of true desire to quit almost always leads to failed attempts to quit. You can’t do it if you don’t really want to.
Slight correction. I think it should be tolerated because it’s done by consenting adults (I agree kids should be disallowed by the law but most importantly, by their parents) who know what they’re doing, and it’s a victimless action. Your smoke may bother my eyes, but I really don’t believe that it is harming me or anybody else. Maybe I’d feel differently if I had asthma, but asthmatics and people with hay fever can’t sue “BIG POLLEN”…or can they? Hey, wait a minute, there’s an idea–we could all make a fortune!!! Cut down all trees, burn all grass and flowers, because who the F are they to be putting out those particles that can KILL?
I do absolve tobacco companies of responsibility. There is no excuse for starting to smoke. You cannot claim victim status when everybody knows what they’re getting into. THERE IS A WARNING LABEL ON EVERY PACK!!! And that measurable burden on our economy is very comfortably offset by the tax on each pack sold. Here in New Jersey, it’s 80 cents each! Not counting federal tax. One other major (in my eyes) point: This IS a free market economy. There is a major demand for tobacco products. The so-called “war on drugs” (pronounced derisively and contemptuously) should have taught us all that as long as there is a demand, there will always, ALWAYS be a supply. If people want something and are willing to pay to get it, somebody will always find a way to deliver it to them.
You just described every corporation in the US. But in several other threads, you have people violently defending Micro$oft’s (just a prime example) similar actions, which include blatant lying before congress (although I don’t understand why lying to a bunch of liars should be considered such a heinous crime).
This was not my attempt at bettering race relations through the use of Ebonics. This was a typo.
ugh. Note to self:
Re-type the line, don’t just edit it. and PROOFREAD!!!
Honestly, I do think that soda pop is truly addictive.
Why, I dont know, but it is.
I can’t imagine pizza or potato chips without it!
I tried gatorade, but it doesn’t quite cut it, flavorwise.
As far as fast food, I did used to wonder if they put something in it.
But I think that they just spend billions on advertising, build them on every corner, then tell the kids to go there.
When moms and dads are tired, I can see them saying, Okay lets stop here for food.
I used to do that myself; however, I find its easier and healthier to feed them before you go out and take along some water or gatorade for thirst.
Just my two cents.