se people did not even deserve the money they were rewarded. How could someone not know that cigarettes caused cancer, emphysema, or impotence, among other illnesses? I was glad the lobbyist were able to stop anyone searching for damages due to smoking, and all it cost me was dissolving the cigarette section of the company. I now know that if I pay a lobbyist enough, they can get a Senator to do anything I want. Dealing with the government and reverting the public company into a private company was the most time consuming part of my plan.I still love to read the article on my altruism. I sometimes think I only did all this for my own vanity. Money can buy you anything you want. Twenty million dollars was all it took. The economy was in a depression; only few individuals still had money. When I bought Phillip Morris my plan was to have a legacy for my family, help as many people as I could, and make all the money I invested to get the company back on its feet back as soon as possible. There were fairly basic steps in achieving those goals. First, I had to own the company. Shareholders cost too much money. Since the economy is not based on the value of gold, but of consumer spending, I knew that there was just no legal way of making a profit. Temperamental shareholders who bought and sold stocks at whim were the ones who drove the company into the ground. It is amazing how much money Phillip Morris lost advertising to the stockholders begging them not to sell stocks and to buy a few. Once I owned the company it was my great pleasure to fire all twenty-six board members who took home a salary of over one billion dollars a year. When Phillip Morris was reverted from private to public, all of their previous contracts were mine to burn, which I did, in a large bonfire. Closing the tobacco plants was heartbreaking as I was forced to fire so many people. Salary restructuring went rather smoothly. All the employees were horri...
