Date posted: April 4, 2008 - Friday
Title: TW3 04/04/08
Current mood: stressed
It Doesn’t Do You Any Good, But Buy It Anyway.
Early this week I noticed a full page ad for Vytorin in my local newspaper. "Big deal," I thought, "just more hype for a drug."
Then comes the news later in the week. While Vytorin did reduce three risk factors of heart disease it did absolutely nothing to improve heart disease. An ongoing study was completed almost two years ago, but was just recently released. Doctors were supposedly stunned at the results of the study. The study results had been anticipated because despite racking up $5 billion in sales, Vytorin (and one of its’ components, Zetia) had shown only limited proof of benefit.
Congress has launched a probe into why it took two years to release the results of the study.
Duh. It took two years because the drug company was making too much money with a nearly worthless drug to kill the golden goose.
And a real killer idea was proposed by some doctors already conducting another Vytorin study. They want to expand their study to 18,000 people. These doctors are predicting they won’t have results of their study until 2012. That would mean the drug company would have years more to sell the drug even though early results from this study haven’t proven any better than the smaller study released this week.
And then today, Friday, I find a two-page ad for Vytorin in my local newspaper. Guess a little thing like being a useless drug doesn’t stop a company from trying to make a profit.
Surprised? I Think Not.
The Government Accountability Office released a report on Monday that says the Pentagon is over budget and behind schedule on dozens of key programs.
Big surprise. NOT!
We see one of these reports every so often and I wonder why someone can’t do something about the results. How difficult can it be to just build something for the military on time and within the cost allocated? Well, apparently very difficult; and getting more difficult all the time.
The report said delays in delivering systems were averaging 21 months. This is up from 16 months when the GAO started releasing reports on defense acquisitions six years ago.
The conclusion of the report called the Pentagon performance "increasingly suboptimal" and bluntly said the situation, "needs to be corrected."
The reaction at the Pentagon? It needs time to study the report before commenting.
Time????? These idiots can’t do anything in a reasonable amount of time.
Not a single one of the 72 big-budget programs studied met standards for best practices in development. The Defense Department is spending $118 for every $100 budgeted.
An example. The new presidential helicopter, Marine One, has been re-budgeted in such a way the GAO said it cannot even calculate what it would cost. A watchdog agency has pegged the cost as being $1 billion over initial estimates.
Key findings of the report:
More than 6 in 10 programs changed requirements after development began.
Fewer than half of program managers stay in their jobs as long as Department of Defense policy recommends.
Nearly half the staff members working on the programs are not government employees.
About half of all programs required more than a 25 percent increase in the amount of software code initially expected.
Research and development costs came in 40 percent higher than first estimates, while total costs per system were 26 percent higher. Both measures are getting worse rather better over time.
Is it any wonder we are trillions of dollars in debt? Maybe it’s time to put someone else in charge of ordering these ’toys’ for the Pentagon.
Big Brother Has Nothing On These Guys
I heard something on the television the other night that piqued my curiosity. I’m not sure if it is true, but it did start me thinking.
It was said the cheating, hooker buying governor was caught through the use of SARs. No, not the disease but a little thing called a Suspicious Activity Report.
What’s that? A neat little tool the government got passed to supposedly fight drug dealers and money launderers. Any time someone makes a large deposit or transfers a large amount of money of a "suspicious" nature financial institutions are required to fill out one of these reports. The financial institution can be penalized as much as $100,000 for not reporting the suspicious activity. Individuals can be fined $25,000 and get five years in jail is they don’t report the activity.
Another little wrinkle is the person who is reported can never know a report has been made. If fact people can go to jail for telling someone they have been reported.
I understand the need to stop drug dealers and the money laundering that comes along with it, but this smacks of real Big Brother stuff to me.
It turns your bank and other financial institutions into cops without the benefit of legal training. It opens the doors to abuse if some jerk at the bank decides he wants to mess with someone. And just what constitutes "suspicious" anyway? There are some criteria listed on the website where I found the information about SARs, but who says the banks follow those guidelines? It just smacks of way too much control to me. And what happens to an honest citizen who happens to be the subject of one of these reports? Do they have any recourse to stop being under scrutiny? Way too many unanswered questions for me.
The Price Of A Gallon Of Gas Getting To Congress Too?
Representatives of the five major companies were called on the carpet before Congress this week. Well, let me rephrase that. Five publicly traded oil companies.
Congress was interested in finding out, with all the tax breaks these companies were getting for investing in renewable resources, why the price of a gallon of gas was so high and the companies were raking in record profits.
When questioned as to why Exxon had spent only $100 million to study renewable energy resources when it had made $40 billion in profit, the executive had a pretty astounding response. Stephen Simon, Senior Vice President, Exxon Mobil Corp. said the company doesn’t believe the current generation of renewable energy options will be able to significantly meet demand.
So the idea seems to be if they don’t have something that will meet the needs of the country already, Exxon isn’t going to waste its money investigating it.
Well, excuse me, but if there was a totally viable replacement energy source available right now don’t you think we would be using it? And wouldn’t it hurt Exxon if they didn’t have a piece of it?
That’s the point of investigating new ideas, to see it they will work. But I guess Exxon can’t be bothered looking for new ideas when they can suck the public dry right now; and with the help of Congressional tax breaks.
With all of the companies reporting profits in the billions, it’s a little hard to accept they are just keeping pace with other industries. They say they have to be big to compete with large state-owned and operated companies in foreign countries. But it’s pretty hard to swallow when you see the lowest income people are spending as much as 10% of their income on gasoline to get to their jobs.
And maybe Congress is just mad at the oil companies because their perks and contributions from that industry haven’t kept pace with the profits being raked in by the companies. I am just cynical enough to not believe their concern is because the public is being bilked while the oil companies get $18 billion a year in tax breaks.
What? Another Government Department That Can’t Do Its’ Job?
This week’s culprit is the FAA.
Apparently two of its investigators noticed serious problems with Southwest Airlines’ maintenance program. The company, in an effort to try and hide the problems, pressured the FAA to keep the inspectors who blew the whistle on it away.
Charlamabe Boutris and Douglas Peters brought the information to their supervisors, but the FAA did nothing about the problems at Southwest. In fact those same supervisors threatened the jobs of the inspectors and discouraged them from further pursuit of safety problems.
The airline was allowed to keep flying planes which were un-inspected and continued to fly them even after it discovered cracks in the planes.
During Congressional hearings this week testimony revealed one inspector was removed from his job, a second was encouraged to transfer and a third (Boutris) was temporarily removed from his job of oversight at Southwest when the airline complained about him.
Representative James Oberstar, said the FAA managers’ actions displayed "malfeasance bordering on corruption." He speculated if evidence of the managers’ actions were brought to a grand jury it would have resulted in indictments.
So here we have another part of the government placing the interests of some profit-generating company ahead of the welfare of the average citizen. Are we ever going to see an end to this total incompetence and dishonesty in government departments?
Quickie
Wal-Mart has seen the light.
Yeah, sure. It couldn’t have been a public outcry against them that changed the company’s mind.
Whatever the reason, the brain-damaged former employee will get to keep the trust fund set up for her future medical care. Wal-Mart withdrew its’ request for repayment of the money the company had spent on her medical care.
I don’t believe the company suddenly developed a conscience. And I still don’t believe all those feel-good
