Miguel Afonso Caetano on Nostr: "For a few decades, there have been sporadic attempts to roll back some of the worst ...
"For a few decades, there have been sporadic attempts to roll back some of the worst behavior, constrain pharma prices, cap junk fees, regulate overdraft fees, increase wages, et al. But nope, we can't have that. Instead, anyone who tries to do anything but increase return on capital for Wall Street is an immoral DEI woke Communist.
Corporate America won that fight, and put the Republicans in charge. Big business, big pharma, big tech, they were all in absolute ecstasy when Trump won, because finally the adults were back. No more annoying academics and Communists. Let's leave aside that corporate profits were at a record under Biden, that they got to do almost anything they wanted, and they only had to tolerate Lina Khan stopping an occasional massive merger and trying to mildly constrain a few multi-trillion big tech firms from eating everything in sight. Nope, Trump was back, and Wall Street boys can say 'retard' and 'pussy' again. Yahoo!
Only, now the bad populists are here. Trump might mean what he says on tariffs or deportations, or he may not. But he's not going to provide 'certainty' for the business environment. Let's go back to big pharma, which is quietly panicking. This time, it's not a price hike issue. The right aren't going to stop price hikes, and may roll back the IRA. Gouge away, boys. Only, the bad populists are going to genuinely kill the innovation pipeline by cutting NIH.
The rationale of 'we can't innovate if you don't let us charge a million dollars a year for a pill that costs 75 cents to make' was always bullshit. But the cancer researchers who actually find those million dollar cures? They are being laid off. And that's real. So big pharma is in a lot of trouble for the simple reason that NIH cuts are going to kill their drug pipeline.
They will get no sympathy from the public, and shouldn't."
https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1890803562738823422
Corporate America won that fight, and put the Republicans in charge. Big business, big pharma, big tech, they were all in absolute ecstasy when Trump won, because finally the adults were back. No more annoying academics and Communists. Let's leave aside that corporate profits were at a record under Biden, that they got to do almost anything they wanted, and they only had to tolerate Lina Khan stopping an occasional massive merger and trying to mildly constrain a few multi-trillion big tech firms from eating everything in sight. Nope, Trump was back, and Wall Street boys can say 'retard' and 'pussy' again. Yahoo!
Only, now the bad populists are here. Trump might mean what he says on tariffs or deportations, or he may not. But he's not going to provide 'certainty' for the business environment. Let's go back to big pharma, which is quietly panicking. This time, it's not a price hike issue. The right aren't going to stop price hikes, and may roll back the IRA. Gouge away, boys. Only, the bad populists are going to genuinely kill the innovation pipeline by cutting NIH.
The rationale of 'we can't innovate if you don't let us charge a million dollars a year for a pill that costs 75 cents to make' was always bullshit. But the cancer researchers who actually find those million dollar cures? They are being laid off. And that's real. So big pharma is in a lot of trouble for the simple reason that NIH cuts are going to kill their drug pipeline.
They will get no sympathy from the public, and shouldn't."
https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1890803562738823422