Mitt Romney was CEO at consulting firm Bain & Co which was a separate entity from Bain Capital. When Mitt Romney took control he managed a successful campain for Big Tobacco's Philip Morris by increasing the number of new smokers which were primarily high school students by decreasing the price of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes . Meanwhile under Mitt Romney's guidance Bain & Co opened up a whole new market for Big Tobacco in the former Soviet Union markedly increasing the number of Russian smokers .
Meanwhile besides the fact that by that time in the early 90s cigarretts were seen as a great health risk and as a Mormon Mitt Romney was not permitted to smoke tobacco .
As the video below shows this was all very odd given his own families fight with Big Tobacco to regulate the sales of tobacco to help reduce the numbers of smokers and thereby decrease the number of people who would die each year from Tobacco smoke.
Mitt Romney who is supposed to be a good religious man who takes his religion and morality and ethics and personal integrity seriously appears to break all such rules and ethical standards when it comes to making money.
As a Mormon this line of thinking would be considered untenable and even as a business man one should probably have some moral or ethical line which one would not cross. Or am I just wrong to even think this way since according to Ayn Rand devotee Paul Ryan the rules and laws only apply to lesser mortals while what Nietzche referred to as the Superman /Uberman is only restricted in his actions by the laws of nature. Ayn Rand's great vision is one of the Fascist State which does all it can to help these exceptional individuals while the masses are needed to labor in order to improve the living conditions of their superiors.
Mitt Romney's Bain Helped Philip Morris Get U.S. High Schoolers Hooked On Cigarettes at Huffington Post,10/16/2012
Bain had long been helping Philip Morris save its "premium brands," which benefited from glamorous marketing campaigns including the Marlboro Man. Marlboro Friday allowed those more prestigious brands to compete on price with discount brands that were sold for as little a 99 cents a pack at convenience stores. A cheaper Marlboro Light didn't just convince existing smokers to switch brands -- it introduced young people to smoking.
In a research paper on Big Tobacco's youth marketing, K. Michael Cummings, professor in the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, wrote that Marlboro Friday, and aggressive Big Tobacco promotions, "helped fuel" the rise in teen smoking. "They needed to recruit new replacement smokers," Cummings said in an interview with HuffPost. "Those replacements were primarily going to come from younger smokers." (article continued after HuffPost video)
...At the time, Mitt Romney was CEO of Bain & Co. He took the reins in October 1990, according to a 1994 Boston Globe story, and led the consulting firm for years. The Romney campaign declined to provide specific start and end dates for his tenure at Bain & Co., but stated that he ran the firm "from 1990 - 1992," and said that Romney "rescue[d] the firm from the brink of collapse and save[d] 1000 jobs." That timeline is contradicted by FDIC documents obtained by Rolling Stone that list Romney as the firm's leader in March 1993, and by SEC filings uncovered by the Associated Press that list Romney as CEO of Bain & Co. as late as October 1993. Media reports show Romney attending Bain & Co. meetings during his 1994 campaign for Senate.
Philip Morris valued Bain's work during Romney's tenure and relied heavily on the consultants' research in the critical months following the announcement, as the tobacco titan struggled to elevate its stock price.
"We are now engaged in a 'price war' that we should win," reads an April 30, 1993, Philip Morris draft memo to its "field sales force." For anyone who questioned the new sales, the Philip Morris executive offered a series of bullet points. Bain's findings were its top point: "Test results through Summer Special, Bain & Co, and Portland research all strongly indicate that a 120% growth factor is more than enough." In a second, cleaned up version of that memo in May 1993, Bain's research was again given prominence.
The seeds of Bain's Marlboro Friday work can be traced back its initial pitch to Philip Morris in November 1990 -- a month after Romney took over the consulting firm. Under "strategic dilemma," the consultants wrote that Philip Morris "simply cannot afford to lose control" of the discount cigarette market. Even dabbling in the discount market -- as the company had done with its Bucks brand -- poses risks, the consultants argued.
