Apparently the drug maker Merck has gotten busted for writing "research studies" and paying prominent doctors to publish them under their own names.
I am no basher of big pharma, I think they are important companies, and it is not fair to hang the dismal state of health care costs in America at their doorsteps.
I do think however that this is just another in a very long line of the consequences we are suffering from the Reagan revolution. Reagan told us that big government needed to "get out of the way" and let the marketplace and free enterprise thrive.
Well, this is what we get: a culture of corruption in business, cozy relationships between regulators and the industries they are supposed to oversee, no sense of responsibility for doing the people's business on the part of the people running governments agencies.
I fear America is heading in the direction of 3rd world countries: where greed, fear and corruption become the guiding principles.
I recently heard a report from an American living in China. The feeling there is of unrestricted optimism, that anything is possible, and that government is moving in the direction of being a force for the benefit of society.
Doesn't that sound like where we were fifty years ago?
Another report I heard from an American living in Thailand talked about how much people in Asia dislike travelling by air in America. They think it is uncomfortable, inconvenient and plagued by delays
Isn't that what we used to think about airplane travel outside the US?
What the hell has happened to us?
