Link Me Up, Scotty - Entitlement and Justice Edition

Tuesday, September 22, 2015
An interesting take on how Millennials look at the political process and how they prioritize issues. Both parties would do well to take heed - the youngest of the baby boomers are now over 50, and this is the demographic that will define America's political future. And that can't happen fast enough for me.
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And speaking of the Baby Boomers, I think the author of this piece makes a pretty good case for the idea that the Baby Boomers are also "The Most Entitled Generation." I've long believed this to be the case, and worry that the Smart Sailor will be forced into a life not of his own choosing in an effort to make up the deficits created by his grandparents' generation.
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So not only is Ben Carson a political whackaloon, he also knows nothing about the Constitution. Oh, and he's a bigot. That, too.

How can someone so accomplished be so willfully ignorant in other areas? I don't get the cognitive dissonance inherent in such a point of view.

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The new business strategy for some pharmaceutical companies is to buy old, neglected generic drugs and then raise the price by anywhere from 212% to 982%. Because they need to "invest" in their companies, apparently. More like "invest" in their off-shore bank accounts. This type of corporate behavior makes me positively apoplectic with rage. I'm not averse to companies making a profit, especially if they did the work and made the investment to development something innovate. That is certainly not the case here, where a drug like Doxycycline, an antibiotic that's been around forever and a day, went from $20 a bottle in October 2013 to $1,849 by April 2014. One company increased the cost of a 65 year old drug commonly used for the treatment of opportunistic diseases that infect AIDS patients from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill AND I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. That's some shameful shit, right there. What the fuck is wrong with people?

H/T Brother Vince
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Even though suicide takes the lives of 40,000 Americans annually, the budget afforded to prevent it is well below moneys earmarked for diseases that kill fewer Americans per year. The dearth of services for mental health patients is a shame on us all, and I don't understand why breast cancer (for example) - which kills a comparable number of people per year - is so well funded while mental health research gets so little.

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A homophobic preacher is drowned out by a bagpipe player's rendering of "Scotland the Brave." Before the police come and take the bigot off. This is so much more effective than trying to reason with (or shout down) such douchebags.

1 comments:

mom in northern said...

Pharmaceuticals are only in business to make money and create patients...that is the bottom line..
Question...given the millions of dollars give to fight disease...what is there to show for it?
Where is Jones Salk when you need him? Will they next inflate the cost o vaccinations? Many are already over the top in price. Then there is the flu shot...now reasonable...next into triple digits?