Does Greed and Avarice Spell the Eventual Demise of Capitalism?

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Even young REPUBLICANS are growing tired of capitalism,

American pollsters say

25 Jun, 2021 14:22

A protester holds up an anarchist symbol flag during a Black Lives Matter protest in Manhattan, New York,

August 1, 2016 © Reuters / Andrew Kelly

Fewer than half of young Americans have a positive view of capitalism, a new poll has found. Even young Republicans are increasingly skeptical – but don’t expect America to go full-on socialist just yet.

An Axios poll published on Friday revealed that in the capitalist US, just 49% of Americans aged 18-to-34 actually support capitalism. And 51% say they have a positive view of socialism.

For several years, polling has found support for socialism rising among Democrats and the young. As a result, Democrats running on explicitly socialist platforms – like Democratic Socialists of America members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) – have translated this discontent into electoral success.

However, the latest poll found that young Republicans, usually tireless advocates for free-market capitalism, have grown sick of the system they’re used to defending. Among Republicans aged 18-to-34, some 66% now have a positive view of capitalism, down from 81% in 2019. But 56% of young Republicans want the government to focus on reducing wealth inequality, up from just 40% two years ago.

Axios puts this rise down to more Americans seeing the “tangible upsides of unprecedented levels of government intervention” during the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, then-President Donald Trump criticized both parties in Congress for agreeing on sending out “ridiculously low” stimulus checks of $600 in December, instead of the $2,000 he pushed for – criticism that would have been alien from a Republican president in recent decades. Equally rarely, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib both agreed with Trump on the issue.

Yet the Right’s shift away from unfettered capitalism has been underway since before the pandemic hit. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, America’s most-watched cable news host and an influence on Trump during his tenure in the White House, has backed proposals by Democrats to break up the Silicon Valley tech monopolies, and vocally condemned the “mainstream Republican” focus on the “religion” of “market capitalism.”

“We do not exist to serve markets,” he said in 2019. “Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.”

Yet most Americans aren’t ready to declare themselves socialists just yet. While a slim majority of young Americans have a favorable view of the term, just 41% across all age groups share this view, and 52% say they have a negative view. Carlson would likely call himself a populist rather than a socialist, and Trump – a self-declared “nationalist” – frequently railed against the socialism practiced in Venezuela, Cuba and the Soviet Union, while passing tax cuts that significantly benefited the rich.

What the poll does reveal, however, is that Republicans might not be able to rely on calling their opponents “socialists” as a blanket pejorative for much longer. Aside from the fact that many Democrats wouldn’t argue with the label, a small but growing number of Republican voters might roll their eyes too.

As I have watched capitalism display its spectacular greed in the past two decades, I have become more and more disgusted. I am not a socialist, but I am old enough to have seen the damage done to too many societies from that. 

Capitalism only works in a society that is ethically determined to be good corporate citizens. These are very hard to find anymore. The amazing greed that caused the 2008 economic crash has not disappeared. Big Pharma is 100% about profits and 0% about health care. As a Canadian, I can't imagine living without full access to medical specialists for everyone. 

I think pharmaceutical research should be done in universities without the help of Big Pharma. Governments should pay for the research and collect a good portion of the dividends on profitable medications. There should also be room for research on medications that may not be highly profitable but may save money and lives in the long run. 

Someone should have done a major study on the effectiveness if Ivermectin last spring, but any such effort was destroyed by Big Pharma's propaganda. I wonder how many medications were ignored or disposed of because it would not make big profits for Big Pharma?

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US Big Pharma Allowed to Continue Hiding ‘Intimidating’ Price Info from Customers in TV Ads

Corruption is Everywhere - While this may not technically fit the definition of corruption, what do you call it when Congress puts the profits of lobbyists over the welfare of the people they are supposed to be serving?

© Pixabay / TBIT

A federal judge has stepped in to save drug companies from a new rule that would have forced them to disclose drug prices in TV ads, ruling that the Department of Health and Human Services lacks authority over the industry.

