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As the NYT's 7/12 Business Day article points out, the total sales during the period covered by the settlement for the three drugs in question total $27.9 billion and the total money recovered it the criminal proceeding concerning these drugs was $1 billion. The expense is easily justified as normal cost of doing business.
The other $2 billion were in civil portion of the settlement, a settlement whereby the defendant admitted no wrongdoing.
While these monies combined with prior justice department previous successes should rightly be applauded real deterrent will only come when executives are brought to trial and held accountable.
The CEO and other top officers should have faced criminal prosecution for their actions. They should be on their was to prison for long sentences. They should be barred from ever serving on a public corporation as an officer or board member. If the head coach of the New Orleans Saints can be suspended without pay for one year for his vile actions, if you put the offences of GSK in perspective these GSK executives should be place in prison forever and their personal wealth should be taken from them as part of the $3 billion fine.
Off with their heads...every one! Make the bastards pay. Corporate heads need to roll in the streets...without their mansions and BMWs. Confiscate everything from these criminals and make them paupers to make them know how it feels to barely make ends meet and worry about how some loved one might die because he/she has no medical insurance. It really is war that they started...and these criminals are winning...even if they do have to pay $3b which they will recoup by overcharging us later on. It' s just so much show to make it look like the government is protecting us...but they are really part of the problem.
The real headlines should read "Government pretends they are looking out after our interests while GSK increases prices from their customers to recoup their losses." And the CEOs and other top execs break out another bottle of Chatteau LaTefee-Too-Expensive-For-Everyone-Else to celebrate another heist well done.
The pharmaceutical industry is far more devious then this incident. Right now, they are the prime movers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This - if it goes through - by-passes all countries laws. They will (along with 600 other corporations) make their own laws on a global basis. These laws will supercede ANY/ALL countries laws concerning environment, taxes, regulations, etc.. They will be above our laws!! Corporations will have finally takenover the world - once and for all. I worked as a Purchasing Manager for pharmaceutical for 8 yrs and I can attest to the fact that they have always run things. They even play "fair" amongst themselves - having split the world into 3 sections - and they don't cross each other and no little companies are allowed in the game. If you stay Small - they leave you alone; but, don't get too big for your britches!! ADD, ADHD, Bi-polar - are mass induced by pharmaceutical and many diseases could be cured; but, that isn't profitable. We must stop them!
While everyone is applauding over a 3 billion fine keep in mind exactly who will pay the fine. The CUSTOMERS.Why are fines the only punishment meted out for corporate irresponsibility? Does anyone think for a minute that SGK will really feel any pain from the fine? Why aren't SGK's executives having their assets siezed and being thrown in jail for their crimes?
Why is it that we won't acknowledge who pays all corporate expenses including fines, taxes, profits, COGS etc. THE CUSTOMER PAYS. CORPORATION/BUSINESS EXPENSES ARE ARE PAID BY THE CUSTOMER. How many ways can you say this?
Two words: PERSONAL LIABILITY. This kind of thing has and will continue until those responsible are no longer allowed to hide behind the corportae wall and are personally fined to the point of bankruptcy and jailed. If corporations are now 'people' then the people that run them should assume personal liability, just like the rest of us 'people'.
The CEO said they have formally apologized and learned their lesson - as he rides away in a high-end BMW back to his mansion. The corporation (meaning shareholders and customers) will ultimately pay the fines while they enjoy personal immunity. Yeah, the board could fire the CEO, then give him a generous 7-figure golden parachute to go away. There simply are no personal consequences for cheating the system (see Wall Street). The reward is far greater than the risk.
Hear! Hear! Well said, Loren Bliss!
If these gangsters feared losing their heads, they would think twice about some of the crap that they pull off.
Literally from womb to tomb, we're conditioned to believe Communism is synonymous with heartless oppression and our alleged "democracy" is the apex of freedom and humanitarian justice. But look at how our government coddles the Glaxo criminals and any others of their white-collar, One Percent ilk. Murderers by deceit if not deed, they are nevertheless given no more than slap-on-the-wrist fines which are then collected from us, their victims, via price-hikes -- while the criminals themselves meanwhile are lauded by their colleagues for the extent to which they managed to fulfill the core ethos of capitalism: infinite greed elevated to maximum virtue. Contrast this to what becomes of Glaxo-types in China, Vietnam, Cuba and what became of them in the former Soviet Union: they are dragged before a People's Court, exposed as the sociopaths they are, then shot. Too bad it's just these "heartless" Communists who recognize the executioner's bullet is the only sure antidote to capitalist savagery.
