EU slams Ferrari over Marlboro partnership

[xpensive]

The problem is that governments, with the complication of Bussels, are moving the goalposts and giving mixed messages all the time. In the early 80s, the Swedish government banned alcohol advertisement and shut down the Liquor-stores on Saturdays. In 1995, we joined the EU after a close-call referendum and now we have alcohol ads everywhere and alco-pop in the Saturday opened liquor stores.

The EU is now pushing for Sweden to give up the government controlled alcohol-monopoly so that we can have EU-subsidized "agricultural products", like wine around the clock at the groceries.

As I mentioned before, at the same time as Brussels is banning tobacco-ads, they are subsidizing "agricultural" tobacco farming in Greece, Italy and Spain with one GEUR per year.

[feynman]

I support you smoking cigarettes but when you get ill and need Chemo and surgery to cling to a little more low quality life, I don't want my tax dollars going to help you, even thought they will.

Making some assumptions there ... I don't smoke. I don't drink, I don't do any drugs socially-accepted or otherwise. I don't even much like Ferrari. In this argument, I am therefore your worst nightmare. What is blindingly clear to me, is that my freedom to choose NOT to, is the other side of the exact-same coin as the freedoms for others to choose for themselves.
One underwrites the other. You can't divide those freedoms, and history shows us those that have tried, the outcomes are never pleasant. Once you start demarcating, slicing-off unacceptable freedoms, once you get into the knack of it, get into the swing of deciding what's degenerate, you might find it real hard to stop.

Simple, my money fixes smokers, my children and my lungs are exposed to it, and I can't be around them 24/7. Your liberties do not include encroaching on mine.

So you are not so much concerned for the victims of big tobacco as you initially attempted to have us all believe ... it's more about you wanting to keep your moneyz.

Fair enough.
But then what you are actually doing, although probably not realising it, is making the case for the dismantling of state healthcare.
You are saying, I am alright Jack, pull the ladder up behind me.

I didn't see you complain when all those other people paid their tax, paid their contribution fair and square, funded other's healthcare, funded your children's education, only when they try to claim do you want to deny them, sounds like a swizz, like a scam.

If you object so much to paying for collectivised healthcare, if you don't like paying for the "undeserving ill", then campaign for individual health insurance. You can tick the non-smoker box, you can score-out coverage for smoking related illness, you can handily reduce your premium, the smokers will fund their lifestyle choice, and we can all go about our business without sticking our nose into other people's liberty. Use the money you save to give to the charities you feel are deserving. Volunteer some time while you are at it.

It is dirty, unpleasant, unsightly and dangerous, no not smoking, the scramble by the authoritarians to proscribe. Prohibitionism. It is just another flavour of basic tribal-intolerance, an old-fashioned puritanism that can't really be happy unless it knows that others are actively unhappy.
Why don't people just mind their own business, get on with their own lives, we don't all have to act the same, dress the same, be the same, their should be ample room for diversity, that is the point of being human.

[Giblet]

It's very simple Feynman, and I won't be pulled into a BS semantics argument with you. You responded to my post with FlyinFrog about another topic entirely. I support anyone doing whatever they want to themselves personally, so long as it does not effect me. Jack heroin. Smoke. Drink. But if what you do taxes the system I pay in to, I have every right to disagree with it.

You are not my worst nightmare, and your tone is annoying at the very least. What are you trying to prove here?

All I was saying, which you are still missing in whole or in part, is that Big Tobacco lies and/or omits to you about what is in Tobacco (not specifically you as you seem to think, but everyone), and Red Bull does not. They list what is in each can, tobacco does not.

Tobacco lies to everyone, is that clear enough for you now, or do you still want to go off about something unrelated about personal choice?

[andrew]

Tobacco lies to everyone, is that clear enough for you now, or do you still want to go off about something unrelated about personal choice?

There is no room for morals in business sadly. Just a sad fact of life.

[Giblet]

That is naive Andrew. People like myself do not support business that is immoral and unethical. I am not the only one.

Google is one of the most successful businesses on the planet and their corporate motto is "don't be evil". They chose to pull out of china on purely moral grounds losing millions of dollars and eyeballs.

