Where Does Your Money Go?

Everything in this world costs money. We exchange our precious money for goods and services to be used to better our lives. But where does that money go once it leaves our hands and goes into the pockets of the people selling us goods and services? Often times, it’s invested back into the business that is represented, in order to grow it and help it flourish. Other times, it goes to pay the people working for the business. But with some companies that are making billions every year, there’s a lot of other places your money is going as well…

When it comes to taking money in each year, no one does it like big tobacco. In 210 alone, the industry conglomeration that represents cigarettes had a revenue stream of $246 billion and took home about $35 billion in profits! Now, as we all know, it doesn’t take billions upon billions of dollars to just run a business… sure, lots of these profits definitely go to paying the employees, maintaining the factories, investing in new technologies, marketing campaigns and everything else that’s essential for a business to survive.

But with so much money floating around, it’s nearly impossible to spend that large of a sum just on yourself! In the case of Big Tobacco, there’s also another place that their money is well spent each year: tobacco lobbies. What the conglomerate doesn’t feed back into itself each year, it dumps into lobbyists that protect its products and its rights as a company. In 2012, tobacco companies spent over $16 million on tobacco lobbyists to represent them in front of congress, with that number having grown each year.

Now, this $16 million doesn’t even cover all of the representation that tobacco companies pay each year. There are also private suites that warrant lawyers and many of these large tobacco companies have legal teams on a retainer for their services. Which begs the question… why keep dumping so much money into an industry that’s clearly trying to kill you? Many people are well aware that smoking is bad for them, yet continue to give their money willingly to corporations that will argue against them when it comes to health issues and topics of social well being.

eCigarettes aren’t considered by the FDA to be any safer than a regular cigarette, but there’s a big difference when it comes to cash flow in the eCigarette industry. In fact, there aren’t really any eCigarette lobbyists out there and not many eCigarette companies have a legal team on retainer for lawsuits… in fact, there haven’t been any notable lawsuits against eCigarette companies yet, except ones made by the FDA…

Which begs the question that many smokers and eCigarette users should consider… where is your money going?