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If selling “illegal substances” is a crime, what about legal drug pushers? Pharmaceutical manufacturers, that is. In 1997, the drug companies turned to aggressively hawking their products directly to consumers, after generations of leaving the need for drugs and their selection to medical professionals.
TV commercials and print ads urge the public to tell their doctors they want the prescription medicines that are being pushed. Buy Nexium, “The Purple Pill,” they say. It will fix your heartburn. Only now it’s called “acid reflux disease,” with all the potential dangers implied by the new name for that ominous affliction. Or, a pill that can help with “bipolar disorder,” “deadly artery plaque,” or perhaps some new “syndrome.”
Watching T.V. at night, we easily see ten or twenty commercials hustling drugs. All this aggressive marketing of drugs is perfectly legal. You can go to jail for smoking “weed,” but it’s OK to drug your children so they will behave themselves and, hopefully, learn, or take drugs yourself to deal with problems such as ED, prostate, artery plaque, arthritis, menopause, on and on ad infinitum.
But, watch out they tell us, droning on endlessly about the potential side effects of their products. Everything from gas to headaches to fainting to possible liver and kidney damage, on and on they warn – a veritable litany of the risks of taking their medications.
And, what has all this produced? An out-of-control drug culture, with mixed messages coming at us from every direction, confusing and misdirecting our attention, that’s what. Don’t “do drugs,” unless of course, they happen to be the drugs of choice that the drug companies are hustling.
The reason, of course, is obvious: It’s about increasing sales. And, it works.
From 1996 to 2005, the amount of money spent on advertising by drug companies increased from $11.4 billion to $29.9 billion. (The New England Journal of Medicine, August 16, 2007). A study by Elizabeth Ann Almasi (at Stanford University), “The Relationship between Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising and Prescription Rates,” included the following information:
“…prescriptions for the fifty most heavily advertised drugs grew at a rate six times greater (24.6%) than other drugs (4.3%) between 1999 and 2000.”
“Besides prescriptions, DTCA (Direct To Consumer Advertising) has also increased the demand for other forms of treatment. 14% of patients disclosed health concerns as a result of advertising.”
“A study by Murray (2004) found that 24% of all people scheduled a visit with their physician specifically to talk about a prescription drug advertisement.”
“Unfortunately, physicians also granted 12% of ad generated prescription drug requests in which they did not believe the therapy would be helpful.”
“Of the patients who recalled seeing a DTC advertisement, 94% remember television promotions, 62% recall newspaper and journal advertisements, and 22% recall radio spots (Kaiser Health Poll, 2005)”
“Spending on DTC is highly concentrated on products which generally treat chronic conditions and have a low incidence of side effects (Rosenthal et al, 2002).”
Z Magazine noted, “A survey of family physicians found that 71 percent felt DTC (Direct To Consumer) ads pressure doctors into prescribing drugs that they would not normally prescribe. And, according to a study by the Henry K. Kaiser Foundation, when patients request a specific drug, doctors prescribe it 44 percent of the time.’ “Z” also concluded that “ads are often for unnecessary or ‘lifestyle’ drugs that fuel the belief that there is a ‘pill for every ill.’ Drugs for thinning hair, toenail fungus, and other problems are heavily promoted while important inexpensive treatments, like water pills for high blood pressure, are ignored.”
The Department of Advertising, University of Texas at Austin, tells us, “…the First Amendment, places constraints on government repression of speech. Advertising is recognized by the courts as a form of ‘commercial speech.’ Commercial speech has been defined by the Court as speech ‘which does no more than propose a commercial transaction.’ Although the courts never have recognized it as being as valuable as some other forms of speech, commercial speech is protected by the First Amendment.”
So, what to do about all this? Should the government ban all Direct To Consumer Advertising (DTC) of drugs? Unfortunately, that’s not possible – because advertising is also considered free speech, and we can’t deprive the drug companies of their right to speak, that is, to advertise.
If DTC advertising can’t be banned, what can be done? Could the FDA counter the drug companies’ hype by educating the public to the fact that most of what is beamed our way is not intended to educate, so much as to scare potential customers? I don’t know, but my sense is, don’t count on it.