The FDA can't (or won't) even protect us from sh!t burgers or Mad Cow Disease. They are "owned" by the wealthy and powerful corporations just as much as are many in Congress...or Obama. They'd rather spend the money on hiring more Barney Fife TSA agents to keep us afraid...very afraid...and to grope our genitals at airports. They don't care if we die of some disease...as long as we keep spending money on healthScare Insurance companies, crappy products, pill-pushing witch-doctors and fearing the elusive Muslim terrorist. The real terrorists are are not Muslim (most likely Christian or Mormon) and alive and well running this country into the ground.
Good God, just because ObamaCare is now the law of the land, it's just the beginning of something great! Now is the time to enlighten the many who hate it, but know nothing about it. Many of the ObamaCare haters will be getting those insurance checks in the mail and have no idea why!
Actually, Obama is a failure at communicating on a basic level. He needs charts and a "student teacher" on the road with him! This is the time to explain that rates have been going up in a major way but not for much longer. The "adult version" of ObamaCare doesn't kick in until 2014.
As with MA, everyone was insured FIRST. Then they worked on cost containment. Now it's working and it will always be a work in progress. The same goes with our nation. Here in CA, we missed universal health care by a few votes - democrats who made money from big pharma! The rats. I'm working my butt of getting Dan Lungren out of the house and Ami Bera in. Ami wants to take ObamaCare even further. He will in CA.
Each progressive state will do what's best for them. Each Republican state will need protests, and people dying needlessly from lack of medical care before Mr. Rich Governor caves in.
Anyway, stop griping, whining, bitching, moaning and groaning. ObamaCare made it into law. We have to work to keep it there by electing Obama back into office. We must put the pressure on the Republicans, obtuse as they are. Why not send them to the south side of Chicago for the summer and give them food stamps, medicaid, and low income housing? Sneak in some cameras and we'll have a reality show no one would miss!
The Japanese model is suicide - alternative jail for 25 of the executives.
Americans have been propagandized, in their schools, in their homes, on TV and in the movies to think of themselves as 'exceptional". We are not like Europe or other countries who have had dictators or commissars. We are 'freedom-loving', 'hardworking', and outspoken in defense of liberty unlike everyone else in the world who give in to squabbling, bickering, and let themselves be controlled by undemocratic regimes. Some even believe that God shines down upon them and they are quite sanctimoniously exceptional. Stuff like what happens everywhere else doesn't happen here! To us! But when it does, people are traumatized into not acting or thinking rationally.
We need a new completely open investigation into 911 without corrupt politicians who manipulate the outcome to favor the criminals who were responsible for 911 in the first place.
9/11 - Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out, Full-length http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCu_pvhnzQ
Cognitive dissonance. Why do people resist this information that challenges the "official government conspiracy theory"? We each have a "world view" that is formed by the culture we grow up in. When we hear information that contradicts our "world view", the resulting insecurities is called "Cognitive Dissonance". One cognitive dissonance was created by our government and the news media repeating over and over again that 19 Muslims hijacked the airliners and crashed them into the WTC buildings and the Pentagon. "We were attacked!!!" So now, we've lost our sense of security. Now, we're confused and disoriented. We have been traumatized and the only thing we cling on to is what we have believed to be true all these years..that the government is there to protect us against all foreign enemies. The idea that there are internal enemies that can be even more dangerous is kept in check by the owned media constantly spewing disinformation and propaganda. They make dissenting ideas and opinions by anyone who questions their authority as "lunatics" or "conspiracy theorists". The initial reports from reporters that said, right when the towers were collapsing, that "it looks just like a demolition" and reports from first responders who reported they heard a series of rapid multiple explosions and saw multiple flashes "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom" were quickly swamped out by the government disinformation propaganda repeated over and over again on the media...19 Muslim terrorists! 