Chart of the day is.....

.....cigarette consumption in The Americas, according to The Tobacco Atlas website.

click to enlarge

I thought this dataset was pretty interesting when I stumbled upon it last night. The USA at 1196 per capita (60 x 20-packs per person per year, so if you didn't smoke a pack this week, somebody did it for you) surprised me, as did Peru's tiny 129 cigarettes-per-person-per-year consumption. Also, this might explain why Cuban doctors are so good; they have to keep up with their coughing and spluttering citizens. Argentines are big smokers, so that one came as no shock. But Paraguay is a dirt poor nation so what are they doing smoking so much? Must be because Paraguayan ciggies are dirt cheap...I dunno.

The Amerikan Dream comes to Peru

CONSUME MORE! is the answer to all our prayers these days, and the fact that a reader yesterday sent me this link to the great Janis Joplin singing 'Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?'......

..... fits nicely with the story below.

Peru's Minister of Production, Mercedes* Araoz, spent yesterday exhorting her minions to "drink more Peruvian coffee" as per capita coffee consumption in Peru is around 0.25kg a year, which compares to 5kg in Brazil and about 14 metric tonnes in Colombia**. In her words:

"If we in Peru consumed 5kg per person we would consume all our exportable supply. So we could double national production for the grain."

Mercedes Aráoz said that if a person gets up early the best thing to do is to have "a little coffee. It's a healthy drink, a good antioxidant and energizing. I drink it pure. Also, it's not true that it stops you from sleeping", she said.

So next we'll have Peru Chamber of Aviculture wheeling out Aráoz for its "Eat More Chicken" drive, the sugar cane people with their "Sweeter The Better" and "Diabetes Is Not A Problem, Oh No" campaigns, then the national council for chocolate cake and its "Stuff Your Face and Get Fat Your Country Will Thank You For It" promotional tour. And so the emerging market countries raise their GDP and are applauded as they aspire to the model offered by all those developed world wondercountries.

The more you consume the better your life is.

Then comes the fitness club sector and diet foods....more GDP! And healthcare! And insurance! Ahh, ain't life wonderful?

*shome coinshidensh, shurely, ossifer
**well....8kg in fact, but I like a laugh

China's stimulus program going up in smoke

From this morning's "Canaccord Morning Coffee" daily (thank you reader 'M') comes the inside story of how China is trying to stimulate consumption, healthcare GDP and speed up population turnover.

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Officials in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packs of locally made cigarettes annually or risk being fined, state media reports. The Gong’an county government in Hubei province has ordered its staff to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei produced cigarette brands a year, the Global Times said.

Departments that fail to meet their targets will be fined, the report said. “The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax,” said Chen Nianzu, a member of the Gong’an cigarette market supervision team, according to the paper. The measure could also be a ploy to aid local cigarette brands such as Huanghelou, which are under severe pressure from competitors in neighbouring Hunan province, according to the paper.