Month: November 2021

Progressive in Free Fall: Compromise and Capitulation

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Not Great News
Abandon hope all ye who persist in believing that you are going to be saved by the Democrats. Their record is tarnished by a long line of democratic presidents notable for their subservience to corporations and billionaires. Case in point, William Jefferson Clinton who “felt our pain,” as he kicked millions of needy families off welfare rolls, deregulated the financial behemoths and with the help of our current president signed a crime bill that made America the world’s largest penal colony. It wasn’t long (eight years) before Obama, the consummate shape shifter, gave the U.S. another first — world’s leading producer of crude oil. His other “accomplishments” — kicking ten million people out of their homes, enacting policies that led to a significant redistribution of wealth upwards and a decline in the standard of living for people of color. Following in the footsteps of these two charlatans, enter Joe Biden who never met an oligarch he couldn’t fawn over. All the “right” people, the mainstream media, his bros in Congress, his buddies in the fossil fuel and pharmaceutical industries and assorted billionaires are over the moon at how successfully he has unwound social reforms the overwhelming majority of Americans favor. Where do the progressives stand on the fate of their “non-negotiable” programs? In the usual place, on their knees gobbling about the joys of “incremental reform” and turning their gaze away from the pain corporate gouging and billionaires in the tax-free zone are inflicting on working Americans. Take heart, our newest Democratic president is not a complete liar. The one promise he made and kept was to his wealthy benefactors — “Nothing will fundamentally change.” If you believe the congressional “progressives’ that the porridge contained in these two bills is “historic legislation [that] delivers on many of the promises that Democrats made to invest in working people across America, you really should read “Progressives in Free Fall: Compromise and Capitulation.”

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Promising to Keep the U.S. Safe and Healthy, Military Contractors and Big Pharma Executives Cash In — Part 2: Pharma Execs on the Hot Seat

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Politicians Cash In

True or false — highway robbery by the drug companies is the price we pay for innovative research? Judge for yourself — U.S. is the only high-income country that does not negotiate drug prices with big pharma. In the first half of 2019, the price of 3,400 drugs in the U.S. increased, but not in Europe. If Medicare, the largest buyer of medicines in the U.S. and together with Medicaid in the world, starts negotiating prices what are the consequences? The sky won’t fall but drug companies will be forced to do less profiteering. About that drug company-inspired myth that the end of outrageous pricing spells the end of innovation—guess where the research for the successful Pfizer mRNA vaccine originated — in drug price-regulated Germany. As a myriad of studies have found, industry’s enormous profits since the 1970s—the most profitable U.S. industry — have nothing to do with the amount it invests on R&D. What makes them rich is aggressive marketing and over the top pricing in the U.S. Two factors which cut Americans’ lives short. Even before the pandemic, Europeans lived three years longer than white Americans and six years longer than black Americans. “The greed of the prescription drug industry is literally killing Americans. All over this country, the American people are asking a simple question: How many people need to die, how many people need to get unnecessarily sicker, before Congress is prepared to take on the greed of the prescription drug industry.” [Bernie Sanders]. But feel-your-pain rhetoric won’t cut it anymore. The men and women we elect to Congress and to the White House should be answering these questions with action. Why aren’t they? Want to get the real skinny on the failure of politicians to stand up to Big Pharma when it counts? First buy a pitchfork and then read “Promising to Keep the U.S. Safe and Healthy, Military Contractors and Big Pharma Executives Cash In — Part 2: Pharma Execs on the Hot Seat.”

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