Drug Prices in the US vs. Canada - The Big Pharma Political Connection of Corporatist Democrats

This is a slide used by Bernie Sanders when he proposed making drug imports from Canada to the US legal.

The proposal was voted down in the Senate 52-46, with a few key Democrats helping overturn Bernie's proposed legislation.

Among those voting against it was the recipient of big pharma campaign contributions Democratic rising star Cory Booker.

Booker used the Big Pharma talking point that 'the bill did not include provisions requiring the protections of the FDA.'

Oh really?  We think that the Canadian government's regulation of medicine is weaker than in the US?   Please, Cory, tell us exactly where they fall down on the job.

And oh by the way, most it not all of those drugs are the same drugs being sold in the US by the same manufacturers, so the point could be moot.  Just allow the imports of drugs the FDA has already approved.

But a real solution, which appears to be far too much for our pampered plutocrats, would be to repeal the US law that prohibits Medicare from negotiating drug prices as is done by the government health services in Canada. But I would not expect the US political establishment to seriously consider overturning that sweet monopoly deal with the drug companies.

Not as long as Big Pharma can keep holding that SG&A level around 45 percent, compared to 25 percent or less of most other industries.  There is a lot of money being spent there to motivate doctors and lawmakers in the drug industry.

And then there is the 'balance billing' racket where hospitals toss in enormous zingers to your medical bills by using doctors and test labs that are not in your network, for which you get little to no insurance coverage, or insanely high deductibles.  And you have no knowledge of their choice in advance.

New York state has passed a ban on this.  But most other states have not.

The current US healthcare system is like a protection racket.  It is dominated by monopolist behemoths, in the providers and the insurers, and sustained by huge amounts of public relations and their paid functionaries in the media and the Congress.

It is the most expensive healthcare system in the developed nations.  And that is largely due to corruption and a twisting of the laws due to the influence of Big Money in lawmaking and regulation.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Into the Weekend

"Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
who have observed his law;
Seek justice, seek humility;
And perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s justice.

This was the triumphal city, high and mighty,
Saying to herself, ‘I am the one, and none dare stand beside me.’
How desolate now has she become, a place fit only for wild beasts.
Those who pass by her scoff, and shake their heads at her ruin."

Zephaniah 2:3,15

We have to be somewhere soon, so here are the charts at 3:30 PM.

The GDP number came in light for 4Q 2016.

Stocks were chopping with the broader indices showing weakness, and big tech still one of the mainstays.

They are lining up some IPOs on the if/come, so I don't think stocks will dump off these highs just yet. But if something 'happens,' then all bets are off.

The metals are holding their own, but need to move up and above this overhead resistance which is proving to be about as stubborn as expected.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metal Charts - Something Wicked This Way Comes

"Wall Street told US manufacturers to move their production to China in order to increase profits from lower labor and regulatory costs, or Wall Street would finance takeovers of the companies, and the new owners would raise the firms’ profitability by moving production offshore. Large retailers, such as Walmart, ordered suppliers 'to meet the Chinese price.'

When the jobs were in the US, most of the gains in productivity went to labor. Therefore, real median family incomes rose through time, and the consumer purchasing power this income growth provided drove the US economy to success for ever more people. When the jobs were moved to Asia, the growth in real median US family incomes stopped and declined."

Paul Craig Roberts


"A credibility trap is when the managerial functions of a society have been sufficiently compromised by corruption so that the leadership cannot reform, or even honestly address, the problems of that system without implicating a broad swath of the powerful, including themselves.

The moneyed interests and their aspirants tolerate the corruption because they have profited from it, and would like to continue to do so. Discipline is maintained by various forms of soft financial rewards and social coercion."

Jesse

I don't necessarily agree with Paul C. Roberts on many things, but I know the above to be true. I saw it happening up close and personal.  It was fairly obvious really to the objective and informed observers of history.   Ideologues of all persuasions, not so much—  they are always lost in some new era, with those things outside the boundaries of their reality proscribed by utterly inadequate models, selective facts, and self-defining truths.

The sophists in the professional class will say 'prove it,' and offer their tortured models and selective histories to show that this was merely the natural path of progress and technology, ie unavoidable.  But they will feel your pain, from a distance.

I am afraid that things are apparently way past that point of arguing futilely about it with a mind to finding an organic remedy, if you have not noticed.  Some have spoken about this for years, warning of your folly in vain.  And now, ladies and gentlemen, a banquet of consequences is being served by the Mad Hatter, once again.

The futures were gyrating after the bell as some big name companies like Paypal, Microsoft, Intel and Alphabet turn in their financial results.

The wiseguys want to unload a mass of big IPOs in the next two weeks, so they will attempt to support the markets as long as nothing happens to make that too difficult.

I suspect that the Republican dominated Congress will do their best to ruin the economy.  I wonder how much Trump may fall into line, or pursue his own instincts and legacy.

The Democrats are virtually sidelined, as they only slowly begin to digest the consequences of the failure of their neo-liberal economics, world power ambitions, and the 'better of two evils' political strategies.  As for their Republicans, they are obsequiously vile in the service of the moneyed interests.

Greed prevails as fear recedes.  The 'establishment' is firmly mired in denial of their failing policies.

Something wicked this way comes.

Have a pleasant evening.