It has been 2 years, 4 months and 16 days since my last cigarette after smoking for 42 years, but who's counting.  I gave them up because of the cost, over $2200/year. I still needed something else to keep me off them so I created an inner child who was the actual smoker, not me. I then had to regain parental control o...more

Unfortunately, government is just like any other monoply in that it can charge what it wants and there's nothing that can be done about it. Only thing that is troublesome is that economic monopolies are regulated by the government but who's regulating the governmental monopoly?

In the 70's while on duty in Europe, I had a car with a 1.3 liter engine that would cruise all day long @ 85 mph and still get 30+ mpg. Double overhead cam and naturally aspirated.  The U.S. companies chose not to have this kind of engine because the American public didn't want them, and it was a Fiat to boot. There's ...more