“No matter how vexing the problem of spiraling drug costs may be, [Health and Human Services] cannot do more than what Congress has authorized,” US District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled on Monday, blocking the order, which was due to go into effect on Tuesday.

Amgen, Merck, and Eli Lilly, three of the largest US drug companies, and the Association of National Advertisers filed the lawsuit last month, claiming HHS lacked the legal authority to enforce the rule, which would have mandated that pharmaceutical ads display the list price of a 30-day supply of any drug covered under Medicare or Medicaid costing more than $35. The suit also claimed the order violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, but Mehta’s ruling didn’t address that argument.

Drug companies complained the rule would “confuse” and “intimidate” patients because insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid, negotiate discounts with drug companies, meaning the list price, often much higher, could cause sticker shock. But that argument got little sympathy from HHS secretary Alex Azar, who told the companies when he announced the rule in May:

If you’re ashamed of your drug prices,

change your drug prices. It’s that simple.

The US is one of only two countries worldwide where direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs is legal, and it is a massive market – $5.2 billion in 2016, according to CBS. According to HHS, the 10 most-advertised drugs have list prices from $488 to $16,938 per month or for a typical therapeutic course, numbers that would surely terrify the average consumer. 

President Donald Trump has made lowering the costs of prescription drugs one of his signature domestic issues, and the HHS rule was designed to bring those costs down, under the reasoning that pharmaceutical companies would be so embarrassed to float those gargantuan numbers on their ads that they’d cut the prices voluntarily.

Much of pharmaceutical advertising remains TV-based and the pharmaceutical industry has argued that it should be allowed to include pricing information on a dedicated website named in the ad. While it might seem absurd to expect consumers to drop everything and open their web browsers after seeing a TV ad they weren’t looking for in the first place, drug companies’ influence in Congress – they spent $4.1 billion on lobbying over the last 20 years, according to OpenSecrets.org, more than any other industry – means they tend to get what they want.

And the people have to pay the exorbitant profits of big pharma as well as the lobbying money that goes into the pockets of the country's lawmakers. As if they weren't already paying them enough.

Dead Billionaire Being Sued for Pharmaceutical Price-Fixing and Other Stuff

Canadian billionaire couple die in suspicious way, bodies found ‘hanging side by side next to pool'

Honey and Barry Sherman © Reuters

The owner of the Canadian pharmaceutical giant Apotex, Barry Sherman, and his wife were found dead at their home under suspicious circumstances. Reports say their bodies were “hanging side by side” next to their pool.

The bodies of Bernard Sherman, 75, also known as Barry, and his wife, Honey, 70, were found around Friday noon in their mansion in the North York district of Toronto by the police, who arrived in answer to a 911 call.

Police did not say who made the call, while the National Post reported that the bodies were initially discovered by a real estate agent, who came to the couple’s luxury mansion, which is currently up for sale.

The paper also said that the bodies were “found hanging side by side next to their indoor pool,” something that other Canadian outlets later repeated, citing police sources. Local media also said police were looking into whether it was a murder-suicide.

Meanwhile, none of these facts have been confirmed by police, who have remained tight-lipped about the case. A police detective, Brandon Price, described the deaths only as “suspicious.”

However, he also said that the police are not treating the case as homicide. The detective added that the police were still trying to “determine if there is foul play involved or not,” as reported by CBC. Later on Friday, police also issued a statement, in which it particularly pointed out that they are not looking for any suspect.

Police also said that there appeared to be no “forced entry” or any intrusion into the couple’s house. “Forensics need to be done and post-mortems on the bodies, but at this stage it appears there was no forced entry and no evidence of anybody else in the house,” a police source told the National Post.

Sherman was a successful businessman and one of the richest people in Canada. His wealth amounted to about $3 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which lists Sherman as the 12th richest Canadian businessman.

