Forums > Living in Kunming > Nationwide ban on smoking ! Read again what I wrote. I admitted I am a smoker. I did not defend smoking. I only said I liked to smoke.
You, on the other hand, projected your opinion and biases on folks that smoke. You claim correlations that are ridiculous because with your limited intelligence it is the best you can do.
Can you grasp this concept, in the words of Sylvester Stone: "Different strokes for different folks."
Give it a break. If the smoke annoys you, put a plastic bag over your head and tie it tightly.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Nationwide ban on smoking ! Guess you have it all figured out. No logic or science, but an abundance of halfassed know it all nannyism. Oh, save us from those that know better.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Nationwide ban on smoking ! You really ought to bone up on the concept of utility. Your arrogance does not include your ability to decide what, or how useful, any thing is or is not useful to me.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Nationwide ban on smoking ! As a smoker, I agree smoking has no utility to nonsmokers. But I reject idiot nonsmokers claiming smoking has no utility to me.
Fifteen years ago, tobacco taxes were about 13% of China's tax revenues. Today, tobacco is less than 10% of revenues. I believe the China tobacco tax revenues exceed the Individual Income Tax revenues. I also believe the total Chinese government's spending on all health care is less the tobacco tax revenues.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Nationwide ban on smoking ! In the 1970/80s, California politicians decided an increase in tobacco taxes was called for to offset the increased social costs of treating smoker's health problems. The question turned to just how much the tax on a pack of cigarettes should be increased. Economists and number crunchers were called in to study the effects of a tax increase would have on smokers and tax revenue.
The results:
1) A tax increase of $1.00 per pack would cause many smokers to quit and total cigarette tax revenue would fall significantly.
2) A tax increase of $0.75 per pack would cause a significant number of smokers to quit but the tax revenue remain the same.
3) A tax increase of $0.50 per pack would result in few smokers quitting and the total cigarette tax revenue would increase significantly.
Which option do you think the politicians put into effect?
Earth's budget deficit at 160%, hope stems from trees
发布者Here is one take on Agenda 21:
"UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is the action plan implemented worldwide to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world. INVENTORY AND CONTROL."
——Rosa Koire
Sounds like central planning to me. Local implementation of a global "agenda" remains "planning." Interesting concept, injecting Adam Smith's "invisible hand" into a collectivist agenda thinking it will solve the conceit of the elites problem.
Good intentions all around, no doubt, but we know where that road leads.
Friction of terrain: Cycling through Zomia (part III)
发布者Is "gokunming" a gerund?
Mushroom lost for 164 years rediscovered
发布者How delicious can a 164 year old fungus taste?
Friction of terrain: Cycling through Zomia (part I)
发布者In the late 60's I was able to see a bit of Scott's Zomia. Travel by foot, humping tools of war and being sneaky gives one a great appreciation for the peoples of Zomia.
I bought Scott's book to try to understand how the mountain people came to be and why they would tolerate us but not the lowlanders that often wished to exterminate them.
Sadly, I only read part of the book and it didn't make back to the US with me.
In about 1965, in the central highlands of Vietnam, my weekly copies of Newsweek and Time weekly magazines caught up with me. I sat outside reading when a Mike Force leader, a Rhade man, stopped and asked if he could read the magazines. Thinking he would enjoy the pictures, I handed him a couple of issues.
I was surprised to see him actually reading English. Soon he explained the French missionaries sent him to university in France. The American missionaries sent him to Lehigh University where he got a Masters in Civil Engineering. I naively asked if he couldn't help his people more as a engineer, but, no, he assured me, the best way to help the Rhade was by killing Vietnamese, Communist or not. In this, his rep was very high.
I can buy into Scott'd thesis that the mountain folk just didn't to share space with lowlanders. We found support and help which in the end seemed to be motivated by "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
No clear timetable for Kundu business closures
发布者Chinese military has been under pressure to close or restrict business activity since at least 1999. The subject has come up from time to time over the years along with allegations of corruption involving of senior officers being reported in the Western press.
What tenants the military will no longer rent to will migrate to other landlords. TIC