Nothing sells like fear, and marketing drugs directly to consumers is based on fear.
Senator Obama’s March 18 speech has stimulated more questions than answers and leaves open the matter of whether it adequately explains his 20-year relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, considering the Reverend’s many biased, inflammatory and prejudicial statements.
Obama: “I can no more disown him (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community.”
Does disowning the “black community” mean that Obama must always accept any and all Blacks no matter what they may say or do? I can think of many people for whom I have no respect because of their values, beliefs or conduct, and I would not hesitate to distance myself from them with nary a thought that I might “disown” my own “community” in doing so.
Obama: “Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place…?”
Good question. The Senator explains it this way: “And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentator, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.”
However, that doesn’t adequately explain, at least to me, why Obama would willingly listen to the prejudiced rants of a pastor for 20 years, even if he has been “like family.”
Obama: “I can no more disown [Rev. Jeremiah Wright] than I can my white grandmother.”
Does this imply that there are no conditions under which any of us should “disown” a close relative: brother, sister, cousin, even a parent or grandparent? What if they abused you? What if they were just plain worthless? Must we always accept our relatives regardless of what they might have done to us or to others? I can think of plenty of reasons for disowning someone, and near the top of my list is that they are prejudiced to the point of being offensive.
Senator Obama also describes “Legalized discrimination – where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments…”
All true. But, this is also true of many other minority groups at various times in our history, including the present: The Poles (“Pollocks”), the Irish, Czechs, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Hmong, Mexicans, Philippinos, American Indians, women and others. They have all experienced and many continue to experience prejudice. We can argue about the degree to which each group has been discriminated against, but they have all had to live with their share.
Obama’s speech contains appeals to the poor and underprivileged with such statements as, “But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans – the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family…we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Native American children…we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington…we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life…it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it (your job) overseas for nothing more than a profit.”
This is nothing more than the standard Liberal appeal to minority and underprivileged voters. His litany includes just about every conceivable populist grievance against business and government and foretells budget busting government programs as the remedy.
In the final analysis, the Senator’s speech did not adequately explain why he sat in a congregation for 20 years listening to the repeated prejudiced, anti-American diatribes of a “friend and mentor” who was also his pastor. Nor has he disassociated himself from this pastor, excusing it on the grounds that to do so would also mean that he would be disassociating himself from the Black community.
Barack Obama is a gifted speaker, with a talent for weaving words together that inspire hope and confidence. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, they don’t really seem to say very much at all, except perhaps that he is just another politician trolling for votes.
It wasn’t very long ago that environmentalists and global warming advocates were warning us about the dangers of cow flatulence, that it is causing or at least contributing to global warming. The U.N. even got into the act, issuing a report that concluded cow flatulence is a greater threat to the atmosphere than automobiles.
It has been estimated that 9% to12% of the energy that a cow consumes is turned into methane, which is released either through flatulence or burping. A huge number of factors affect methane emission, including diet, barn conditions and whether the cow is lactating, but an average cow in a barn produces 542 liters of methane a day, and 600 liters when out in a field.
All this methane can add up to a significant amount. For example, Australia’s 140 million sheep and cattle are estimated to produce one seventh of that nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and America’s 100 million cattle are major contributors to the problem in this country.
Is this a valid theory, or was the idea just floated as a trial balloon to see if it would gain legs, as they say in the media biz? Whatever the case, it didn’t stay in the news for long. Perhaps because it never seemed to get past the LOL (laugh out loud) phase.
A good example of the humor provoked by this issue, along with a healthy dose of common sense, was found in Jill Fallon’s post (December 14, 2006) to her Estate Vaults.com website, where she said, “We have met the enemy and it moos? Apparently the beasts of the field do nothing but wander around all day asking their brethren to ‘pull my hoof’. Every time a cow feels a small sense of relief, a polar bear goes through the ice,” she added.
