There should be no profit incentives when it comes to providing medicine or health care. Safety and efficacy of medications should be the only issues of interest to makers of drugs. Yet pharmaceutical companies have been shown time and time again to put their own financial gain, their quest to make a profit, above the safety of the consumer. There could be a million examples one could give on the actual "evils" of Capitalism.
For example, there are several New York Times' articles demonstrating how health care and the profit motive don't mix, google these recent New York Times articles: "Study: Alzheimer’s Drugs May Raise Death Risk in Elderly"; "Medical Papers by Ghostwriters Pushed Therapy"; "Document Details Plan to Promote Costly Drug"; The Evidence Gap - A Big Hypertension Study, and Its Minimal Impact"; "Experts Conclude Pfizer Manipulated Studies"; "The Evidence Gap - Quickly Vetted, Treatment Is Offered to Patients"; "A Device to Avert Strokes Lacks Proof That It Works"; "Drug Makers Near Old Goal: A Legal Shield".
You can read all these individual stories piecemeal or you can see how they're all about the same damn thing which needs changing. How many examples do you need to know that the profit motive and health care are not compatible? Everyone should see Michael Moore's movie recently released called "Capitalism - A Love Story" for examples of the incompatibility of the profit motive in other circumstances, not just health care. Capitalism is not good for anyone's health.
To learn about an alternative to Capitalism, how we can create a society without the profit motive, go to youtube and search for any video on "Jacque Fresco", an industrial designer, social engineer, author, lecturer, futurist, inventor extraordinaire. You can start with his interview on the Larry King show. Life doesn't have to be this way. Capitalism is unsustainable and we have to create a system without the profit motive which poisons everything it touches. Don't be content to continue to accept this system!
Angie
Bronx, New York
Angie@WhatNewsShouldBe.org
25.9.09
21.9.09
Just so we know them by name and physiognomy
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden pose with the full Cabinet for an official group photo in the East Room of the White House on Sept. 10, 2009.
Seated from left: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Standing second row, from left: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Susan E. Rice, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
Back row, from left: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, and Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
it's time others said it how it is
no difference from an economic perspective, either
bergamo
italy
I am an Europeist, not an Atlanticist. Europe's defense should be in the hands of Europeans, not in those of the USA. And Russia is part of Europe. Europe's long term interest would best be pursued by weakening its alliance with the USA and strengthening it with Russia and China.
The USA, not Russia, is Europe's strategic enemy.
Before anyone begins accusing me of ingratitude, let it be clear that I am grateful to the USA for freeing Europe of Hitler. But that was 60 years ago. What do USA bases do in my country, Italy, NOW?
The reasons why Europe should do what I am suggesting are these:
1) the essential geopolitical treasure trove is the Eurasian landmass. Which is why the Pentagon has been trying to muscle its way in it, forging military alliances with the Caucasus, Central Asia and the "new" Europe.
2) NATO is a minor arm of the Pentagon. We Europeans are like the askars of old, the Numidians of the Roman army, subsidiary light cavalry. If at least the balance between the USA and the EU in NATO were fairer, one might argue for NATO to live on. But this is not the case. The USA calls the shots. Enough is enough. NATO should disappear, like the Warsaw Pact, and be replaced by a European army. The Pentagon should be invited to leave Europe and concentrate on Venezuela.
I know this proposal is not even on the table at the moment, but in the end even our notoriously confused and/or bought European politicians might see the light of day. Let's hope they do.
italy
I am an Europeist, not an Atlanticist. Europe's defense should be in the hands of Europeans, not in those of the USA. And Russia is part of Europe. Europe's long term interest would best be pursued by weakening its alliance with the USA and strengthening it with Russia and China.
The USA, not Russia, is Europe's strategic enemy.
Before anyone begins accusing me of ingratitude, let it be clear that I am grateful to the USA for freeing Europe of Hitler. But that was 60 years ago. What do USA bases do in my country, Italy, NOW?
