Bill Mitchell — It isn’t just like household debt!

See this Report from the Corporate Europe Observatory (February 2, 2021) – Vaccine scarcity: how the EU’s appeasement of Big Pharma damages COVID-19 response.

They sought information through FOI processes from the European Commission, which they documented in this report – Power and profit during a pandemic – why the pharmaceutical industry needs more scrutiny not less (September 21, 2020).

They concluded then that:

In a pandemic the pharmaceutical industry is hailed as a saviour; yet the industry is using the crisis to lock in its problematic, profit-maximising model. Pushing for public money with no-strings-attached, and stronger monopoly patent rules, the industry’s wish-list could restrict access to COVID-19 drugs and vaccines, prolonging the pandemic in the name of profit.

No surprises there, which is why we need nationalised pharmaceutical facilities.

The most recent CEO article reports the refusal of the Commission to disclose anything relevant to the public, including the “names of the members of the Joint Negotiation Team” (mentioned above).

The conclusion is that corporate cabal which is the EU is doing what corporate cabals do, cooperate with other corporate cabals to generate profits and to hell with the rest of us....

This post covers a lot of other ground. 

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
It isn’t just like household debt!
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia