Word: settlements
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...number of shooting incidents in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel also tightened its blockade of Palestinian territories in what it called a preemptive action against terror attacks. The latest Israeli actions follow two attempted bombing attacks in Jerusalem as well as a mortar attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza. And Sunday's clashes at Jerusalem's holy sites - Israeli police entered the Muslim compound atop the Temple Mount after Palestinian youths threw stones down on Jewish worshippers gathered on the plaza below, at the Western Wall of Judaism's holiest temple - have added gasoline to the embers...
...average cost of a pack of Marlboros in the U.S. is $3.15. Of that, 43 cents goes to state excise taxes. Another 34 cents goes to federal excise taxes. Throw in another 58 cents for the cost of the $206 billion settlement with 46 states - a suit, the irony of which should not escape anyone, launched to recoup "lost" healthcare costs due to smoking - and you're down $1.35 and on your eighth coffin nail before you even start paying the boys down in Raleigh-Durham...
...billion cigarettes per year, or 21 billion packs. Which means that between the states, the feds and the trial lawyers, smokers are coughing up $30 billion a year to The Man. (Keep in mind these numbers are after John McCain?s $400 billion-plus-$1.50-a-pack-tax settlement bill failed in 1998, and pending the settlement of a Clinton-launched $20 billion heath-care-recoup suit that the Bush DOJ is cool on pursuing...
...even that elasticity may be wearing thin. Other manufacturers, unencumbered by settlement costs or a $100-million-a-year P.R. budget, are challenging Big Tobacco with dozens of low-cost smokes, and black-market cigarettes (including the ones that major companies give away as marketing ploys) are on the rise. Were it not for the relatively hospitable air in Washington - John Ashcroft?s Justice Department is looking to dump the Clinton suit and George W. Bush declined to add another round of excise taxes - the long-predicted death of Big Tobacco (and the concurrent rise of Little Tobacco) might have...
...analysts like Henry Blodget at Merrill Lynch. The wounded want blood. Just last week Merrill revealed that it had settled a case with an investor who lost $800,000 in part, the investor says, by following Blodget's advice. Merrill says there is no mention of Blodget in the settlement, and it merely wanted to avoid arbitration expense. In any event, the settlement was considerable: $400,000. Although most arbitration cases lack precedential value, you can imagine that tech-IPO underwriters will be hearing from lawyers for other investors who lost bundles...