European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 12, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Pm Flolo columns Ellen Goodman the stars and stripes thursday March 12,1987 ban on cigarette ads an imperfect Compromise Lactone what would happen if Tome modern two things about them with absolute certainty smok ten. Match advertising samples sponsorships of Al on cur came in with a in Fly idea for q new can Ine ii bad Tor heir health bad for every body j Hillh. In Lac events virtual he anything with a cuu Retle name imagine entrepreneur p nifty of a con Sumer product an item that had no notable benefits was addictive and would be implicated in the deaths of some 350,000 americans cach year. What precisely would be the response of his corporate superiors beyond stunned silence would the Rood and drug administration give his idea its Seal of approval would the government allow it to be sex lolled and sold to citizens hardly. It cigarettes did nol exist we might invent them but never in the wildest scenario would we let them Loose on the Legal Market. But what do you do once cigarettes Are in the marketplace what do you do once you have a hooked population a hooked Economy this is the question that plagues the anti tobacco coalition. When you Cut right through All the arguments by lawyers and doctors and policymakers what we have Are so million addicted americans. We know twing s a thei everybody s health and Banning cigarette at ibis moment in time would be a social disaster turning smokers into criminals and Farmers into bootleggers. The actions of the anti smoking people can be seen As an attempt to gel around this Central conflict an attempt to wean the country from smoking without going cold Turkey. So far they have tried putting warn Ings on cigarette packages and rotating those warnings. They Are backing legislation to raise cigarette taxes and to eliminate the Industry s deduction for advertising. Even the movement toward a smoke free workplace and Public space has As a subtext the Hope that smok ing will gradually become socially unacceptable. But nothing has elicited quite the level of controversy As the proposal to ban All forms of cigarette advertising and promotion. The latest Bill introduced by Mike Synar d-okla., would outlaw cigarette Adver Tising newspaper and Magazine ads billboards pos we lham6mg Aro twp with 7h� Marlboro Mam ten Lell virtually cigarette on it except the package itself. Synar who smoked for 10 years became convinced offer watching the non effect of warning labels that you cannot compete with $2 billion Worth of Adver Tising and  the ban is seen As a better Way to Stop companies from recruiting new customers to make up for the ones who die or quit. Wilh no new recruits ashtrays will gradually become heirlooms. The american medical association agrees. The american bar association disagrees. First amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams Calls it censorship and warns censorship is  american civil liberties Union director Ira Glasse says we have always been against bans of advertising for any products that Are Legal to  i have watched this argument emerge with some trepidation i no longer worry that Banning to Bacco ads today will make to easier to ban liquor ads tomorrow and then Salt beef fal even automobiles. Tobacco is unique. As Synar put it we arc dealing with the Only product that when used As instructed is  moreover each and that portrays the Glamour of healthy Young people smoking is intrinsically false. But i agree hat there is something contradictory in the message that it s of to sell cigarettes but not of to Tell people about them. The supreme court ruled that puerto Rico could permit gambling and prohibit advertising. Such a duality is apparently constitutional but also contradictory. Nevertheless what Are our choices cigarettes Are deadly. It in t of to sell them in any moral sense but we allow it. Fifty million addicts make a ban on cigarettes impossible. Does that mean we Are stuck forever with this historic health disaster because we can t forbid cigarettes do we have to allow the Industry to make new addicts allow them to keep heir numbers up pc up their constituency intact maintain the smok ers1 clout i Don t think so. This is perhaps the most powerful place to interrupt the Cycle. A ban on advertising is an imperfect and unstable Compromise. But he alternative is grim in in consistency the seduction of yet another generation into disease. 4 Bourn Okhwa Ami Aston pc a tin of Mort zip did in Tow cd uni a Cru Oil w tto p�4� Row Relhm of talk Njack int m � to Onik tend u we Ami Lim a Wol tin Bun ind Svien a Maurud bum William Buckley economic data shows surprising gains for . It is perhaps sinful to catch any nightingales in our Adamant search for bats and owls and creatures of the night but my Pursuit of a pulitzer prize for investigative reporting requires me to pass along some utterly unobserved eco nomic data whispered about in catacombs by such As Milton Friedman Irving Kostol and especially Alan Reynolds they hold to the heretical position that All is not lost in economic America. And Here Are a few of the data that sustain them. We Are full of talk Are we not about the necessity to compete the conventional Wisdom is that our failure to pro Duce efficiently is the cause of our Stag Gering Trade deficit. The other Industrial Powers Are turning their backs on us and heading toward Prosperity while we Trot along ailing to recognize that the Brink is just ahead Over which we will soon Tumble into the Black void. We arc gorging on a flood of imports is the generic Story. As from business week s William Franklin dec 15 the flood of imports brought on by the soar ing Dollar was the primary cause of the Trade  of but our imports As a percentage of Gross National product Are less than they were when Reagan took office. Yup in 1980, they were 9.4 percent in 1986, 8.7 percent. It is our exports that have greatly decreased from 7.9 percent to 5.2 percent. Because we have grown fat and Lazy right Well no actually. The problem is that the other Industrial countries Are import ing less than they used to do. Why is that Well for the same reasons that explain . Lost productivity. But the Rea sons generally Given Are a fiction. Writes or. Reynolds if compete itive1 Means having a prosperous private sector the . Is very competitive in deed. From november 1982 to novem Ber 1986, the output of . Manufacturing industries increased by to percent. This dramatic growth far outpaced that of any other major country including Japan. Since manufacturing employment Rose by only1 6 percent while output Rose by 30 percent there was obviously a huge increase in productivity More than 4 percent a year since 19so, com pared la an annual increase of less than 1 percent from 197610 1979." How s that again ves and it s Worth re Reading. What is going on is that the other developed countries Aren t grow ing and therefore they re so to speak exporting their hardships. If you count As 100 units the imbalance in foreign Trade the United slates has lost Only nine of those units. The other 91 Are mostly the less developed nations. Brazil and Argen Tina for instance Are in very bad shape because Industrial countries simply Aren t buying their exports at the rate they used to to. Again we need to ask Why because Europe using Europe to represent other Industrial countries is just not moving very fast economically. Consider the matter of employment. For years a urge proportion of Europe s working age population was employed than of the United states 65.3 percent in Europe 63.fi percent in the United states. Or. Reynolds writes by 1985. The situation was dramatically reversed with 68.7 percent of the working age population in the . Having jobs com pared to Only 57.9 percent for Recd organization for economic cooperation and development  and be comments imagine Bow much More the europeans could afford to import if 69 percent of their workers were work ing rather than 58  Well then what s the trouble Over there or. Friedman says the principal problem is wage inflexibility. That will always bring on stagnation european Trade unions Are powerful and inflexible. Alan Reynolds stresses taxation and gives Ireland As an example. Corporate taxes Are insignificant but the individual income tax rate is 48 percent at an annual income of Only 112,000 and 60 percent at $19,000, a value added tax of 23 percent applies to Many goods not usually considered luxuries and the so Cial Security tax is 17 percent unemployment in Ireland has been around 17 percent a similar situation exists in Spain the Netherlands Italy and the United kingdom but there is the cursed deficit certainly True. But growth in Federal spending is plummeting and will be the slowest since before president Johnson s mid-1960s great society and the Viet Nam military buildup. The fiscal i9s7 spending fall off is contributing to one of the largest deficit reductions. On  thus spake Goldman Sachs quoted by Irving kit slow. But surely foreigners will be sick and tired of financing our deficit maybe. But since Reagan was inaugurated the percentage of . Debt held by foreign ers has declined from 14 percent to 11 percent. Sorry about that Good news. Keep it quiet