...Bain's work for Philip Morris coincided with a global focus for the consulting firm on the tobacco industry. While helping Philip Morris in the U.S., Bain was also working to expand the Russian smoking market on behalf of another cigarette giant, British American Tobacco.
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My rant:
More and more the USA including its media appear to be fact challenged or fact adverse from evolution to climate change denial to the harm their war machine inflicts unnecessarily on other nations . The USA and its allies including NATO destroyed Iraq and Libya and Syria and are now gunning for Iran . Its media sings the praises of those in power and insists anyone against American military interventionists policies is unAmerican. The over one million dead who are not Americans are seen as a trifle while America fights this supposedly colossal war against "Evil "incarnate in which America as it was during the Cold War is on the side of "Good" .
Anyone who dares to show any compassion or sympathy for those citizens who are killed due to America's intervention is seen as weak minded and as a traitor. The hatred the USA has for the peoples of Iraq, Syria, Libya , Afghanistan, Yemen ,Pakistan appears to have no bounds . When an American is killed by Al Qaeda or the Taliban we are told this is a tragedy but when a hundred Afghan citizens are killed in a drone strike if all are innocent this is merely collateral damage in other words not worth worrying about since they are not Americans .
Americans who are true believers in America's exceptionalism and its destiny are in fact psychologically impaired lost in their own delusions or just unable to accept the reality that they are just one nation among many for which there is no special God directed destiny .
These "True Believers" in America delude themselves erroneously claiming it is the freest of all nations which if it was it is definitely not now and that America has the best medical care but it does not as millions go without adequate life long medical care having not the means to pay for it .
These "True Believers " claim without any evidence available that America has the best public schools which it does not in part because the schools in poor areas are underfunded over crowded while the schools in richer areas are well funded and well looked after .
These "True Believers" insist as Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, the GOP and Fox News argue that America is a " workers paradise " that there are no classes or class warfare in America that every worker from the bottom up are paid fairly and justly even though this is far from the truth since workers no longer have the basic right to organize form unions or go on strike .
These "True Believers" believe that all citizens in America are supposedly equal and are treated as such and that bigotry and racism are things of the past .
These " True Believers " that those who complain are just a lot of whiners who don't know how good they have it.
So These "True Believers " are in denial concerning the rights of various groups within America including the 51% who are female so they deny that women in America are treated as if they were second class citizens who don't even deserve equal pay with their male counterparts or even have reproductive rights ie abortion, contraceptives etc. because the courts, the government and God own their vaginas or what have you and so decisions to do with female parts is governed by the state, the Church and the male hierachy .
So these Americans who are "true Believers " are deluded into believing that their nation is above all an exceptional nation fulfilling God's word or as the natural leader and moral judge of the rest of the world's nations. Far from it since it is just the latest incarnation as it were of an Empire which has become a victim of its own lies and propaganda convinced it can do no wrong and that when it kills/murders innocent people it is doing so for a "Just Cause" as the Christian Crusaders believed as they left Europe and entered the Holy Land slaughtering all those that they could whether, Muslim, Christian or Jew or Pagan they believed that all those Christians who lived peacefully amongst the Muslims had betrayed their Christian faith and therefore deserved to die.
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No America is far from being a truly free nation in which everyone is treated as equals and therefore deserving equal opportunity to better their lives to follow their passions and dreams. No the GOP believes that there is a natural order to things and that those who break or question that natural order are to be chastised and treated as trouble makers or as enemies of the state. This helps to explain their irrational response to having a black man as president .
And as a true believing Mormon Mitt Romney unlike his maverick father George Romney does not question the beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Mitt Romney's father George Romney left the Republican party in 1964 when Goldwater and the pro-segregationists and other right wing extremists connected to the John Birch Society and the KKK and other white supremacist groups took virtual control of the party. So when his father decided or came to the conclusion that Black Americans deserved the same rights as white Americans he rejected one of the tenets of his own church. But he believed he had to do what was right which is what his conscience told him he must do thereby maintaining his own integrity.