Apotex, which was founded and owned by Sherman, is one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies. It sells 260 types of generic drugs in more than 115 countries, while its medicines are used to fill over 89 million prescriptions a year in Canada alone, Forbes reports, adding that the company’s revenues account for $ 1.5 billion. It also produces non-prescription drugs, disposable plastics and fine chemicals for medical use.

Sherman had the image of someone with a happy family life. He and his wife recently welcomed a new grandchild, according to the Canadian Globe and Mail. The couple also had four children. The family was also known for its philanthropy.

The Shermans made numerous multimillion-dollar donations to hospitals, schools and charities and had buildings named in their honor. They also had close ties to the Jewish community as they donated roughly $50 million to the United Jewish Appeal - a Jewish philanthropic umbrella organization that later changed its name to the Jewish Federations of North America.

However, Sherman was also involved in several scandals. In October, his company Apotex was hit with a lawsuit filed by 45 US states and the District of Columbia. The states’ attorneys accused Apotex, along with 17 other companies and their subsidiaries, of price-fixing.

The states said the companies divided customers for their drugs among themselves, agreeing that each company would have a certain percentage of the market. The companies also agreed on price increases in advance, the states added. The price of such drugs as doxycycline hyclate skyrocketed from $20 to $1,849 in less than in a year in 2014. A total of 15 medicines were listed in the lawsuit.

For years, the family has been plagued by another scandal. In 2007, three of his cousins and the widow of the fourth filed a lawsuit against Sherman arguing that he owed them $1 billion in damages and a 20 percent stake in Apotex. Sherman acquired the company named Empire Laboratories – the predecessor of Apotex – from his uncle after the death of the latter. His uncle’s children then claimed that he should have paid them royalties over a 15-year period as well as give them a right to obtain employment through the company and a 5 percent stake in its shares.

The initial cousins’ lawsuit was dismissed by a court in 2015. It was, however, reinstated in 2016 but, in September, an Ontario court once again ruled in favor of Sherman and his cousins then appealed the decision.

Drug Company Raises Everyday Vitamin Price by 800 Percent

Astonishing Corporate Greed

© Global Look Press

Following the lead of pharma-bro Martin Shkreli, a US drug company has hiked the price of a prescription version of vitamin B3 pills by over 800 percent. A drug used to treat respiratory ailments also got a price hike of nearly 2,500 percent.

Avondale Pharmaceuticals raised the price of Niacor, a prescription-only version of niacin (vitamin B3), by 809 percent last month. This means a bottle of 100 tablets went from costing $32.46 to $295, according to figures sent to the Financial Times.

While the drug is available over the counter, some doctors prefer to prescribe a version that has US Food and Drug Administration approval. The drug is used to lower cholesterol to reduce the chance of having a heart attack.

Doctors need to stop prescribing Niacor and recommend over the counter versions of B3.

The company also acquired another generic, SSKI, and increased its price by 2,499 percent, taking a 30ml bottle from $11.48 to $295.

The Birmingham, Alabama-based company raised its prices shortly after acquiring the rights to the drugs in a “buy-and-raise” deal made notorious by Martin Shkreli, the hedge fund investor recently convicted of securities fraud.

Shkreli became mired in controversy when he raised the price of a drug used by cancer and HIV patients by 5,500 percent.

The price hikes by Avondale were first noticed by Truven Health Analytics, according to The Independent.

According to the Financial Times, Avondale Pharmaceuticals was set up in August by a registered agent, Acrogen Pharmaceuticals, seemingly for the sole purpose of drug acquisition. Acrogen was started in 2016 by Mark Pugh, an executive behind several pharmaceutical companies.

“This is the latest example of an inefficient US market where the consumer, payer, and doctor don’t have all the information available to make a financially sound choice,” Michael Rae, CEO of Rx Savings, told FT. “They are caught in a web of inefficiency and are being taken advantage of.”

Price gouging is a controversial but established strategy whereby firms buy up the rights to a drug that faces little or no competition, before massively inflating the price and enjoying the profits.

It can't be that difficult to make this spectacular expression of greed illegal. These companies buy up rights, probably at inflated prices, and then dramatically raise their prices without adding anything to the product. Don't monopoly laws apply? 