Cecil Adams, in his Straight Dope Classic, Do cow and termite flatulence threaten the earth’s atmosphere? dealt with the cow flatulence concern as far back as March 1989: “Now, you’re probably saying, what the hey, cows have been around forever, how come all of a sudden they’re a threat? All we know is this: atmospheric methane has been increasing at the alarming rate of 1 percent a year, and something’s got to be causing it. The world cattle population is thought to have increased in the last decade, and Lord knows the Brazilians don’t feel like taking any more heat for torching the Amazon. So hey, let’s blame the cows.” (straightdope.com)
In other words, we have another largely insoluble problem that threatens to end life as we know it. Or do we?
In another example of jumping to conclusions without having all the information, in this case about cows, their manure is also considered a good potential source of energy, and many farmers are using the methane gas it produces to develop their own power source.
So, which is it: cow flatulence is causing global warming or cow waste may help save us from ourselves by providing a new energy source?
A recent Reuters story reported, “On a dairy farm in the Golden State’s agricultural heartland, utility PG&E Corp began…producing natural gas derived from manure, in what it hopes will be a new way to power homes with renewable, if not entirely clean energy…As cow manure decomposes, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas more portent than carbon dioxide…Enter the Vintage Dairy project…methane can be captured and treated to produce renewable gas.”
“To tap the renewable gas from cow manure, the Vintage Dairy farm first flushes manure into a large octagonal pit, where it becomes about 99 percent water. It is then pumped into a covered lagoon, first passing through a screen that filters out large solids that eventually become the cows’ bedding….The covered lagoon, or ‘digester,’ is the size of nearly five football fields and about 33 feet deep. It is lined with plastic to protect the ground water…The end product is ‘close to 99 percent pure methane’ according to BioEnergy Chief Operating Officer Thomas Hintz…” Once it is treated, enough gas to power about 1,250 homes “is injected into PG&E’s pipeline, where it will be shipped to a power plant in Northern California.” (California cows start passing gas to the grid, by Nicholas Groom, Reuters, Mar 4, 2008)
Talking about cow flatulence may be good for laughs, but it turns out that it really is serious business, after all.
In Hamlet, Polonius counsels his hotheaded son, Laertes: “Neither a borrow nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” (In this context, “husbandry” means careful or thrifty management; frugality, or thrift.)
It’s interesting to note that “in the days when Hamlet was first staged (around 1600) borrowing was epidemic among the gentry, who sometimes neglected husbandry to the point where they were selling off their estates piece by piece to maintain an ostentatious lifestyle in London.” (Shakespeare Quotes, enotes.com).
Over 400 years later, here in America we find ourselves dealing with the same problem: uncontrolled spending. When it comes to husbandry, it’s pretty obvious that little has changed. We have a profligate government and a spendthrift society, with growing numbers of people, businesses and government entities going broke.
The following examples illustrate the problem:
A recent Wall Street Journal article about the state of New Jersey noted, “In 1990 the state was $3 billion in debt. Borrowing has since grown at a compound annual rate of about 13%, and now the state is $32 billion in the red. Throw in unfunded pensions and health benefits for retirees, and that number swells to $113 billion, or $3,400 for every man, woman and child in the state. That’s three times per capita higher than the national average, making New Jersey the nation’s fourth-most indebted state.” (Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2008, page A8)
In California, during a Senate floor debate on the day the state budget was sent to the governor (August 27, 2007), State Senator Tom McClintock said, “Today we set in motion events that will require far more difficult and painful decisions starting just five months from now in what is likely to be a much worse economy. I am afraid that with this vote, for the second time in a decade, this state is being driven to another Gray Davis-sized fiscal crisis that this vote makes inevitable for exactly the same reasons: Lack of restraint in good times combined with a lack of discipline in bad times.” (NOTE: California’s proposed 2008-09 fiscal-year budget was last reported to be $16 billion in the red.)
The City of Vallejo, California, is on the verge of filing bankruptcy, the first city in the state’s history to do so; the City of San Diego has approximately $1.9 billion in unfunded liability for its employee pension plan; and Santa Barbara County has an estimated $200 million unfunded obligation for its employee retirement program. In addition, Santa Barbara County’s proposed 2008-2009 fiscal-year budget is reported to be $26 million short, prompting consideration of a 10% across-the-board cut in every department.