So his father did not tow the LDS party line which placed black Americans and all people of color as being unworthy of respect or even admittance to the LDS priesthood or to enter Heaven /Paradise to eventually become a God rather black people would go to Heaven or Paradise to be mere servants and slaves for the white people the exceptional few that is who made it that far where they would amass even more wealth and power and add more wives to their collections.
It was not until 1979 that the LDS leadership decided to allow black men to become priest in the church though the rules were thus changed this did not necessarily lead to a canonical change but rather a compromise with the outside world as the LDS did in the 1890s in at least ostensibly changing the rules on polygamy to be able then to apply for state-hood.
And now the Obama administration is considering a military strike on Libya to get revenge for the death of their diplomat who was killed on Sept. 11, 2012. How many will they need to kill to feel they have done enough ten innocent civilians or a hundred or a thousand -these are the sort of calculations the SS made as part of the German NAZI military machine which was condemned by the rest of the world.
,White House Ponders a Strike Over Libya Attack By KIMBERLY DOZIER and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI Associated Press WASHINGTON Via ABC News, October 15, 2012 (AP)
The White House, under political pressure to respond forcefully to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, is readying strike forces and drones but first has to find a target.
And if the administration does find a target, officials say it still has to weigh whether the short-term payoff of exacting retribution on al-Qaida is worth the risk that such strikes could elevate the group's profile in the region, alienate governments the U.S. needs to fight the group in the future and do little to slow the growing terror threat in North Africa.
Details on the administration's position and on its search for a possible target were provided by three current and one former administration official, as well as an analyst who was approached by the White House for help. All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the high-level debates publicly.
...The attack has become an issue in the U.S. election season, with Republicans accusing the Obama administration of being slow to label the assault an act of terrorism and slow to strike back at those responsible. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday night that the security of State Department operations was her responsibility.
The White House is "aiming for a small pop, a flash in the pan, so as to be able to say, 'Hey, we're doing something about it,'" said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rudy Attalah, the former Africa counterterrorism director for Defense Department under President George W. Bush. Attalah noted that in 1998, after the embassy bombing in Nairobi, the Clinton administration fired cruise missiles to take out a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan that may have been producing chemical weapons for al-Qaida. "It was a way to say, 'Look, we did something,'" he said.
Bad news for Climate Change deniers:
September was the warmest ever on record, say scientists National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said that the global temperature in September was 60.21 F, about 1.21 F above the 20th century average for September. Alexander Besant at globalspost.com October 15, 2012
Researchers said that this September was the warmest one on record.
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that the global temperature in September was 60.21 F, about 1.21 F above the 20th century average for September. It marked the 331st month in a row that global temperatures were above the 20th century average, said CBC News. The last one found below the 20th century average was February 1985.
The NOAA report said that the higher than average temperatures occurred mostly in southern Greenland, Paraguay, northern Argentina, western Australia, Japan, Russia and Canada. The US itself was not particularly warm in September, however, being only the 23rd warmest September on record, said Mother Nature Network.
American Newspapers Give Far More Coverage To Climate Deniers And Skeptics Than Other Countries By Stephen Lacey at Think Progress.org,Oct 5, 2012
America is unique when it comes to giving a platform to climate deniers and skeptics. According to a new analysis of data released last year, American newspapers are far more likely to publish uncontested claims from climate deniers, many of whom challenge whether the planet is warming at all and are “almost exclusively found” in the U.S. media.
The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
The researchers were trying to answer three important questions: Is climate denial and disinformation as prevalent in the newspapers outside America? Is it mostly right-wing papers publishing these pieces?
And what types of skeptics are being published in different countries? In all three categories, the U.S. emerged as a unique leader in promoting climate denial in the press.
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