What Happened: On this day in 1964, the U.S. government issued its first health warning against cigarettes.

Where Was The Market: The S&P 500 traded around 76.45, and the Dow traded near 766.08.

What Else Was Going On In The World: A pack of cigarettes costs about $1.60, or 1.4 hours of labor for minimum wage ($1.15) workers.

The First Onslaught: The Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service published the first of many advisories on the potential hazards of smoking. A scientific literature review revealed causality between cigarettes and chronic bronchitis, lung and laryngeal cancer in men, and lung cancer in women.

The report sparked yet-ongoing government intervention in the American tobacco industry. Over the course of the next few years, Congress adopted the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 and the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 to regulate the tobacco industry’s promotional strategies…CLICK for complete article

Protecting the environment was easier when we were richer. Providing opportunities to marginalized people was easier when there were more jobs. Holding our politicians and officials accountable was easier when they did less ruling by decree.

~ William Robson, CEO, CD Howe Institute

During the Spanish flu of the early 20th century, people were fleeing big cities trying to escape the virus, just as the wealthy of London did during the 16th-century plague … and just the wealthy of New York City in 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic.  They fled the city and headed to the suburbs, or even more rural areas, with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo warning about the city’s density when it first went into lockdown in March. “There is a density level in NYC that is destructive. It has to stop and it has to stop now. NYC must develop an immediate plan to reduce density,” Cuomo Tweeted.

Similar to many end-of-the-world movies, the pandemic has caused a large number of urban residents to move out of the cities to rural areas or the suburbs…CLICK for complete article