Commenting on the federal debt, Terrence Jeffrey observed, “Thanks to the compounded negligence of four successive generations of politicians in Washington, D.C., however, every family in America is now on the hook for $455,000 over and above what they owe on their own mortgage, or student loans, or credit cards or can expect to pay in taxes under the current tax system.” (Your generous $455,000 loan to Uncle Sam, Conservative Chronicle, February 7, 2008).
The new federal budget of approximately $3 trillion amounts to around ten-thousand dollars for every man, woman and child in America. In addition to the annual budgets that are presumably funded with the money the federal government extracts from taxpayers, there is also the nation’s little recognized obligation of some $9 trillion dollars that our legislators have incurred without voters’ consent.
David M. Walker, Controller General of the United States, has been speaking around the country for over two years, delivering the message that the U.S. is rapidly going bankrupt. He believes we have only about 10 years before the situation becomes irreversible. But, even with the nation’s chief accountant openly warning everyone who will listen, no one is paying attention.
Mr. Walker is not some “Chicken Little” crying, “The sky is falling,” he’s the real deal, perhaps the most qualified person in America, telling it like it is. As “the nation’s chief accountability officer and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO),” his mission is to help “… improve the performance and assure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people.” (Wikipedia)
Everywhere we look we see people, businesses and government entities that are upside down financially, seemingly with no way out other than bankruptcy. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be slowing anyone down, individuals and politicians alike, in the race to the poorhouse.
Why does he do it? Ralph Nader, that is. Why is he running for President of the United States for the fourth time? Surely he knows he can’t win, that he won’t even come close. And, his supporters must know it, as well. Yet they persist.
It’s interesting to note that, at 73, Ralph Nader is older than John McCain who, if elected, will be the oldest man in history to become President.
So, if you can’t win and you know it, why do it? Is it just about ego?
Andy Borowitz recently observed, “Mr. Nader had been huddling with prominent crackpots over the weekend to determine whether he had enough support among his natural constituency, self-absorbed whack-jobs, to mount an entirely meaningless campaign…” (Nader Announces Plan to Wreck Election, by Andy Borowitz, Jewish World Review, Feb 25, 2008).
“If I wreck the 2008 election, I intend to wreck it in all fifty states…I have no intention of being merely a regional spoiler,” Nader said in an interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet The Press.
Third party candidates are not without precedent. They run in every election, representing various limited constituencies. This year, in addition to Ralph Nader, there will undoubtedly be candidates representing the following parties, among others, on the ballot: Independents, Socialist Party, Libertarian Party, Green Party, the Constitution Party, even the Prohibition Party.
Harry Browne ran as the Libertarian candidate in 1996 and 2000, Ross Perot ran on behalf of the Reform Party in 1992, and Ralph Nader has mounted four previous campaigns for the U.S. Presidency: in 1992, as a write-in for both the Democrat and Republican primaries; in 1996 and 2000 as the Green Party candidate; and in 2004 as an Independent who was endorsed by the Reform Party.
Although “third parties” are not likely to win national elections, they may influence them by highlighting certain issues that are ignored by the majority parties. If such an issue resonates with enough voters, it may be included in the platform for one or both of the major parties. A “third party” may also be used by voters to cast a protest vote as a form of referendum on an important issue.
So, anyone who can raise the money to mount a campaign can enter the Presidential sweepstakes. After all, it’s a free country, right?
However, given the amount of money that it now takes to organize and conduct a major campaign, the likelihood of a serious effort being made by anyone but a very strong and/or rich candidate is just about nil. In 1992, as the Reform Party candidate, Ross Perot’s personal wealth was reported to be about one billion dollars. This year, one name that has been floated as a possible “third party” candidate is Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes Magazine at around $5.5 billion, which would make it possible for him to fund a campaign without any outside financing, if he so desired.