19 Muslim terrorists! Did I mention they were Muslims?..and Terrorists? On the other hand, many Scientists, Engineers, and other professionals who realized that much of what the government, and what they heard on the news media, and what they saw just did not make sense and it contradicted what they knew to be true from all their years of education and experience. It just did not add up. Architects who spent years designing and building tall buildings, explosive experts who spent years blowing up buildings, Metallurgists, Chemical Engineers, and others all initially sensed that what they were being told just did not add up. And once they started really investigating they realized that we were being lied to. Apart from what these people knew to be true or false based on their professional educations and experiences, other people knew first hand that something was not right even before 911. The WTC buildings were demolished using explosives that were planted weeks or months before by someone who had unlimited access to the buildings. And there were many reports by the 911 survivors of lots of unusually strange noise from construction on various floors of the towers in the months and days prior to 911. In fact, the buildings were shut down for a couple of days so that the construction could do some "rewiring". And the companies in charge of the WTC security and the construction companies were all being run by one of Bush's relatives. How convenient! If you believe that America keeps us safe...and that America is the "good guy"...ask yourselves who got bailed out during the financial crises...Americans or a few extremely wealthy criminals who created the Wall Street scams, derivatives, sub-prime lending, tranches, falsified ratings, and gambling of other people's money in very high risk roulette-wheel bets. If the government keeps us safe from the real terrorists...the banksters and Wall Street high roller...then why did they repeal the Glass-Steagall Act which opened the flood gates for rampant corruption. Wikileaks helped reveal some of the wicked things our government has done in our name. And the government wants to kill Julian Assange and any other whistleblower who spills the beans of government wrongdoing and corruption. So just how long will it take before you wake up and break out of your cognitive dissonance which herds you directly into the cattle slaughter shoots of the real criminal terrorists that run this country. "To accept that the government was involved is like opening Pandora's Box. If you peek in and see something, it may challenge your beliefs about the world" "When your beliefs are challenged, fear and anxiety are created. In response to that, our psychological defenses kick in and they 'protect' us from these emotions. Denial...is the one most likely 'defense' to kick in when our beliefs are challenged." Some people even say something like "I refuse to believe that that many Americans would be that treasonous...Someone would have talked!" "Even if it were true...I would still not believe it! " These, of course are "beliefs". They are not scientific fact! But these beliefs do keep us from looking at the empirical evidence. "When we say or think something like 'we refuse to believe' we can be sure that the evidence that is coming our way is too unbearable and that it is conflicting with our preconceived world view too much." "People are afraid of being ostracized, of being alienated, afraid of being shunned. They are afraid of their lives being inconvenient. They have to change their lives. They are afraid of being confused. They are afraid of psychological deterioration and that they are afraid of feeling helpless and vulnerable. None of us want to feel helpless and vulnerable. We want to defend ourselves. And, so the way we often do that is..we get angry..then we become indignant..we become offended...we want to ridicule the messenger..we want to pathologize the messenger..become offended..and we want to silence the messenger. It is conflicting with our world-view much too much." 9/11 - Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out, Full-length http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCu_pvhnzQ
Oh it's easy to say "shut down the company," but that's not reasonable. We're short on life-saving drugs as it is. I would throw the thugs in jail and replace them with anyone else. GSK must be kept open. Actually, the marketing of drugs needs to be stopped altogether. No ads on television, marketing to doctors, parties for anyone. Drug companies should do what they do best - manufacture drugs. The FDA needs more oversight as bogus studies were filtered through. It's clear money needs to leave Washington. As long as money can buy any favor, every agency will be corrupt. Get the money out and clean up the place.
This is aside from GSK, but it does make a point. Toronto took all advertising off the air and from newspapers of junk and fast food for kids. They didn't see unhealthy food, they didn't ask for it. They now have the lowest obesity rate in all of Canada.
If doctor's can't make one red cent from big pharma, they may just recommend the correct medication to his/her patients. Wouldn't that be a novel idea?
Would have preferred a straight up Yes or No vote being offered without the commentary.
A few billion dollars here a few billion dollars there, pretty soon we would be talking about a lot of money. So they fine them and then they pass the costs back on to the customers. What they need to do, instead of dealing with a lot of elusive funny-money, is to do like what they have done in China...execute the bastards.
Yes, these criminals have been killing us slowly through the poisons they convince us to take, or breathe, or drink, or eat and they have been wrecking our world's climate but unless you look at the evidence and see how these criminal insiders created the 911 false flag operation, which has led to the destruction of our democracy, our freedoms, and financial well-being then you are not getting the entire picture.
