The Sad Fundamentals of Capitalism

This morning I had an accidental moment of clarity. On the way to the grocery the presence of an out of place police car alerted me to a very discreet meat wagon parked in the driveway of a suburban residence. A gray haired guy in a sports coat and a young fellow in a stripped t-shirt were unloading a gurney. I turned the car around and parked on an adjacent side street. After about eight minutes the two men emerged from the house with the DB on the gurney, wrapped in a maroon bed spread. The men were smiling and looked quite pleased with the completion of their task. Shortly they entered the dark colored van and sped away to the morgue or mortuary. The whole operation took slightly more than ten minutes.

I turned out onto the thoroughfare and proceeded about my errands with a feeling of satisfaction. I am a man who notices and likes to watch. My name means 'watchful'. It might be a an animal having a morning drink at the rivers edge, an odd bird perched outside my front door or a lump rolled up in a bedspread being transported but I get the feeling of having completed my job.

I've had a couple of narratives roaming around my head for a few weeks looking for a way to make an appearance in print. I never force ideas but figure somehow they will coalesce and naturally synthesize with experience and logic to form some sort of cohesive statement. The sight of the maroon lump being hauled to the curb provided a spark of recognition.

Dick Cheney is a man unable to recognize humanity, even his own. Dick's had heart trouble since his mid thirties. Four full blown heart attacks, a quadruple bypass, coronary artery stenting, balloon angioplasty and the surgical application of a state of the art pacemaker doesn't seem to sound the mortal clarion for Mr. Cheney. He lives on, indestructible and unconcerned. He knows no wrong, admits no error and steadfastly defends his cruel and profit driven model of democracy.

Cheney's focus has always been the international arena though he did find the time to position Halliburton to count coup in the event of his election and foregone wish for war in oil rich Iraq. Cheney is an unsophisticated capitalist of the most fundamental ilk. A ravenous group of robber barons operating beyond regulatory radar, without moral hazard or ethical concern with allegiance only to the bottom line and the mythic investor.

Corporate America uses a risk/benefit analogy to describe their decision making analytics. In truth business logic is basic; all money is well spent in Washington, advertising outweighs product quality and eliminate competition at all costs.

Sirtris, a small medical research company was having successful results in human testing of a compound called resvesterol. Resvesterol is found in the skin of red grapes. Sirtris isolated and concentrated this compound and began testing on mice, then on humans. They were able to show that resvesterol was a powerful antioxidant, helped with weight loss, increased energy and significantly lowered the blood sugars of untreated diabetics. Recently, Sirtris sold their little business to pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline for close to a billion dollars. Rather than fast tracking research and development of this promising compound Glaxo has chosen to sideline the product. Competition is eliminated, Glaxo's profitable product line of maintenance medications for diabetes is protected and new possibilities for the treatment of chronic disease, obesity and cancer is quashed for the guarantee of profit, protection of the bottom line and investor satisfaction without consideration or concern for the health or well being of the world at large.

This is an example of unfettered capitalism at work. The auto industry early on eliminated alternative power sources to protect the efficacy of the internal combustion engine. In the 50's they quashed public transportation to enhance the culture of the automobile and as late as the 90's embraced inefficiency and bulk as a profitable sell point passing as safety in size. This narrow focus on immediate reward led them down the path to inevitable demise.

If government is to be a watchdog, shouldn't they be watching this sort of activity in addition to common fraud and corruption. Should the free market be allowed to buy up and sequester invention, cure and advancement to protect the status quo?

Now say a prayer for the lump inside the maroon bedspread.