Audience Publish In #706: Did the ‘rich take in us’ during the pandemic?

By G Waugh

It is only a short while ago that I have been listening to a time period known as ‘Eat the Rich’ in publications and world wide web portals. Some films created world around in the past just one and fifty percent a long time are often slapped with labels this kind of as these and a several of them have drawn international notice as effectively- the Oscar-winning Parasite, for instance. Glass Onion, The Menu, Joram, all three of which I appreciated immensely also tumble below the exact same group and there are some attention-grabbing, unifying themes in all of these. These movies show a sturdy contempt for the elite, the super-prosperous primarily those people who publish regulations for the rest of the planet to abide by.

These movies in my impression are a manifestation of the large financial inequality that has widened in the many years adhering to the Reagan-Thatcher era of the 1970-80s the place article the collapse of the Soviet Union, businesses and fiscal institutions have received so a great deal command about not only assets but also above our life and the frustration stemming from the popular disenfranchisement of tens of millions of functioning people today are receiving reflected in movies these kinds of as these.

But even in this mild, when I re-regarded the time period ‘Eat the Rich’ past month, it sounded to my flavor, much too inhuman, misanthropic and even a little bit cannibalistic. Why must we stop up ingesting the rich even if they are sinister, venal and unapologetically ruthless?

Previous week, I experienced the option to read a e-book titledDavos Guy created by the Worldwide Economics Correspondent of the New York Periods. By the conclusion of the 200th web site, my by now soiled impression about the abundant had taken a further more shift towards the even worse.

‘What will occur if we never take in the abundant?’

‘They will consume us dammit!’

‘Are you sure? Currently being a Marxist sympathiser currently, are not you by now overblowing your visceral hatred for them?’

‘No, I am not. I am just indicating what they now did.’

‘What did they do?’

‘They ate us, in millions’

‘When?’

‘In the pandemic of 2020 and 2021’

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Gilead Sciences, an American pharmaceutical enterprise had designed a drug named Remdesivir for treatment method of the Ebola Virus and selected liver health conditions in the late 2010s. Considering that the success of the drug in treating these infections was not established, the organization experienced to retain most of the made inventory at their godowns unsold. 

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic established the phase for the drug’s revival. The bigger administration of the Corporation experienced cultivated contacts in the Trump administration and the President of the United States in 2020, when the pandemic was ravaging throughout the state bringing a great deal ignominy to his strategy of taking care of the crisis, badly needed a little something out of his hat. Inspite of knowing comprehensive very well that the Remdesivir was not a really productive drug to address COVID, the Trump administration gave the go-ahead and the drug was marketed across the region in hundreds of thousands. The drug’s efficiency was very a lot confined to just lessening the number of times a individual spent in the hospital’s unexpected emergency area and there was no signal of it fighting the virus properly and conserving the everyday living of the afflicted.

The drug’s rate for every dose was to begin with preset at $12000 by the Business which in accordance to Goodman, was established based mostly on the price tag financial savings a affected person can accrue by finding out of the Crisis ward two times in advance. Goodman factors out the sinister profiteering that went into the calculations of fixing the selling price for this drug that was administered to hundreds of thousands of patients combating for their lives in hundreds of crisis rooms across hospitals all above The united states. The drug whose cost of production could not have exceeded even a hundred pounds was eventually agreed by the provincial governments across The united states to be procured for near to $2000 for each dose from the pharmaceutical organization. 

The extent of the heinousness of the act perpetrated by Gilead Sciences on its taxpayers across the U.S comes out in full aid only when we consider into thought the humongousness of the measurement of grants sanctioned by the Fed in the direction of investigation work undertaken by these pharma providers- 10-15$ billion yearly.

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TeamHealth is a team that outsources doctors for emergency medication, anesthesiology, vital care, obstetrics, orthopedic surgery, basic surgical treatment, ambulatory care to countless numbers of hospitals all in excess of America. This group was obtained by the investment firm BlackStone in 2017. All through the early months of the pandemic, TeamHealth experienced instructed its medical doctors not to put on masks for the duration of their doing the job hours regardless of owning prior, sound know-how of the means and extent of the spread of the virus. The instruction was intended to not scare typical non-COVID patients absent, quite a few of whom might be coming in for elective treatments and exams. In accordance to Goodman, a major chunk of the revenue generated by the hospitals just about every yr came from these elective processes and assessments and if panic about the pandemic distribute owing to masked medical doctors and clinical team, the balance sheets at the finish of the 12 months could not truly look excellent. So TeamHealth as properly as senior managements of hospitals across the U.S instructed their staff for weeks together to operate unmasked even as the hazardous consequences of not masking adequate had been increasing every single working day for absolutely everyone to see.

Goodman lists scenarios of very similar situations that happened in the warehouses of Amazon wherever workers were being suggested not to wear masks in get not to spread worry and scare their colleagues absent from operate. The company ongoing to penalize staff who did not observe orders and people who blew the whistle last but not least experienced to do that at the price tag of shedding their positions.

***

When Trump launched a deal of far more than $3 trillion to encourage the economic climate and rescue the most influenced owing to the pandemic and the susceptible, private hospitals tried using and succeeded in receiving thousands and thousands and millions of dollars as payment from the government for using care of crisis COVID people in put of normal non-COVID individuals who had been commonly considerably extra worthwhile buyers than the former. 

Hundreds of organizations managed in finding hundreds of thousands and thousands of bucks as part of the CARES and the Paycheck Security Provisions (Paycheck Defense Application and Health and fitness Treatment Enhancement Act, 2020) from the governing administration which were supposedly to be used for taking care of losses because of to lockdown limits and shrinking need from the market place. This fund was really brought in to avoid worker retrenchment by these corporations but auditing provisions to keep an eye on how these cash ended up used were really significantly from strong. The close consequence was that these organizations pocketed the dollars, fired their staff en masse and paid out fatter dividends to their shareholders, according to Goodman.

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Goodman coins a new expression calling it ‘Davos Man’ referring to the super-wealthy of the entire world comprising individuals like Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Marc Benioff of SalesForce, Larry Fink of Blackrock, and so forth. who huddle jointly at Davos, Switzerland for the once-a-year Environment Financial Forum Fulfill. He lists the similarities concerning all these people – tremendous-abundant elite men working big corporations with a good deal of regulate around methods and the marketplace, having fun with wonderful clout in the political spheres of both equally the U.S and the Western Europe, funding correct-wing politicians while waxing eloquent about liberalism and democracy in public community forums, arm-twisting these politicians into writing regulations that favor monumental tax cuts for themselves and these that destroy even the very last vestiges of the wide Welfare Condition that was produced put up Planet War-II all in excess of The united states and Europe.

Goodman characteristics the colossal failures of regimes beginning from Sweden to the United Kingdom in taking care of the pandemic that price the lives of hundreds of thousands exclusively to the ‘Davos Man’ clique who continue on to delight in benefits even today with abandon and impunity.

Goodman also ponders about remedies to get rid of these consequences of unbridled crony capitalism by means of steps these types of as Common Standard Cash flow, enhanced provisioning of welfare companies, all of which at the price tag of penalizing the ‘Davos’ Man as a result of one particular or other kind of a Wealth Tax.