(By Theo Moudakis, totally pillaged from the Toronto Star)

From the benevolent guys on Wall Street comes this fantastic piece of news:

Why is Wall Street so infatuated with cigarettes? Cigarettes have certain advantages over other consumer products, not the least of which is that they are addictive. They are inexpensive to make, require almost no innovation, there is a global market for them, and cigarette makers can raise prices without seeing much of a drop in business.

In other words, the have a captive market for a product that has no foreseeable replacement other than years of decline and horrible suffering followed by death. Everyone would want to get onboard this a speeding train. Not content with wearing the sweat of poverty-stricken 3rd world workers to get your daily quota of 1st world self-righteousness? Well then invest in the hostage-taking of millions of stupid, stupid people.

And the good news keeps on coming. Hurray!

The future prospects are particularly attractive in developing countries, where smoking has not yet declined as it has in more developed parts of the world like the United States and Europe.

Now you can break their backs in sweatshops and ruin their health while making tons of dough to buy that set of silk sheets you’ve always wanted. Ain’t life grand!

But remember, global warming is totally a myth!