The whole area below where the planes hit, all the way down to the ground level, was undamaged and not subjected to fire at all and therefore was not weakened yet the whole thing collapsed at near free fall speed. The so-called "pile-driver effect" or "pancaking", as the government wants us to believe in, does not take into consideration the pure fact of physics that all of the lower floors would have provided resistance to anything close to free-fall speed. The only thing that could allow this would be if the supporting under-structure, from where the planes hit all the way to the ground, was instantly removed providing no resistance to the collapse. It would be against the law of physics for a collapse at near free fall speed when there is a resistance to that fall as would be provided by an intact under-structure. WTC7 wasn't even hit by a plane and had only low-level office fires yet it fell nearly identically to WTC1 and WTC2. These were buildings being progressively blown up from top down.
There were numerous eyewitnesses of first responders, firefighters, police, and others, some of who were recorded on radio transmissions, and transcripts that recorded their testimonies about multiple blasts, with associated flashes, that sounded and looked just like buildings being demolished with explosives. More than 118 firefighters witnessed these flashes and explosions and was recorded in over 12,000 pages of testimony by the FDNY firefighters, emergency medical technicians which were collected from Oct 2001 to Jan 2002. On Aug 2005 there was a court-ordered release of the FDNY "Oral Histories". Yet, the government ignored all of these reports and claimed that there were no reports of multiple explosions. The government lied many, many times and acted just like someone who had a lot to hide. They obviously covered up the evidence when they immediately shipped those steel beams out to China.
Some of the evidence of an explosive demolition lies in the dust collected around the WTC buildings. Iron micro-spheres (which can only be formed with extremely high temperatures and hurled and explosive speeds), unexploded nano-thermite micro-chips, and chemical fingerprints of a nano-thermite found in large proportion of the dust samples make it quite clear that demolitions took place. Tons of concrete turned into talcum powder-like dust, steel beams hurled to great distances, photo evidence of steel beams cut diagonally as in demolitions, steel beams cut to nearly identical lengths just right for shipping to China, explosive squibs many floors below the collapse point, video and eyewitness evidence of molten iron (an orange-yellow to whitish color...not aluminum which is a silvery color like mercury), satellite imagery, weeks later, of ground zero exhibiting thousands of degrees of a pool of molten iron below the ground. All of these things are evidence of an explosive demolition using high tech nano-thermite.
All the other evidence of seeing flashes and explosions, melted iron, dust particles collected from the area around the WTC buildings that contain micro-spheres of iron, and the nano-thermite chips, the explosive chemicals found in the debris...all these things have not been answered or even addressed by our government and they have tried their hardest to avoid them. They have done nothing but use lies and propaganda to keep people from learning the truth.
A great, sinister crime, or even treason, has been committed against the American people. And these same treasonous criminals from the Bush administration continues even into the Obama administration to lord their evil powers over the American people and the rest of the world.
In order for you to understand THE REALLY BIG PICTURE...the one that helps explain our current financial collapse...and future collapses...our loss of our freedoms...the destruction of democracy...you need to really look into the "new Pearl Harbor" of the insider false flag operation of the 911 WTC demolitions. "Global Warming", Big Pharmas killing some of us, and even the economy and why many people lost their life's savings, are all really terrible and most people will shrug their shoulders or choose to believe in the propaganda lies so they can be in self denial...comfortably numb? But, if people really woke up and really looked into what happened on 911 they might be more apt to react in a manner that would elicit real change...and that won't come through the crooked ballot box. Reelecting the same useful-idiot....that told us we should just look to the future and not get hung up on the past (ie: just fugetaboutit...don't hold those war criminals of the previous administration accountable for their treason)...will not change anything. Massive boycotts, mass demonstrations, and a total obstruction of business as usual might help.
9/11 - Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out, Full-length
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCu_pvhnzQ
I am very frustrated at the climate change debate - I attended an event in Dublin, Ireland in 2006 and Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joesph Stiglitz explained that he was a member of Clintons INter Governmental panel of climate change and he said the evidence then was incontrivertable and even more supported by 2006. I was astounded as a broadsheet reader how il-informed I was on the issue the power of the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph right wing newspapers in Britain that muddy the waters on the issue is frightening. I heard a debate on UK Question Time prog one liberal panelist said even if you do not support the arguement for climate change the policies that are needed for a sustainable economy are senisble and effective regardless.