The reasons why Europe should do what I am suggesting are these:
1) the essential geopolitical treasure trove is the Eurasian landmass. Which is why the Pentagon has been trying to muscle its way in it, forging military alliances with the Caucasus, Central Asia and the "new" Europe.
2) NATO is a minor arm of the Pentagon. We Europeans are like the askars of old, the Numidians of the Roman army, subsidiary light cavalry. If at least the balance between the USA and the EU in NATO were fairer, one might argue for NATO to live on. But this is not the case. The USA calls the shots. Enough is enough. NATO should disappear, like the Warsaw Pact, and be replaced by a European army. The Pentagon should be invited to leave Europe and concentrate on Venezuela.
I know this proposal is not even on the table at the moment, but in the end even our notoriously confused and/or bought European politicians might see the light of day. Let's hope they do.
Where we are now, where we are headed
Jonathan
Chicago
Banking reform or not, it is our entire national soul and cultural fabric that is at crisis. We are a country without industry. We are forced to import our scientists and engineers, because we have an education system that dumbs down the math and sciences and encourages Business Administration majors over Chemistry. The typical college curriculum today is generally a high school curriculum in other developed countries, and which forces college grads into further degree inflation and massive educational debt. It now takes a masters and doctorate to do things that college-grads used to do. The only economy we will have left in a few more decades is one of restaurants, hair salons and Starbucks. And it will take a bachelor's degree to do it. How can this possibly be good or sustainable?
Our country is going downhill, with or without these banking reforms, and our pundits and leadership still don't get it.
Chicago
Banking reform or not, it is our entire national soul and cultural fabric that is at crisis. We are a country without industry. We are forced to import our scientists and engineers, because we have an education system that dumbs down the math and sciences and encourages Business Administration majors over Chemistry. The typical college curriculum today is generally a high school curriculum in other developed countries, and which forces college grads into further degree inflation and massive educational debt. It now takes a masters and doctorate to do things that college-grads used to do. The only economy we will have left in a few more decades is one of restaurants, hair salons and Starbucks. And it will take a bachelor's degree to do it. How can this possibly be good or sustainable?
Our country is going downhill, with or without these banking reforms, and our pundits and leadership still don't get it.
Obama vs./& Moneyed interests
Cdr. John Newlin, USN (Ret.)
Vista, Calif.
The "Blue Dog" conservative Democrats in the Senate have already put together a plan that kills the consumer financial protection agency the president has been advocating.
The problem for President Obama is that he does not have the power of previous presidents. The enormous amount of money being spent by corporate lobbyists now puts the Congress in a financial straight jacket. And to add to America's woes, A federal appeals court overturned campaign finance reform regulations in a ruling recently that will make it easier for independent political groups to raise and spend money to influence elections. Which means higher and higher bidding for our congressional prostitutes.
Free speech as envisioned by the founders no longer exists. We are now living in a plutocratic system of government where the ruling mantra is the Golden Rule - he who has the gold rules. And our President, any president, is powerless to thwart the greed and need for power evinced by the members of congress.
And sadly, President Obama will lose battle after battle while the American middle class is drowned in a sea of debt, congressional greed and substandard health care.
It can only end badly for a truly gifted and sincere President. And it will certainly end badly for the vast majority of the American people. I weep for them.
R. Law
Texas
Alas and alack; the President acts as if he doesn't realize the people are with him. Since not one CEO of the top ten banks showed up for the President's Wall Street news conference, their arrogance is magnified.
Mr. Obama seems perhaps captive to his grandmother's experience as a community/regional banker and to his advisers instead of trusting his instincts and last week's snubs in dealing with Wall Street's bankers, who only a year ago presented the nation (and planet) with a one-page $700 billion extortion note.
If we don't break apart the too-big-to-fails and bring back Glass-Steagall, there will be a lot of risk analysts out of work - after all, there's no risk of failure if the government guarantees everything.
nancy johnson
in
Mr. Krugman, you don't honestly expect President Obama to " reform " his bosses, do you? Those financial mavens bankrolled his campaign, and he has already proven his allegiance to them.
