By Bill Barker (TMF Max)

Mike throws around assertions about the likelihood of how tobacco litigation will play out with the kind of confidence that could only be maintained only by totally and utterly failing to investigate the issue at all. Which I suppose was the only available tactic here. A $100 billion settlement was "nothing more than dust in the wind"? Really? I thought that the process, outcome, and limited success of that settlement had managed to knock off about half of Philip Morris' market cap.

Let's not beat around the bush. To buy into any percentage of Mike's argument, you have to assume that you can foresee the outcome of the next two or three decades of nationwide (and worldwide?) litigation, and I just can't recommend that. Mike cites the general history of Tobacco's success in litigation. Yeah, that's right, Big Tobacco had a very nice record in court until the conspiracy of silence was broken by Liggett and a wave of "smoking gun" documents became available. Ever since that time, Tobacco has lost case after case with each verdict and award becoming bigger than the last.

There's a trend here for anybody who's willing to look at it. Mike argues "personal responsibility," which is great. Does that apply to the 13-year-old kids targeted by the Tobacco industry? Does the law blame them for failing to exercise adult judgment in the face of billions of dollars spent to get them addicted before they've developed the full capacity to exercise personal responsibility? Again, this isn't in any way a moral argument I'm making -- it's a straight legal one. The entire legal landscape immediately and permanently changed when the documents proving that Tobacco knowingly suppressed the marketing of a safer cigarette and targeted kids became public in 1997 and 1998.

Mike should have stuck with and emphasized the very strong arguments about all the other divisions of Philip Morris, because they are the strong performers that provide a decent floor for the company's stock. But the ceiling is extremely limited -- this is not in any way a company in control of its own destiny. If Mike, or anyone else out there, thinks the worst is behind Philip Morris regarding litigation, I think that's just whistling past the graveyard. Maybe it makes you feel better about things that scare you, but it isn't going to make the ghosts go away.

And when you're talking about Philip Morris, you're talking about a helluva lot of angry ghosts.

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