News?

by Bryan

A couple of thing on the CBS site struck my interest:

The first was – $1,000-a-day miracle drug shocks U.S. health care system. The health care system is reportedly upset because the corporation that developed a safe and effective treatment for Hepatitis C is charging almost $90,000 for the drug’s treatment regime that actually seems to eliminate the virus in three months.

Those who are shocked are the same people who charge $1004 for 2 liters of sterile normal saline solution – salt water.

The second was – Senate Intelligence Committee votes to declassify CIA report. The vote to declassify the introduction and summary of the report wasn’t even close. The CIA got caught spying on the committee, and that upset the members, who don’t like it when they are treated like ‘regular citizens’, instead of the ‘special people’ that they see themselves as being.

7 comments

1 Kryten42 { 04.04.14 at 11:58 am }: LOL Yeah… Funny that. 😉

Here, Abbott is planning to sell Medibank Private, and is also looking to sell off (yet again) the National Broadcasters ABC & SBS, and Australia Post.

It’s a Gov run private health insurance company that provides private cover for Pensioners and people on low-income, or anyone who can afford more cover & higher premiums. It is the only agency out Gov has that actually makes a decent profit since the previous Lib moron, Howard, sold off everything else! It’s expected to sell for around $2 billion (which I doubt), and currently makes between $250-350 million a year, with $315 million in 2013. The rationale is: It’s a conflict of interest to run an insurance company whilst also setting policy & being the industry watchdog.

Of course, it all above board and transparent. Oh… wait:

…
In February, Fairfax Media learnt that a team of corporate spin doctors had begun drawing up plans to sell the idea for a full or partial-privatisation to the public.

The company, Newgate Communications, whose 10 senior executives include four former Liberal government staffers, is being paid $2000 a day to devise a communications strategy.

The contract, worth $211,000 over five months, runs until June 30.

It was awarded by the Department of Finance on January 29, a month before Mr Cormann received the results of the scoping study that was supposed to be the trigger for a sale.

The Rethugs have no flies on our Lib’s!

Bill Mitchell, professor of economics at Charles Darwin University

Mitchell cautions against listening to Eslake. “All these characters who work for investment banks … they’re just selling their own services. They’re held out as if they are experts with good intentions, but they’re not independent at all.”

Mitchell says no body on the list should be privatised. “A public investment can take into account what we call social benefits and costs, whereas a private organisation only considers the private cost and benefit,” he told Crikey. Mitchell says the claim that the private sector performs better is “just plainly the most flakiest proposition”.

Look at Qantas, he says. Sold off in the ’90s, it is now asking for government money and cannot compete with large publicly owned airlines (Emirates, Etihad, etc).

Mitchell also argues against privatising Australia Post. In remote areas the post office “becomes a hub for social activity, for caring and hearing things. For regional Australia those things are really important.” AP is a public corporation that is astutely run and has positioned itself well in new markets, he says. Mitchell points to the privatisation of Telstra, saying the result was poor management.

Mitchell isn’t buying Tony Abbott’s budget logic; “the fundamental proposition that the government has a debt problem and you sell off assets to resolve that is ridiculous.” And governments sometimes sell entities at a low price while bidding a permanent farewell to the revenue — on past examples, “the people who made a killing were the stockbrokers and lawyers”.

Yep. *sigh*

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2 Dizzy { 04.04.14 at 6:40 pm }: On the declassifying of the CIA report you’re just gonna love this…

https://twitter.com/attackerman/status/451828902500253696

Parts of this report have been leaking. A little here and there but enough that it has the same effect as the Snowden leaks to maintain the topic in the public’s forefront.
3 Bryan { 04.04.14 at 10:57 pm }: Privatization has absolutely no track record of providing more efficient and/or effective services to the public than the original publicly owned versions, Privatization has always resulted in less and worse service at a higher cost, while being looted for private profit.

The post office will be a classic case of the collapse of the public purpose if they privatize it. Consider the reality – if people weren’t using the postal system, no one would want to buy it. People want to buy it because they see a huge profit potential by simply cutting service to the remote areas that really need the postal service.

The whole purpose is to loot the treasury – private profits but public risk.

Dizzy, people had to realize that Obama was going to do this – that’s always been the way he did things. He has been letting the ‘criminals’ investigate their ‘crimes’ since he took office. Once you accept the fact that he’s a Republican in everything but his party registration, it makes perfect sense.
4 hipparchia { 04.05.14 at 3:09 pm }: The post office will be a classic case of the collapse of the public purpose if they privatize it.

we’ll get to watch what happens….

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/10746740/Cable-delivers-home-truths-in-Royal-Mail-defence.html
5 Bryan { 04.05.14 at 9:37 pm }: Just wait until the cost cutting starts, and then reality will set in. They have been cutting back even before the privatization, and now it will accelerate.
6 Kryten42 { 04.06.14 at 9:55 pm }: I think Abbott wants to get rid of AP (Australia Post) & Medibank Private because they the most efficiently run and cost-effective organizations we have, and were created by the ALP and managed by ALP appointees, so are major embarrassments to the Lib’s, since all of Howard’s idea’s have become dismal failures, but like your Rethug moron’s, they live in hope that one day “The plan will work!” (Well, calling it a *plan* is an exaggeration of course. Planning for breakfast gives these morons a headache.)

And still, after years of evidence to the contrary, moronic voters still have this insane idea that Government is there to protect their interests and serve them! LMAO Humans are soooooo stupid!
7 Bryan { 04.06.14 at 10:43 pm }: People still believe some of the most absurd things in the world, and refuse to accept the truth about them, no matter how logical it is. If you repeat a lie often enough some people will always believe it, because that means they don’t have to think.

People don’t really understand that certain political parties don’t believe in the value of public ownership of specific programs, nor can they be convinced that government can be more efficient that the private sector.