Labor and equipment costs? Didn't know you could get physical chemists to work for free? I should use high school kids to make my medicines!
Capitalism rum Amok, or the logical extension of values that put profits ahead of people. There is, of course, the fine example of Mylan's EpiPen, a medication to curb severe aniaphylactic shock, which, despite being out of patent, has experienced numerous price increases - to the point where a 2 pack costs in excess of $600 US - principally because it's the company's chief "earner".
And then there's the fine example of Martin Shkreli - American born psychopath/CEO/entrepreneur, who as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. upon obtained the manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug Daraprim raised its price by a factor of 56 (from US$13.5 to US$750 per pill). This despite the fact that most people requiring this drug live in 3rd world countries where $750 per pill is simply impossible (as if it isn't here, but we have healthcare...). Greed conquers all. While widely criticized and condemned, in the capitalist system he was simply "playing the game", looking to maximize profits with a minimal of investment.
Recently a group of Australian High School students synthesized the same drug for an average cost of $2.00 per pill, his response was to issue a series of tweets which ran, more or less, as follows:
Now it seems pretty clear that he rather singlehandedly embodies the worst of capitalism, and, in a fair and just world, would acquire an illness, perhaps bio-engineered and synthesized in a lab by someone a little bitter by his own (former) companies approach to medicine, and upon researching the cure find that it cost, oh, say, X Billion per pill....and after much soul searching and the selling of his company and assets afford the single pill, custom made to cure his illness, only to perhaps drop it down the sink...
An episode of Black Mirror.
Seriously, people, what will it take for you to realize these people are not like us, and that if you would cure cancer you must kill some cells...these people, they are the cancer that's devouring our society, and it's time, if it's not already too late...
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Trump has trumpeted how he's managed to persuade Carrier to keep 1000 jobs in the US. All it took was a bit of bribery and some costly incentives...
Read Bernie Sanders at the Washington Post to see how it could have been done: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/bernie-sanders-carrier-just-showed-corporations-how-to-beat-donald-trump/?utm_term=.8a95c39d53b5
Donald Trump. Just another hand puppet.
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It took, in the end, 6 weeks for the last of my postcards to arrive from Colorado. This was the beginning of the trip, a 5 day advantage over the later sent postcards, some of which arrived within a mere 2 weeks.
Not impressed.
And I'm selling stuff off, mailing out parcels, I have no confidence in the system whatsoever.
Send a book to a friend, Grande Prairie, 3 business days - the ETA provided by Canada Post, mail it on October 1. It arrives October 14th. No wonder nobody uses Canada Post, time to consider Purolater or Fed Ex or Greyhound as our new national mail carrier...it would have been cheaper, quicker, more certain, to order her the same book online, via Amazon, this sending of trifles via quite possibly the worst mail carrier in the world...
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It's pretty much a given that whatever our US neighbors are doing we'll be doing in 4 or 5 years. Calgary, sooner, because we're easily the most American city in Canada.
Summary: A Calgary Police officer shoots and kills a 76 year old man "armed" with a hammer [Links: The Calgary Herald, The Calgary Sun](or sharp-edged tool, mebbe a hatchet?). Think about it. He's in his garage, the chief during the interview drops all sorts of hints that "suggest" he was about to kill himself - suicide by cop - (hose attached to car, etc). - and the police shoot him. The Police Chief notes emphatically that he stands behind the actions of his men. No wonder the approval rating for Calgary cops is so high...
Now, the Sun, always the Sun, offers a fine defense for our police. That's ok, it's their job to talk shit, no one who reads the Sun finished high school, fewer still I suspect those who write for it. It's hard - very hard, beggars the imagination - how officers equipped with tasers and Kevlar vests and guns and nighsticks and armor-clad hummers should have to shoot a 76 year old man armed with a hammer. The conflict - with his grandson - who knows? Maybe senile dementia, or maybe crack-addled grandson was being a pest. We don't know and the police just killed the star witness. When he appeared why didn't you just back away and call for backup? Call for ideas? Was he that much of a threat? Really? How old were the officers? Where's the bodycam video? "Technical Difficulties"? Really? I think you just don't want them...This is a list of the salaries for police officers in Calgary. We can expect better. We're paying for better, lets expect better.
Meanwhile, other cops across the nation: Benjamin "Monty" Robinson (gotta love a Cop with an Alias) - appealing his perjury conviction following the murder of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport. He followed that act with the impaired murder of a motorcyclist. He remained on the force until 2012 ... Really, folks, this is the best we can do? This guy should be in jail for a very, very long time. Instead he's out enforcing "Law and Order".
And Britain Loves Pedophiles: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/world/brits+slammed+receiving+canadian+alert+child+pornographers/12271857/story.html
I actually suspect it's embedded in their DNA. That, and they're only the Police, after all. Get a neighborhood watch sign, you'll be better protected.
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