Business Ethics, 2023 Version

Once upon a time, we used to make stuff. Manufacturing employed engineers and machine operators and truck drivers and office clerks and accountants. It was a Gibraltar-sized chunk of American middle-class stability.

But then we got smart. Really smart.

We sent our manufacturing infrastructure to Asia and outsourced the distribution. That freed-up a great many employees, who were unceremoniously terminated. As stock prices soared, we looked for still more things to divest ourselves of.

It wasn't long before we were little more than a post office box on the Isle of Man, a leased boardroom in a Manhattan skyscraper and plants scattered throughout Asia. We were Forbes magazine's business of the future.

A model of ruthless efficiency.

Business could now milk a cow and receive an urn full of cream in return.

But as profits and their margins spiral upwards in an unbroken trajectory, who is paying for this? Who's going to get the bill?

Someone must be, surely.

As employer's profit margins explode, businesses are enjoying the succulent fruit that comes from being let off the leash of regulation and oversight. The Citizen's United decision remains the high-water mark of this cancerous trend.

(Unless we're counting Donald Trump's three-billion-dollar bribe to the nation's billionaires and their companies, of course.)

This is the environment in which Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, after having created one of three vaccines that successfully resisted COVID, decided to increase the cost per dose from the $26.36 the U.S. government was paying to $130.

Fair enough, right? His people did the work and spent the time to figure this thing out. They should rightfully profit for their work.

Shouldn't they?

Yes, Bancel's employees did a good bit of heavy lifting. But let's not forget they received an enormous amount of money from people completely unrelated to Moderna.

Depending on your level of cynicism, you may already know where this is going. For the rest of you, I'll lay it bare here: You paid for the COVID vaccine's research and development. One point seven billion dollars of American taxpayer money was handed over to Moderna (and Pifzer) to devise such a thing.

That's right. It was on your dime.

But those nineteen-billion-dollars in profit? Oh, yeah. About that. Um, that's not for you. That's for us because we “made” it. You just paid for it.

Public expense for private profit. I wonder what will our next great idea will be.

This is how far off the rails we are. This is a new low in exploitation and ghoulishness. And let me guess—these firms feel they should get a tax-break on those profits for their unwavering commitment to the American people, too.

Anyone have an air-sickness bag?

But with a conservative Supreme Court and a Republican majority in the House, feeling this monstrosity develop and take shape is quite easily done. Even while Republicans seek to gut Social Security and Medicare (that's right Marjorie Taylor-Greene!) as excessive entitlements, the American public can, in essence, be put to work for a behemoth like Moderna without so much as a cent in compensation.

Failing that, is expecting Moderna to return the funds that subsidized their research hoping for too much?

Given one party's affinity for labeling the policies of another as “creeping socialism”, I wonder how we can possibly compare something like social security or MediCare to a nineteen-billion-dollar private slush fund.

They don't fit in the same universe much less a shared government building.

Use the term 'business ethics' in a conversation and you're as likely to encounter a blank expression as one weary with disappointment and resignation. Can you choose which person is better informed?

I can.

 

The Public Prescription for Private Wealth

I have to hand it to our pharmaceutical manufacturers. While I watch my hometown's transit agencies struggle to make a go of it even with a virtual monopoly, the nation's pharmaceutical conglomerates are raking it in like Goldman Sachs on steroids.

And no wonder. Aided and abetted by the most-cunning corporate attorneys money can buy, Big Pharma enjoys a legislative branch more than a little reluctant to ruffle the feathers of its golden goose.

With campaign financing more critical than ever, the power of those able to supply it grows exponentially. And god bless 'em, Big Pharma has no qualms whatsoever about wielding it.

In a refrain that has been sung for years, Americans pay dearly for their medical care. And their drugs. Without any certifiable data to support the commonly-held assumption that we enjoy the best of both, this is troubling, indeed.

So why do Americans pay so much more for their prescription drugs than people in other parts of the world?

Is it because we're wealthier?

Not quite. While most Americans still enjoy a fairly high standard of living, it isn't a quantum leap from the rest of the globe's first-world nations. Using per-capita GNP as a measure, the United States is routinely outranked by nations in the Middle East and Europe.

Nations which, I hasten to add, pay less for their prescription drugs than we do.

Maybe it's the advertising. I don't remember the last commercial break that didn't include at least one advertisement for a prescription drug.

But according to industry reports, pharmaceuticals rank ninth amongst TV's largest advertisers. In fact, their annual expenditures are dwarfed by the retail and automotive sectors. Hmmm. Maybe their spots are just more annoying.

So if it isn't because we live in a wealthy nation or because Big Pharma is spending ginormous amounts on advertising, what is it?

For decades, Big Pharma has maintained that the reason prescription drugs are so expensive is their development costs. The cost of products which fail in the marketplace. And the arduous waits required for FDA approval.

This remains the official party line as evidenced by recent congressional hearings.

But when you stop and take a moment to think about it, what manufacturer doesn't have development costs? What manufacturer doesn't have products that under-perform in the marketplace? And what manufacturer doesn't have to wait for one kind of certification or another?

If you answered none, feel free to enjoy a celebratory adult beverage with my blessings.

Not every movie that comes out of Hollywood is a blockbuster. Not every vehicle that emerges from Detroit or South Korea or Japan leaps to the top of the sales charts. And not every miraculous time-saving app turns its creators into billionaires.

None of those products are developed for free. None are guaranteed success. And with the possible exception of the app, none came to market without some sort of regulatory oversight.

Dare I say, this is the nature of things. Even more brazenly, allow me to suggest it is part of the cost of doing business.

(Gulp)

Except in the gilded world of the drug-maker. In their world, there are no losses. Only profits. And that's because they're God.

We have yet to enjoy the spectacle of a drug CEO actually admitting this publicly, but enough internal communication has emerged that indicates this is the Big Pharma mind-set. We hold the power of health and illness, of life and death, in our sweaty little hands. Please pay accordingly.

And we do.

Thanks for the corporate whoredom known as Washington DC, industry-friendly protections that enable ever-longer copyrights and exclusivity are the name of the game. As a result, drug prices continue to spiral, far exceeding any cost-of-living marker you care to name.

Three-digit spikes in the prices of decades-old drugs isn't recouping development costs. It's an arbitrary screwing of the American consumer. Sorry to go all socialist on you, but I'm not okay with that.

When confronted with the idea of a government-imposed price ceiling, drug manufacturers petulantly suggest that under such ceilings they might be, how do I say this...disinclined to research and develop new drugs.

To which I counter that drugs no one can afford are worthless.