Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

In my day, never was longer.

The willow is too close to the house.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans in disarray!

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Tuesday Evening Open Thread

Tuesday Evening Open Thread

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For a little schadenfreude, here’s Jack Shafer attacking the NYTime’s coverage of “the White House’s new stuffed animals“:

Do you remember Rahm Emanuel? Former Washington colossus. Feared and respected by everybody. The guy the president depended on to get things done. Highly functional Tourette syndrome case. Now the mayor of some Midwestern city. Well, the acidic Emanuel has been replaced by a team of Care Bears, whose pH runs a corrective basic. There’s Good Luck Bear (William M. Daley), who is of Irish descent and who brings luck to everyone as he twirls through the revolving door between government and business. Smart Heart Bear (David Plouffe) is just the brightest bunch of batting ever stuffed into a fake-fur body. Obama carried Smart Heart Bear from hotel to hotel during the 2008 presidential campaign, and it’s believed that he whispered brainy things to Obama that Obama repeated on the stump to make people think he’s smart. And then there’s Baby Tugs Bear (Jay Carney), the sweet little tyke in the family. Baby Tugs Bear is still in diapers and just now learning to talk, so they’ve made him the press secretary…

If you prefer something slightly more substantive, Tom Scocca will explain why the “Pharmaceutical Industry [Is] Near Collapse Because It Is Stupid and Incredibly Bad at Its Business“.

What’s everybody up to this evening?

Reader Interactions

31Comments

  3. 3.

    Linkmeister

    I have succeeded in baking a loaf of “Instant Potato” Bread. It’s cooling on the counter.

    Jeffreyw, it would probably go well with your soup, although it ain’t as pretty (yet) as the bread you’ve already got there.

  7. 7.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    I am glaring at my nearly complete 2010 taxes across the room. It’s glaring back.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): never approach it directly. They see at as a sign of aggression. Come at it from from the side and, whatever else you do, do not smile at it. It will think you are baring your teeth and might attack.

  10. 10.

    jeffreyw

    @Linkmeister: The bread afloat on the soup is a white sourdough that has had the crust trimmed, then lightly toasted. I’m getting better at this bread baking stuff. Still lacking loaf forming skill, alas.

  11. 11.

    Mark S.

    I recall one of McMegan’s main arguments against health care was that it would kill the pharma industry and we would all die, die, because of all the life saving medicines we would lose.

    The last time I was in a hospital, I saw a bunch of signs like “No Drug Company Reps Beyond This Point.” Also, sitting in the waiting room for four hours also gave me the opportunity to notice that every poster and calendar was basically an advertisement for some drug.

  12. 12.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason (formerly frosty)

    What am I up to? Working again. Had a bout of stomach virus last night, which was just as if I’d killed a bottle of..

    …Château Chunder, which is an appellation contrôlée, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation; a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends

    Tonight I’m on the computer because the [email protected]#$% deadlines won’t wait. I remember back in the good ol’ days where if you got sick, you got time off and stayed in bed until you felt better.

  14. 14.

    burnspbesq

    Scocca isn’t always an idiot, but the day he wrote that piece was not one of his better days.

  15. 15.

    Chad N Freude

    Scocca’s most excellent piece failed to mention the huge amounts of money they spent to buy legislators and regulators influence legislators and regulators.

  20. 20.

    Anya

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): I have not filed my taxes for two freaking years. My dad is kinda giving me a hard time about it. In 2008, I barely made any money at all and in 2009 I’ve made sufficient money from multiple sources that I am afraid to even touch. Obama and his IRS goons will come for me. Oh wait, I am an obot, maybe they’ll give me a break.

  22. 22.

    J. Michael Neal

    The article doesn’t mention what may be the underlying cause of the drug makers not coming up with new products. There are a lot of people in the industry who are afraid that we’ve reached the limits of chemistry in the search for new drugs. Further advances are going to have to come from the biotech industry rather than traditional pharma.

    I don’t know whether that’s true, but the big pharma companies have been trying to come up with a strategy for getting into the biotech business. Apparently, the two aren’t as similar as one might think, and also have very different cultures and business models. So, there may not BE a way for the giants to get stuff into the pipeline.

  23. 23.

    tesslibrarian

    I had a surprisingly rotten day for one where I wasn’t at work, so tonight it’s pizza with extra cheese, my favorite cheap prosecco, and Dr. Who on the sofa with my husband and cat, and hope for a better tomorrow.

  24. 24.

    hilts

    Doug,

    CLICKING ON THIS LINK
    http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11522

    will COMPLETE YOU and MAKE YOU WHOLE!!!
    Get ready to take an AMAZING JOURNEY with DAVID BROOKS as he pontificates about his magnum opus THE SOCIAL ANIMAL for an ENTIRE HOUR (ok, 53 glorious fucking minutes and change to be precise) with the undisputed king of boot-licking, ass-kissing interviewers CHARLIE ROSE.

  25. 25.

    gnomedad

    @J. Michael Neal:

    The article doesn’t mention what may be the underlying cause of the drug makers not coming up with new products.

    Still, it’d be a shame to let, you know, fairness spoil this sentence:

    Essentially, a global industry with more than half a trillion dollars in annual revenue is acting like a college sophomore who spent all semester holed up in his dorm room smoking pot, only to suddenly realize it’s exam week and he isn’t sure what classes he was even supposed to have gone to

  26. 26.

    Glidwrith

    Having been in pharma, I could put in my two cents on flaws in the industry. One of the major ones is a failure to keep the R&D staff around. The little pharmas come up with 1-2 drugs, promptly fire all the R&D staff to save money for the clinical trials (which are 10 times more expensive minimum), thus shutting down the development pipeline, then the company goes belly-up when the drug fails (happens about 90% of the time. Alternatively, the little pharma makes a big enough splash to get noticed by big pharma, who buys the company and promptly fire all the R&D staff because obviously they aren’t needed. The other major flaw is all of the drug discovery is chemistry driven. This means they take an entire disease etiology and focus down to the level of a single bit of one protein and run trillions of chemical structures against it, hoping something will interact with it. Then they’ll take that and put it against the whole protein, then look at solubility and then maybe get around to actually putting it on a cell. Bleh – I’m tired, end of rant.

  27. 27.

    Yutsano

    @Anya: Piece of advice for you (this is my area here and I deal with this all the time): call the IRS and ask for your wage and income information for 2008 and 2009. Then request a 30 day extension to get them filed. You’ll be given an address to send them to and the information should arrive in about 10-14 days. I’m thinking you might be due either a refund or have a very small balance due after all is said and done. But odds are we’ve noticed you haven’t filed…and things get sticky if you wait too long.

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): If you make under $49K you can get assistance from the IRS in filing your taxes. And remember you have until April 18th to have them postmarked. So maybe a detene can be reached in the interim.

  28. 28.

    burnspbesq

    @Yutsano:

    Additional advice for Anya: if the stuff hits the fan and you start getting the series of increasingly nasty letters that the IRS sends out before it starts levying on bank accounts and the like, do not ignore it. Run, do not walk, to the nearest Legal Aid Society or similar organization and ask for help. They probably don’t have any tax lawyers, but chances are that they have relationships with the pro bono partners at big law firms. That’s how I ended up working to get the California Franchise Tax Board to stop harassing an indigent Korean woman who barely speaks any English, and who was given innocent spouse relief by the IRS.

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