[andrew]

That is naive Andrew. People like myself do not support business that is immoral and unethical. I am not the only one.

Google is one of the most successful businesses on the planet and their corporate motto is "don't be evil". They chose to pull out of china on purely moral grounds losing millions of dollars and eyeballs.

Don't be naive? Don't think I am. If google is so ethical then why do they feel the need to keep records on all users? Other search engines don't. But google are so moral thay had to photograph everyones street and front door and post it on the web without asking permission.

I don't like immoral and unethical business either but sadly all successful business is unethical and immoral. You don't become a successful in business by being nice, ethical and moral. In my line of work you quickly learn this working for property owners who are only interested in making large sums of money from their properties and don't care about screwing over a tenant to make a few grand more.

[autogyro]

Now we have a circular argument about business morals just to screw up the thread.
The issue is simple, Ferrari are breaking European law and they should be dealt with acordingly.

[andrew]

Reading this thread is too stressful for me... I gotta take a smoke break.

It must have been all the not so subliminal advertising on this thread.

[flynfrog]

Now we have a circular argument about business morals just to screw up the thread.
The issue is simple, Ferrari are breaking European law and they should be dealt with acordingly.

says you. Last I checked you were not the final say in EU law. I'm sure PM and Ferrari have lawyers are much smarter than you. They probably scrubbed the contract to meet the letter of EU law. If its so blatant why are they not in court right now?

[010010011010]

It is public opinion that will see them in court, it is now only a matter of time.

If thats the way the world worked we'd all be screwed.

[andrew]

It is public opinion that will see them in court, it is now only a matter of time.

So you're a lawyer that specialises in European law AND the voice of the people. So can I take it you are heading to Speakers' Corner with your soap box and manifesto.

It'll all come down to the wording of the agreement between PM and Ferrari as do not you think they would have been hauled up before the courts by now if they were doing something illegal?

[Jersey Tom]

All this crap is getting blown so out of proportion. People gotta start using common sense.

I don't smoke. I could stare at that barcode for weeks, and never remotely have the urge to grab a pack. Subliminal advertising is one thing.. but jeez this crap is a stretch.

They can lock down on smoking all they want. I'm an avid drinker.. I'll keep enjoying my beers, vodkas, and whiskeys... which in all honesty are probably more deadly in a short term. You can drink yourself dead in a night. Can't do the same thing with a pack of smokes.

Despite this.. I continue to enjoy it.

[autogyro]

It is the EU that brought the issue into the public domain in the first place.
It has been said that the longer the debate goes on the more subliminal advertising helps Malboro. This is very true but it also brings the issue to more and more people in Europe and it has already gone past the point where the EU can avoid taking meaningful action on the case.
The longer the issue drags on the more Malboro benefit from advertising and the more money they should be fined.

[Jersey Tom]

The longer the issue drags on the more Malboro benefit from advertising and the more money they should be fined.

Haha.. don't think you're going to have much success fining Marlboro based on OTHER people using their name, or dragging their heels drawing this thing out.

[feynman]

That is naive Andrew. People like myself do not support business that is immoral and unethical. I am not the only one.

Google is one of the most successful businesses on the planet and their corporate motto is "don't be evil". They chose to pull out of china on purely moral grounds losing millions of dollars and eyeballs.

I always get the hebegebees when I read guys that claim to have the direct-line on morality. Why is your morality so much better than anyone-elses. It certainly must be a convenient position to be in, that's for sure. Never quite clear where they get the confidence to try and relentlessly impose their values on others.

You definitely wanna be careful with that, dangerous game, what if someday you find yourself on the wrong end of someone else's notion of the immoral. I bet you'll wish you hadn't been quite so keen to glibly flush the notion of individual liberty, tolerance and diversity down the crapper.

A big fan of irony though, I see:
Applauding the 'do no evil' Google drop on China. In a thread where people are falling over themselves for restriction of free-trade and free-enterprise, the suppression of free-speech and of advertising, imposition of censorious prohibition, and for the monolithic super-state to centrally mandate all aspects of health policy healthcare provision (only to those deserving or viable) ... wow, couldn't script it, cognitive dissonance, much?