Alistair - I really don't have the time or inclination to elaborate on the unethical practices of the tobacco companies now. Trust me - I really don't think you would want to be the cast in the role of their defender - try Googling 'tobacco industry' and 'third world'. What Ollie mentions in terms of suppressing public knowledge is absolutely true, and there's much more. The piano industry, tiny in comparison to the tobacco industry, does manufacture something that can be said to be worthwhile in and of itself, which is more than can be said for cigarette companies.
Thanks all the same, but I assure you that I have (a) no need to do the Googling you suggest, as I am already all too well aware of some of the practices of the major tobacco companies and (b) most certainly never sought, let alone desired, "to be the cast in the role of their defender". No - my reference here was purely to whether or not you take a view about the sheer size (in terms of turnover/profit) of companies in general terms (and, if any, what that may be, rather than to anything specifically connected with tobacco companies of whose activities I am deeply unsupportive; if your reference here was purely to tobacco companies' unethical practices, my question will have been a sufficiently wide-of-the-mark response to what I thought might be a side issue to what you were writing about, so let's forget about it!
This little exchange does, however, raise the issue of those among us who may unwittingly offer financial support to tobacco companies. Clearly, those who do not wish to do any such thing will purchase neither the products of such companies nor shares in those companies, but even though the UK financial services industry has a certain amount of room for the concept of "ethical investment", not all financial services products branded and regulated as "ethical" follow the same set of "ethical" rules and standards. Many "ethical" investment providers do indeed exclude tobacco companies from the list of businesses in which they invest their investors' funds, but they do not all do so.
The reason I mention this is that there are probably some people around who deprecate tobacco companies' activities as you and I and other here do, but who may nevertheless have insurance policies, investments, pensions, etc. with product providers who either do not offer "ethical" investment products or who offer such products without necessarily excluding tobacco companies from their own portfolios.
It can be very difficult for "ethical" investors to ensure 100% avoidance of involvement in what they and others might reasonably consider to be less than "ethical" investments. As an example of this, I once contacted a well-known UK bank which prides (and markets) itself on an exemplary record on "ethical" products, from current accounts to investments, pensions, etc. I began by asking one of this bank's senior officals about régimes in which, on principle, it would refuse to invest; Nigeria was quoted as an example, due to alleged human rights abuses, corporate and government financial malpractice, etc. in that country. I then asked for - and received - clarification that this meant that the bank would never invest in any Nigerian government funded project. Next, I asked if the bank would ever consider investing in a Nigerian company and was advised that such investment would not be automatically excluded from their investment decision-making. I then stated my assumption that, in their customers' best financial interests, the bank would never knowingly invest in any company that wasn't doing well; this remark rather surprised the person to whom I was speaking but he nevertheless agreed with it. Finally, I said that if the only Nigerian companies in which the bank might consider investing were financially successful ones, their ethical stance on Nigeria was pointless; when asked what I meant by this, I stated simply that any such Nigerian company would usually expect to be paying tax on its profits to the Nigerian government, so the bank would indirectly be supporting that very government by investing in that company. Case closed.
Sorry to cloud the issue with something other than cigarette smoke, but I thought that it might not be too far away from the kind of thing you were referring to when writing of tobacco companies' unethical practices.
Best,
Alistair