At least, there should be a special tax, a dramatically inflated tax on the profit from the increase in prices of these drugs. The entire increase should be considered profit and therefore taxable. 

At best, these people should be thrown in jail and never allowed to work in the industry again. It is people like these who give the free-market system a black-eye and give ammunition to countries where there is no free-market system to criticize America and maintain their own forms of corruption.

Oil Co.s - Good Corporate Citizens or Greedy, Soulless, Bloodsucking Leeches?

Gas should be much cheaper with fall in oil prices, BMO says

Gasoline should be about 80 cents a litre, if historical correlations between crude and gas held true

CBC News 

Historic trends, if they held true today, should result in gasoline costs closer to 80 cents a litre based on the price of oil, the Bank of Montreal says.

It's not your imagination — gasoline prices in Canada should be a lot lower than they are right now.

That's according to Benjamin Reitzes, an economist at Bank of Montreal, who said the price Canadians pay at the pump should be a lot lower than it currently is based on the plunging price of a barrel of crude.

"With last week's plunge in oil fresh in my mind as I headed into the weekend, I couldn't help but notice how gasoline prices had ticked higher from the previous week," he wrote in a research note on Monday evening.

Despite Canada having one of the world's largest reserves of crude oil in the world, much of the gasoline that Canadians put into their cars — especially in Central Canada and on the East Coast — is based on crude oil that's been imported, most likely Brent crude from Europe.

Many factors go into the price of gasoline, but crude prices are a significant factor. And with crude prices plunging to under $35 US a barrel yesterday — a new six-year low — that should be affecting pump prices.

Except, it's not. At least, not as much as it should be.

"Simply, consumers don't appear to be reaping the full benefit of lower oil prices," Reitzes said, noting that Canadians are still paying more than $1 per litre in many markets, despite Brent crude prices falling to levels they haven't been at since 2008.

The following chart shows what Reitzes is talking about.

The price of gas and the price of oil have diverged this year, as this chart from a recent BMO report suggests.
(Bank of Montreal)

And it is not much different in the USA:

Throughout 2015, and especially recently, Canadian & US gasoline prices have diverged from crude. They are still correlated, but not as closely as they should be.

If historical trends were still true, gasoline should cost about 80 cents per litre in Canada with crude being where it currently is. Yet across the country, the national average gas price was 97.70 cents a litre, according to gasoline price website GasBuddy.com

One more thing - notice in the top chart the relationship between Canadian and American gas prices. Traditionally, Canada has been paying 30 to 35 cents per litre more than Americans, but in the last 2 years that discrepancy has risen to 40 to 50 cents per litre even as oil prices drop. Have refining cost increased substantially more in Canada than in the US?

Christmas bonus
"Talk of a Christmas bonus by way of cheaper gas prices may be disappointing due to weakness in the Canadian dollar and profit taking by speculators and refiners," GasBuddy's senior petroleum analyst Dan McTeague said.

"As most saw crude tumble last week, drivers expected further relief at the pumps, but got a surprising increase instead."

Worse still, the problem shows no signs of abating any time soon. Indeed, it could be about to get worse.

"Drivers in Vancouver and Victoria should look to an average three-cent increase per litre, with Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and the B.C. Interior following with an average two-cent bump," by this weekend, McTeague predicts.

"Toronto, Ottawa, London, Hamilton, most of Southern Ontario and Montreal set for a two-cent average hike, while the Maritimes and Newfoundland, which follow last week's market prices, should expect a three-cent increase for Thursday and Friday."

So if you are expecting a Christmas bonus from the oil companies, you had better have shares in them. The names Grinch, and Scrooge, are much too nice to call these wretched, conscienceless, pigs. 

Higher gas prices don't affect society evenly, it affects lower income people much more than others. Oil executives pad their multi-million dollar bonuses at the cost of health, nutrition and mobility of societies most fragile demographics. 

You make me sick! Merry Christmas.