It now requires so much money to mount an effective run for the office of President of the United States that the potential of anyone outside the major parties reaching the “promised land” is very slim indeed. Ralph Nader and the other minor players like him are not likely to be much more than an amusing, perhaps irritating diversion.
Just about everyone complains about tax “loopholes,” by which they usually mean “loopholes” for the “rich.” The word is routinely used by politicians and pundits to influence public opinion, always without any explanation or clarification. It’s an ideal smokescreen that obfuscates and confuses the electorate in an effort to influence them to support a particular cause or politician or tax legislation, or berate “greedy” businesspeople. It’s become an all-purpose elixir, fit for whatever grievance is popular at the moment.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Third Edition, 2002) defines tax loophole as “A provision in the laws governing taxation that allows people to reduce their taxes. The term has the connotation of an unintentional omission or obscurity in the law that allows the reduction of tax liability to a point below that intended by the framers of the law.”
In fact, one man’s (or woman’s) tax loophole may be another’s legitimate deduction.
Most people have little understanding of what tax loopholes are and how they are created. “Loophole” implies some sinister, perhaps even illegal, manipulation of the tax laws for personal gain or advantage, although they are generally created for specific purposes.
Looking further at tax “loopholes” and some of the advantages that fit the term, in reaching the conclusion that they are bad by definition, the following points are worth noting:
1) Tax “loopholes” are created by the same politicians who employ the term for political purposes. However, they are often, as implied, an error or oversight in the tax laws that some sharp-shooting tax advisor discovers was somehow overlooked by the legislators or the IRS. In other words, they are perfectly legal.
2) Tax laws are an instrument of public policy. In addition to generating money for the public treasury, they are often designed to accomplish some specific social or economic purpose, such as encouraging certain industries to invest in equipment or expand in an effort to stimulate the economy. Examples of this are found in such tax deductions as the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners, the depletion allowance for the oil and gas industries, depreciation of business equipment, rapid write-off of computers or automobiles purchased for business use.
3) One legal deduction that is sometimes considered a “loophole,” is the charitable deduction, which was created to encourage charitable giving. This includes the various types of trusts that enable taxpayers to avoid or minimize estate taxes, which many people also seem to think are also “loopholes.”
4) Most people do not realize that the tax laws are written by Congress or the various state legislatures, not the IRS or the state tax agencies. After tax bills have been signed into law, the IRS (or state tax agencies) define the rules (regulations) that they determine are necessary to clarify the intent of the laws and to enforce them.
5) It is widely recognized that our tax laws are far too complex and burdensome. But, what is not fully understood or appreciated is the fact that most “loopholes” are a result of complexities that are created by the efforts of tax authorities to define specific taxable events. In other words, the tax laws have become so complicated that certain legal write-offs or deductions can often be found that the authors did not foresee or intend. When tax rules are developed, the law of unintended consequences invariably rears its ugly head. The result is more complexity, as they attempt to “fix” the problem or problems they themselves have created. This is one of the reasons the federal income tax laws, rules and regulations now require something on the order of 66,000 pages to document.
An interesting example of a tax “loophole” that received considerable media coverage in 2007 involved The Blackstone Group, a large corporate buyout firm. The case is a good illustration of the law of unintended consequences and how it is possible to find ways to minimize income tax liability by taking advantage of the way in which certain tax laws are written and implemented.
Writing in the New York Times (July 13, 2007), David Cay Johnston noted, “…the Blackstone arrangement…was a reminder of the disconnect between the tax debate in Congress and how the tax system actually operates at the highest levels of the economy…The debate in Congress is about whether most of the compensation that fund managers earn should be taxed at the 35 percent rate that applies to other highly paid Americans, or at the 15 percent rate for capital gains.” The issue involved had to do with the tax treatment of the sale of the goodwill of a business. There certainly was nothing illegal involved in this case, which had to do with paying taxes on $3.7 billion from selling shares of the entity to the public.
In the final analysis, tax “loopholes” are tax advantages that benefit others. When we (you and I) benefit from them, they are called legitimate deductions. As Russell B. Long, U.S. Senator (1918-2003), put it, a tax loophole is “something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.”
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