I watched the Gaslandmovie from USA recently and it scares us in the North of Ireland our politicans in power have granted 5 licenses across the statelet. The green party is opposing and I am doing my best to get the message out but there is powerful forces at play in favour for profits. The jobs creating in the area one really bothers me: I thought concentration camps would create jobs that doesnt mean we should build them :-(
Oh by the way the Daily Mail paper ran a story this week that UK will face 'US mid-west' type weather till December: they have no concerns about running with negative emotion stories either when their climate change stance is destroyed,
Read Last of Ancient Sunlight from Echart Tolle recommends at back of Power of Now. Love the site G_d bless all here!
Barry McEvoy
I voted yes because I read yesterday that they're already calling for a vote on July 11. They aren't even waiting for the election to see if they gain a Senate majority. I think it's mostly a political ploy, but it's disgusting all the same.
Hooray for EyeBallFarmer
Finally someone who brings up OVERPOPULATION of the human being! This is the planet's biggest problem -- humans are the vermin of the Earth.
Somebody answer the mystery: Why is the human so destructive? Why is the human so greedy? Why is the human so cruel? Why are only some human beings so despicable, and others not?
The human is God's biggest evolutionary mistake!
What Climate Change Looks Like
I take issue with your characterization of what Climate Change looks like. That we build homes in fire zones and suspend our power supply on poles is a testament to our compound stupidity. Our core stupidity is that we have percipitated a tectonic change in our ecosphere that will last thousands or millions of years. That we have overlaid our stupidity with what we think of as the amenities of civilized life is inconsequential.
The message has been the same since the 70's: too many people, too many poisons. Now we know more about the process. 'Climate Change' is the name de jour, and we are just now beginning to see catastrophic results, but NOTHING has changed our behavior.
There has been and will always be a small cadre of activists who toot their horns and make their own little lifestyle changes (I am one of those), but I am confident that we will not stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere or pouring thousands of poisons into our soils, water, and food untill all the fossil fuels have been consumed or until there is no longer a civilization to consume them. How stupid is that!
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So, how do the wobble-headed sheeple, who refuse to believe the scientists when they say that there is ample evidence of global warming, compare to the wobble-headed sheeple, who refuse to believe in the scientists who say that there is ample evidence to refute the "official 911 conspiracy theory"? The evidence that all three WTC buildings were brought down by demolition is very ample, indeed. And it is irrefutable that the government committed a big crime when it covered up the evidence by immediately shipping all the steel beams off to China for melt-down and processing. It looks like many people are too afraid to see the "elephant in the room" and are in denial of what very wealthy and powerful people in high positions in our government, military, and corporate infrastructure have done to cow people into accepting their eventual destruction.
9/11 - Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out, Full-length
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCu_pvhnzQ
It is ironic how everyone seems to dismiss the fact that the people have demanded more power, not just the big corporations or the politicians in Washington, the people have to start taking the blame for our current situation as well. I live in Southern California, in what is called the South bay. The weather has never been better with cool ocean breezes and nice sunny days. And everyone has their air conditioners on ever afternoon! Consumption is part of the problem as well. And let us not forget we have over populated the area we call the Southwestern United States and we have to get much of the water from the Colorado Rive. Nearby states such as Arizona and Colorado are debating over the fact that we are using too much water to keep Southern California and the Central Valley going. The Central Valley has been told for decades that they need to conserve water for the crops and use new ways of watering the crops; little has been done to do so. Southern California is virtually a desert region and we have over populated the region. Yes the corporations need to do more about global warming and yes the politicians have done a terrible job in regulating the pollution they produce. But the fact still exists that we will run out of our natural supply of water, if you want to call importing a vast majority from outside of the state natural and still the population continues to grow out of control, here in S. Cal. . So it is time we started to do something about over populating an area that nature did not supply an abundance of water too and an area that does not have enough water to continue to grow the crops we once did, especially since the scientists say we have hit a tipping point with little chance of stopping what is happening in nature due to the human over expansion and pollution due to over consumption. We have to do something more than just point fingers and complain. If the population does not do more than complain this part of the United States will again be a desert waste land and it will be our legacy to the following generations not yet born.....