There are people who would hold these criminals responsible -- men like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, but they are certain to be granted no authority to do anything.
The bankers will continue to do as they please and grow rich beyond belief; and, President Obama will continue to smile and talk and talk and talk and talk.
Phil in the mountains of Kyushu
Japan
To focus on the ongoing ethical depravity of U.S. bankers:
Please remember, too, in a larger sense, that bankers only behave as they learned ethically OK. They know – all know – that U.S. corporate culture legally exists only as a massive bloodsucker. All in it have no ethics other than to extract what they can. Shareholder value entails no obligation to any ethics beyond those depersonalized all learn in biz schools, law schools, and most other. Corporate America has no obligation to any community of humans, nature, or anything living – humanity like nature a cipher to the idolatry of short-term profit for some.
Thanks for your hope that corporate-loving Obama may wake up, and bestir himself to a little regulating of his rich banker buddies. But so long as America’s schools so serve the larger bloodsucking corporate ethos, the world need not be surprised at Americans helpless before their institutional culture gone completely mad.
Vista, Calif.
The "Blue Dog" conservative Democrats in the Senate have already put together a plan that kills the consumer financial protection agency the president has been advocating.
The problem for President Obama is that he does not have the power of previous presidents. The enormous amount of money being spent by corporate lobbyists now puts the Congress in a financial straight jacket. And to add to America's woes, A federal appeals court overturned campaign finance reform regulations in a ruling recently that will make it easier for independent political groups to raise and spend money to influence elections. Which means higher and higher bidding for our congressional prostitutes.
Free speech as envisioned by the founders no longer exists. We are now living in a plutocratic system of government where the ruling mantra is the Golden Rule - he who has the gold rules. And our President, any president, is powerless to thwart the greed and need for power evinced by the members of congress.
And sadly, President Obama will lose battle after battle while the American middle class is drowned in a sea of debt, congressional greed and substandard health care.
It can only end badly for a truly gifted and sincere President. And it will certainly end badly for the vast majority of the American people. I weep for them.
R. Law
Texas
Alas and alack; the President acts as if he doesn't realize the people are with him. Since not one CEO of the top ten banks showed up for the President's Wall Street news conference, their arrogance is magnified.
Mr. Obama seems perhaps captive to his grandmother's experience as a community/regional banker and to his advisers instead of trusting his instincts and last week's snubs in dealing with Wall Street's bankers, who only a year ago presented the nation (and planet) with a one-page $700 billion extortion note.
If we don't break apart the too-big-to-fails and bring back Glass-Steagall, there will be a lot of risk analysts out of work - after all, there's no risk of failure if the government guarantees everything.
nancy johnson
in
Mr. Krugman, you don't honestly expect President Obama to " reform " his bosses, do you? Those financial mavens bankrolled his campaign, and he has already proven his allegiance to them.
There are people who would hold these criminals responsible -- men like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, but they are certain to be granted no authority to do anything.
The bankers will continue to do as they please and grow rich beyond belief; and, President Obama will continue to smile and talk and talk and talk and talk.
Phil in the mountains of Kyushu
Japan
To focus on the ongoing ethical depravity of U.S. bankers:
Please remember, too, in a larger sense, that bankers only behave as they learned ethically OK. They know – all know – that U.S. corporate culture legally exists only as a massive bloodsucker. All in it have no ethics other than to extract what they can. Shareholder value entails no obligation to any ethics beyond those depersonalized all learn in biz schools, law schools, and most other. Corporate America has no obligation to any community of humans, nature, or anything living – humanity like nature a cipher to the idolatry of short-term profit for some.
Thanks for your hope that corporate-loving Obama may wake up, and bestir himself to a little regulating of his rich banker buddies. But so long as America’s schools so serve the larger bloodsucking corporate ethos, the world need not be surprised at Americans helpless before their institutional culture gone completely mad.
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