I would buy a cigarette company's stock if I liked it. If people choose to smoke, it's their fault. I've known people that died from smoking, and as cruel as this may sound, it wasn't a company's fault. It was THEIR fault for smoking in the first place. Just business.
While it is highly unethical to trade based on natural disaster, you can trade derivatives based on weather...not exactly natural disaster, but along the same lines, I guess.
Marketsurfer's Black Monday thread (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=612786&highlight=black+monday#post612786) tells ya not to play with natural disasters. Ironically that short of his marked the bottom of this big move up in the markets.
Probably not ironic. The guy was a human fade. It's funny because he kept adding to a losing long in Mch/03 and he caught the bottom. I actually thought MS was talented. Then I realized it was the ONLY good trade he ever made.
How about now that i'm trying to quit, i know all the bad effect and want to make the rational choice to stop smoking, but i can't? As far as i'm concerned i'd make tabaco illegal period. For trading natural disaters it's not BAD since if you do not somebody else will anyway. But i couldn't come in front of god and tell him: "You know that day you just called back 100000 people with one single wave? Ya made me a rich man!"
Yes selling weapons also is a business and guess what happens around the world with so many wars. Guess also what will happen when some financial interest of the militaro-industrial-complex can manipulate the weather while at the same time discard all responsabilities by pretending that it is "natural" disaster ? I remind this article below. Like 9/11 after emotions will be passed responsabilities for Asian "natural" disaster and hypothesis will be looked for. Many articles disappear from Internet or are suddenly protected when alerted to forums. This one has disappeared. So now I will only refer to search engine. <b>Type on YAHOO (not Google you won't find anything interesting on this one) "Weather Manipulation" and the very first linkwill be</b> <b>"Weather as a Force Multiplier Open this result in new window report presented to Air Force 2025 on the possibility of manipulating weather for military operations."</b> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from harrytrader: And this a very recent archive of the pravda (I read it myself September 26th and I posted the link but the article is no more available on their site so that I paste from my own archive ) - you know the most important russian newspaper - where it is said "Russia has not been conquered yet, because the Russian economy has not been added to the economy of the winner. Money will probably be the major weapon of the 21st century. " Conspiracy or no conspiracy ? You can call whatever you want, the article is real and written by a russian newspaper. Entire article below : Weapons of the Future - Weather, Plasma and Money 09/26/2003 20:03 The perspective planning department is a top secret structure in the US Defense Department, which deals with the development of weapons of the future. There are such departments in the Russian Defense Ministry of course, as well as in other military departments of other countries. Needless to mention that all those developments make a state secret. The question of weapons of the future is actual not only for military men, but for all people living on the planet. Experts of the Phenomenon commission made a forecast of the future weapons. The forecast was solely based on various publications in the press. The first question about the military future of humanity is definitely connected with wars. One may not say that there will be absolutely no wars in the future. According to scientific calculations, about 15,000 wars have taken place on the planet during the recent 5,5 thousand years. More than 3.5 billion people have been killed in the wars. There were only 292 peaceful years in the entire history of the mankind. There is no reason to believe that something will change in the future. The human civilization is based on aggressiveness and war. Huge funds have been spent on armies and defense industries - the inseparable part of the modern economy of any country. Unfortunately, the situation will be preserved in the 21st century too. According to experts' estimates, a global war is likely to happen in the future as well - it will be 30 percent likely to occur. In addition to nuclear, chemical, biological weapons, there will be more sophisticated weapons of mass destruction used - they are currently being developed in secret laboratories. It has recently transpired that Russian scientists are working on the so-called plasma weapon. Academician Avramenko says, the plasma weapon will be capable of repulsing air and even space attacks. The controllable bunch of power created with the help of powerful ground lasers can destroy any aircraft and any missile when it approaches a defended area. It is a horrible weapon, although it has several disadvantages too. Ground generators can be easily detected and then destroyed. Probably, people will use autonomous and solar weapons in the future. The solar weapon was used already in the III century B.C. when Greek mathematician Archimedes burnt the Roman fleet with the help of mirrors and the sun. Unfortunately, such weapon stops working in bad weather. However, mirrors can be taken to space to avoid the weather problem. The temperature in the center of the focused solar current can reach thousands of degrees. Such a powerful ray can reach the ground from space through thick layer of clouds. This weapon will be capable of melting and burning any target. However, this weapon has a rather big disadvantage: it destroys everything on a large area around the target, like an A-bomb. A winner does not need the burnt barren land. A neutron bomb is a lot better in this respect, because it kills every living being, but non-living objects remain intact. Yet, there is no use of a town if there are no people there. Genetic poison will probably be used in the future as the most optimal variant to destroy a part of the population, even a certain specific part. Each human race has an individual genetic code. Genetic differences may lay the ground of the genetic weapon. It will be possible to create genetic viruses to exterminate a certain group of people on the planet. Terrorism of the 21st century will enter the new