News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Sept. 14, 2018: None of my readers will be surprised by CORRUPTION.
At least I hope not. Corruption has existed since the first human society existed some thousands of years ago. It is inherent in human society. So why shouldn’t corruption exist globally today?
And on display right here in our USA. USA, USA, USA!
The problem is not the existence of corruption. The big problem is how extensive it is and what forms it takes. I hit on all kinds of corruption week after week here. Why am I HEADLINING CORRUPTION this episode?
For no special reason, except a number of seemingly unrelated stories from two of my media “partners” this week clicked in my genius brain – ok everyone is a genius, feel better now? – and alarm bells went off.
Alarm bells metaphorically based on the fact that CORRUPTION in America is not trending in a good direction, meaning downward, although as a nation we want to believe it is. We NEW Americans.
The evidence is to the contrary most troubling in plain sight and even in the most mundane ways.
THE FACT IS, I do not need to be a genius to know that the REAL problem with corruption anywhere but specific to our United States is that when corruption reaches a “tipping point” which we won’t know until we experience the dismal results – is when we as a nation go into permanent DECLINE and a death spiral into a world in which America becomes very third rate.
So now let me use a few random examples from my media partners just this week to make my much, much larger and far more dangerous point.
I will ever so briefly this episode explores for you ….
1) The Wonderful Sackler family
2) The reality of Andrew Cuomo
3) Setting drug prices
4) The Duplicitous New York Times
This will be an exercise in speed reading corruption.
First The Wonderful Sacklers. Our nation is filled with GREAT families. Of course, including The Fabulous Trumps. For the most part, very RICH families. Much but not all of it inherited. Sorry all you entrepreneurs who still want to believe if you work hard and have a brilliant idea you too will get RICH. You will if you win that lottery as about 1% of ambitious entrepreneurs do. The other 99%, SORRY get a job and shut up!
I’m going slightly off course, sorry; back to the Sacklers. Three brothers born in Brooklyn early in the 20th century all three became doctors but they had a much bigger dream – to become Billionaires by becoming the most dangerous Drug Lords in American history. Not like that horrible Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar and so, so many others like him. NO, NO, NO!
The Sacklers knew a much better way; they would create a very legal drug company they named Purdue Pharma, a still private company they and their heirs today own and will for generations to come. The Sacklers and their company produced a “wonder” drug called OxyContin – a very, very addictive opioid which they marketed like candy to other doctors and the public.
As a result, The Wonderful Sacklers became one of the wealthiest families in the world, billionaires many times over, making Pablo Escobar sitting in a maximum-security prison for the rest of his life look like a failure.
NOT the Sacklers; they will NEVER see the inside of a jail cell even though they have caused far, far more death and suffering than a hundred Pablo Escobars – the Sacklers with their “wonder” drug OxyContin.
Just the opposite. The Sacklers are TIGHT with both Democratic and Republicans Big Wigs. They throw lots of campaign cash all around and both Parties applaud wildly. Of course, their generosity does not stop there. They give to opera houses, museums, lots of very good causes. The Sacklers receive award after award for their good deeds in America, England and beyond.
Here is what I call it – and so should you – big league CORRUPTION!
INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION far and wide, the most dangerous form of corruption. The kind of corruption The Ruling Elites make legal. It is very good Pablo Escobar is in prison but his mistake was getting involved in illegal corruption The Wonderful Sacklers were and are much much smarter.
You can read all about it in The Financial Times this week and lots of other publications too but not all of them. Not much in The New York Times.
Before I turn to The New York Times, just one other quick corruption story from FT this week. This about legal drug pricing on Wednesday’s front page. The headline is PHARMA CHIEF DEFENDS 400% PRICE RISE AS PART OF ‘MORAL REQUIREMRNT’ TO CASH IN. Yes, that is the headline!
Legal CORRUPTION is so bad this jerk Nostrum Laboratories CEO, Nirmal Mulye, defended his decision to raise the price of an antibiotic drug from $475 to over $2,400 for just one reason only – to sell it at the highest possible price.
You already know what our government is doing about it – NOTHING. Not if Obama was President, (remember EpiPens?), and not with Trump as President and not with the Congress we have, whether Republican or Democrat.
Why not???? All together … pervasive institutional CORRUPTION!!
Now to The New York Times and Governor Andrew Cuomo, an interconnected example of American institutional corruption. The New York Times endorsed Andrew Cuomo for re-election in a lead editorial this week. Why? Because he is an advocate for gay marriage and equality for which he should be complimented; and they also endorsed him for not being Trump.
But this week, The New York Times also gave us editorials about how terrible a Governor Andrew Cuomo is and why logically he should not be re-elected, contradicting their own endorsement again and again.
Andrew Como is a blatantly corrupt politician who sold and sells everything he can get his hands on to the “highest bidder,” including our NYC transit system controlled by Cuomo through the MTA. If you want anything from Andrew Cuomo, either be in a position to guarantee him large blocks of votes on election day OR else write a very big check to his campaign war chest.
Andrew Cuomo should be on his way to jail; instead he is on his way to a 3rd term as Governor of NYS for only one reason institutional (i.e. legal) CORRUPTION, as practiced by Cuomo and the NYT in endorsing him. This while New York State has arguably the most CORRUPT state government of any of our 50 states. And it only got worse with Cuomo as Governor for 8 years.
I have to fit in one more fact about Andrew Cuomo. It turns out while the media righty highlights the misuse of the election process in state after state, guess which state government misuses the election apparatus more than most? Yes “enlightened” New York State. Why? Because of Andrew Cuomo as The Times detailed in a lead editorial Thursday.
Because of Andrew Cuomo’s hindrance of election law reform for 8 years, it is more difficult to vote in New York State than any other state in the nation and as a result, New York has one of the lowest voter turn-outs in the nation. This is the CORRUPT individual The Times enthusiastically endorsed.
If our nation does not look like a happy frog in a pot of boiling water to you, I strongly recommend you look again!
It has a name – CORRUPTION!
(This entire series is dedicated in honor of the late Liu Xiaobo)
