Tobacco Documents Online

Page 49 The 5capegoaty T10 0 3 3 0 50 THE JOURNAL OF CONAtERCE June 30, 1964 IN ITS ANXIETY to protect every- one everywhere from every conceiva- ble kind of commercial hazard - and especially folks who buy at retail - Washington seems to be getting prog- ressively more indifferent to the effects of these protective actions on business Itseq. Business Is altogether too often made the scapegoat of problems that are either social, like cigarette smoking and drinking, or are the product of some government policy, as Is the case with unpopular forms of taxation. And the word "business" doesn't only mean enterprises the size of General Motors. It also Includes the man down the street who sells lipstick and other small Items. There are millions of such who suffer in varying degrees from the gov- ernment's efforts to protect the rest of society, but who get precious little pro- tection themselves. Take, for example, the Senale Fi- nance Committee's decision to shift the sales tax on cosmetics, furs and other Items fo the mamtfacturers. We agree that a manufacturers' sales tax is sim- pler, easier to collect and subject fo less "leakage" than excise taxes ap- plied at the retail level, but It is also petition of things that don't yet exist. For instance, the Justice Department's zealousness against joint ventures in which two corporations get together to explore something that might have pas- sibilities but which may mean a large loss which ii is. of course. desirable to have shared. Suppose Iwn appliance makers en- t;age in a joint venture to promotr• electrical eye glasF wipers. To create and market them may cost millions; nobody knows whether people will take as kindly to electrical eye-glass vLiperc as they have to electrical toothbrushes and if they sull persist in using their fingers the whole venture goes ttp the flue. Yet for two corporations by joint venture to dominate the mechanical eye glass wiper market which doesn't yet exist is today strictly antitrust. Is It right to deprive the public of joint experimentation and research into products that might be wonderful, or to compel such work to go under- ground when it should be in the open- like shifting sales taxes from the seen to the excise tax front where they are unseen? And why should Congressmen bP so keen about making things uncecn when so many gel interested in the "truth in lending" bill. now temporariiy dead but with few mourners at the funeral? And why should so many have espoused ahe hill to raise deposit insurance ptotec• tinn to SZ0,00P from $10.000. a benefit chiefly to so-called "wise money?" Since so small a portion of the popu- lation carries Fabilu.lly $20,000 in the bank It was unfair to the government agencies who underwrite such risks. This proposal is temporarily dead ton and with few mourners at the obsequies. * * * ,1, WE COULD SPIN out this to fill the whole page. For Instance, why view a merger of banks doing a worldwide business as a monopoly because they are dominant In the narrow field occu- pied by the head office? And why call an Industrial merger a monopoly when it unites unli!te things such as steel and glass? Why the untafreess to invurance companies in making them pay underL writing losses out of their inveatments for 10 years or ntore by refusing to let rates of premiums be realistic? We will agree there is more merit in come of these proposals r'• i policies than .. u,hers. But the :untt.latlve ef- fect of them all is nothing it not de- pressing, especially those that sFring from the unspoken assumption that businessmen are inherently gougers and that the American consumer-de- spite his acclaim as tl;e arbiter of the world's greatest econorny-is actually a congenital idiot. less visible to the consumer, who would tend under such a system to blame the price level on the producer, rather than upon the government. So It is eertainly fair to ask whether the F9nance Committee's real motive is to adopt a better form of tax in this case, or whether it Is to sweep under the t'ug a series of taxes that have little justification In a modern, peace- time economy and which are palpably disliked by the public. * ~F * * NOR CAN we escape the impression that there is something unfair to to- bacco producers if, as the Federal Trade Commission announces, it Is going to require them, in effect, to label cigarettes poison. Now there are many things that are labeled Injurious or habit forming il taken to excess. But we can see the day com utg when every bottle of whiskey: will c9t'ry a label: "Warning: this stuff can kill you If you don't watch out." Or all new autos will have 5o have a little label: "Ths machine can result in loss of life lt handled carelessly or at excessive speed." Or shotguits and rifles will have Insignia: "These ate murderr,s to you as well as to rabbits." Where these protective warnings . will lead us nobody knows. So many business men will feel that they are accessories to crimes as yet uncotn- mit.ed. THEN 77dERE is this unfairness of antitrust liability for restraint of t:om-