How Wall Street tobacco deals left states with billions in toxic debt, chronic cough, ash tray

[Carson]

I saw this one this morning on Fark (http://www.fark.com/).


How Wall Street tobacco deals left states with billions in toxic debt, chronic cough, ash tray smell that won't come out


It's like they did us when they said they were collecting taxes to keep the roads repaired and never spent the money for roads. Or as one farker pointed out it's like,

"♪♫ They had a structured settlement, but they needed cash now, they called J.G. Wentworth, 877-CASH NOW! ♫♪"



Here is a link to Fark's article link;

http://www.propublica.org/article/how-wall-street-tobacco-deals-left-states-with-billions-in-toxic-debt


Here is the Fark comments which are very few. It's a huge ripoff and zoooooooom it goes right over our heads;

http://www.fark.com/comments/8366335/How-Wall-Street-tobacco-deals-left-states-with-billions-in-toxic-debt-chronic-cough-ash-tray-smell-that-wont-come-out#new

[ClydeCoulter]

Some tax payers have been paying all along when the prices went up to cover this crap. Then, a 1200% (yes, twelve hundred percent) tax on roll-your-own tobacco was added, also.

Where's the rope?

[DamianTV]

Some tax payers have been paying all along when the prices went up to cover this crap. Then, a 1200% (yes, twelve hundred percent) tax on roll-your-own tobacco was added, also.

Where's the rope?

Here, our tobacco is relatively cheap because we havent been hit by new taxes that other States have gotten. One of the differences here is Pipe Tobacco vs Cigarette Tobacco. The Pipe Tobacco is much cheaper because it isnt taxed like either cigarettes or Cigarette Tobacco, yet.

[2young2vote]

That was a very interesting article. I had never heard of it.

For those that don't want to read it - what happened was the government said that the tobacco industry owed various states over $200,000,000,000 (thats billion) that would be paid out over X number of years. The banksters and politicians got together and created deals that would allow the states to collect some of the money NOW in return for paying back the principle plus interest at a later time. However, the article shows that the deals were terrible for various reasons, and by terrible i mean the state would get one hundred million dollars of that tobacco money now and guarantee $2 billion in repayments later to the banksters and their shareholders.