technological level too. As it is well known, spy satellites can read the title of a newspaper on the ground. A laser of a killer satellite can destroy any target on the Earth's surface, which is rather convenient for large terrorist acts - it will not be possible to identify the "nation" of the satellite, because a laser can be shot from any location in space filled with other countries' satellites. New discoveries and technologies will be gradually coming out of secret laboratories. Most probable weapons of the future include: Bioelectronical weapon. Professor G.Bogdanov patented the generator to fight termites. The generator's radiation kills insects paralyzing their nerve system. One shall assume, a certain frequency of the appliance can kill people too. Meteorological weapon. It is possible to make specified weather on a specified territory changing the electric charge of the air. Hard rains, droughts, blizzards can cause a very serious damage to an enemy. It is known that Russian scientists were working in the field of the meteorological war in the city of Obninsk. Tectonic weapon. Artificial earthquakes will probably be used in the future as a weapon to level cities and towns. Military departments of Russia and the USA strongly reject such a possibility at present. However, Professor E. Kerimov of the Earth Physics Institute believes that scheduled natural disasters are quite real. Yet, official departments reject the existence of all above-mentioned weapons. It is not ruled out that the wars of the future will be taking place without the explicit use of weapons. A disastrous nuclear explosion is very effective, but other methods are very efficient too, when enemies do not realize they are being attacked. Manifestations of such wars can already be seen in modern times. The capitalist and the communist superpowers have been struggling for decades without the use of their huge military potentials. As a result of the opposition, the communist superpower was destroyed. Soviet people perceived the break up of the USSR as a liberation, although the country was virtually defeated in the economic war. It is the economic war that allows to conquer other states one after another. However, Russia has not been conquered yet, because the Russian economy has not been added to the economy of the winner. Money will probably be the major weapon of the 21st century. Let's imagine that a country is waging war against an enemy, using tectonic and meteorological weapons: an earthquake is followed with hard rains and draughts. An enemy will most likely ask for help after such a powerful impact. It will be the best moment to use the power of money. The weapons of the future will be a lot more efficient than the nuclear weapon. It does not matter, if they are going to be used as the prime or the extra weapon in a war - people will suffer and die anyway. The weapons of the new technologies pose a great danger to life on planet Earth. All present developments and research works must be strictly controlled by the state and by the society. A victory in a war is good for the government of the winning state, first and foremost. Common people have to survive a disastrous tragedy for a victory. As experience shows, all anomalous or inexplicable phenomena are hidden from the public eye. Such a policy is understandable, because secret or unexplored knowledge can be used for someone's selfish needs. On the other hand, concealing or misrepresenting facts, separating science into "official" and "unofficial" categories is extremely dangerous for the whole humanity. Science helps people find answers to questions, it is not meant to incite wars and hostilities.
Ok, whose fault is it that you started in the first place? If you can't quit, that's also your problem. I also know many people who quit and they didn't complain about the "evil tabacco companies."
Yup Yup. Fortunes are made on the misery of others. Everytime there is a catastrophe, someone rich is making even more riches. Rockefellers, Henry Ford, Rothchilds, Vanderbuilts and even the Bush family earned a large portion of their riches from WWII.
See also http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO201A.html 'in the 1970s, former National Security advisor <font color=red>Zbigniew Brzezinski</font> had foreseen in his book "Between Two Ages" that: "Technology will make available, to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting <b><font color=red>secret</font> <font color=blue>warfare</font></b>, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised... [T]echniques of <font color=red><b>weather modification</b></font> could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm."' Yes Brezinski the right hand side of Rockfeller remember him already talked much about him: The same who wrote in his book http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/zbig.html <br> "With warning signs on the horizon across Europe and Asia, any successful American policy must focus on Eurasia as a whole and be guided by a Geostrategic design." (p.197)<br> <br> "<b><font color="RED">That puts a premium on</font></b> maneuver and <b><font color="RED">manipulation</font></b> in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America's primacy..." (p. 198)<br> <br> "The <font color="RED"><b>attitude of the American public</b></font> toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the <font color="RED"><b>shock effect</b></font> of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (pp 24-5)" [Why does he need to refer to this : answers following ...]<br> <br> "<b><font color="RED">America is too democratic at home</font></b> to be <b><font color="RED">autocratic abroad</font></b>. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, <b><font color="RED">except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being.</font></b>" [What does he means <img src="confused.gif" alt="" border="0"> ]<br> <br> "Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, <b><font color="RED">except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat</font></b>."æ (p. 211) [Emphasis added] [What does he means once again <img src="confused.gif" alt="" border="0"> ]<br> <br> "...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more <b><font color="RED">brutal age of ancient empires</font></b>, the three grand imperatives of <b><font color="RED">imperial geostrategy</font></b> are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)