“The price of the lifesaving Covid-19 medication #Paxlovid will more than double in the coming months, drugmaker #Pfizer announced Wednesday. The change in list price comes as the US transitions from a system in which the government purchased the medication and provided it free to everyone to a more traditional commercial marketplace. “The list price, before insurance, will be $1,390 for a five-day course, Pfizer said. That’s 2.6 times higher than the $530-per-course price paid by the US government, which provided Paxlovid free to patients during the pandemic. “Covid-19 vaccines also increased in price as they went through a similar transition to a commercial market, rising about fourfold to between $115 to $130 per dose.
Some call it Peak Capitalism. But we’re way beyond that now. Others term it Capitalism Run Amuck. But again, way beyond that. I’ve heard Post Capitalism. Maybe…, but that could be too easily confusing.
I had it the other day…, the perfect term for where we are at this very moment (United States only, for lest we forget, being a new country, we are BEHIND the rest of the Western World in these matters i.e. Free Market Capitalism Versus Social Welfare…) Alas I forgot to make a note of the term I’d concocted. For now, let’s settle on Out Of Control Capitalism, and/or Weaponized Capitalism.
One thing we know for sure from history. It is only a matter of time before the masses that comprise 99% of any nation state’s population, unable to live even the most basic existences of dignity, rise up, revolt and tear the whole corrupt system crumbling down, murdering many a number of the 1% along the way. That’s History 101. This is the WHY behind Europe being so far ahead of us on the Social Welfare and Happiness scales. They’ve already been through this. Many of them multiple times. Let us hope there is something that be done in the form of a compromise between true democracy, social welfare, equality, basic human rights to lives of dignity and our more capitalist leanings.
Comment: “Very admirable, but who exactly would be “fronting the bill” for all of that??”
Ed Hale: Now don’t shoot me, but after studying other democracies around the world, that lean more socialist and less cut throat capitalist, we do find 1, (hold, don’t respond yet) whole populations of countries whose basic needs are met, based on a top down distribution system and they can still manage to not tax anyone more than 39%. One aspect of these systems is the recognition by everyone in the country, not just the governments — remember, they’re elected by the people, that once someone has collected a few million, they don’t need nor even benefit from millions or billions more. The caveat: they are of course smaller countries with far fewer people. Which several of you have already reminded me of. I get that. The irony, as I type this out, is that I am “the person in our friends group” who gets attacked the most for my extreme pro-capitalist views and defenses. I really really believe it’s what made America the best country in human history. (Not Democracy, because that’s common all over planet earth, and there are other countries that have much better more functional democracies.). It’s our capitalist spirit and the freedoms we have to do whatever we want to create and succeed. The lack of laws and limitations on our population in regards to business (comparatively) are singular and very beneficial. So I dont just support it; I love it. Plenty of my more blue blooded friends think I’m a fascist for loving capitalism so much. Fine.
BUT I do think we’ve created an extreme economic imbalance in the country. And I mean Czarist Russia or monarchical Great Britain level economic imbalance. It’s only a matter of time before America goes full on french or Bolshevik Revolution due to these imbalances. Just a thought, based on human history. Where America is now, with a relative few so wealthy they’re able to burn 100 dollar bills for fun and the majority not able to even pay for their health insurance, eventually they’re going to see the con and resist and revolt. (IMO that’s what the Trump vote was. Revolt against wealthy elitists. Ironically. If the nomination went to Bernie, the candidate who actually won the nomination, it would have been an election between two outsiders both offering an “f this system” platform.) Frankly, I’m at a point now where I’m more compassionately concerned about millions of people unable to make ends meet than I am about paying a high tax rate as I was 20 years ago. I’ve travelled to and lived in too many other democracies where everyone is cared for to believe the myths about “we can’t do that here”. I’d really like to wake up one day and know that everyone’s basic needs are being met by a functioning compassionate system. That might be socialist capitalism. I’m alright with that now. PS – this idea that we throw around that “people won’t be motivated to work” is still true now. In the present system. And it’s a small percentage. Most people would be more inclined to work hard and create something if they weren’t so angry depressed and desperate about paying their bills. PPS – the other argument billionaires love to promote, they won’t be encouraged to philanthropy anymore. (!!!!!! Have to get that anger off my chest) Do I really have to even say it??? How about a system like so many other countries have where we don’t NEED billionaires to hold philanthropy over our heads. It’s a scapegoat to justify all the loopholes we allow. “Hey I’ll build a hospital wing if you let me pay only 3% in taxes this year through loopholes.” No thanks. We’ll build our own hospital wings.
Comment: “Admirable ideas. But source beings don’t ask for free gifts. Giving things away to people just creates more dependence.”
Ed Hale: Aaahhh…. See, I dont see the above as “free gifts” at all. BUT I’m viewing it from way above with the perspective of the last 7,000 years of recorded human history and heck, even adding the prior 3,000 — so from the moment of the melting of the last ice age when Homo sapiens first started forming modern civilizations (which admittedly is from where I always view nearly everything when we’re speaking of humanity). From there one doesn’t see the “free gifts” idea. What one sees is a cooperative human society focused on survival and long rooted in 10,000 years of deliberate maneuvering and intelligent strategic decisions where each member does what they are naturally best at to serve the whole. Strong ass men are going to hunt, or work security and defense, or chop wood and build fortresses; smart folks are going to design better and better weapons or fortresses or tools; younger fertile women are going to carry children to term, have the babies, feed the babies i.e. one part of a much larger whole that perpetuates the species; older women are going to teach them how to do that, help and nurture them while they do that; etc etc. That’s just a tiny sample of a much larger picture of 10,000 years of human history as we know it. Humans have survived by working as a collective. (If a man sits down at a fire to eat and play with this babies and kids in his tribe after a long day hunting, he’s not thinking that that fire that someone else built is a “free gift”, nor is that meal someone else cooked all day that he’s eating a free gift, nor are those babies he’s playing with a free gift. He understands how successful human societies work.
Comment: Ed Hale Wow You should be a poet, or writer, even a song-writer!😘 You speak with truth and wisdom. We see the natural way of things. One day…
Comment: his intelligence is refreshing and I love it! We could use a daily dose of Ed Hale and his wise words❤️👍💯
Comment: Ed Hale Yes everyone needs to contribute. I agree with that. Handouts are not providing anything of value in return. #Disservice