AstraZeneca Must Justify ‘Unequal’ Vaccine Pricing Amid its Soaring Profits, Campaigners Insist

INEQUALITY IN COVID-19 VACCINATION 

Ceren Sagir

Morning Star | February 12, 2021

Doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine sit in a fridge at the vaccination centre

ASTRAZENECA must justify the “unequal” vaccine pricing it is offering countries, campaigners demanded today after the pharmaceutical giant revealed that its annual profits have more than doubled.

For 2020, the company reported pre-tax profits of $3.92 billion (£2.83bn) due to the success of new medicines.

The profits haul marks a significant rise on the $1.55bn (£1.12bn) seen in 2019.

Cheer and Profit, Capital’s “Class” Act

UNDERSTANDING CAPITAL 

A Journal of People report

Capital turns everything commodity. This is for profit. “Cheer” is no exception. 

A documentary shines light on NFL cheerleader exploitation.

Cheerleaders have been part of NFL games in the U.S. for nearly 70 of the league’s 100 years. Beginning with the Baltimore Marching Colts in 1954, scores of women have suited up to cheer for players, entertain fans during games and represent franchises at events throughout the community.

Successful Not-for-Profit Oxford COVID Vaccine Threatens Big Pharma Profit Logic

BIG PHARMA LIES

Alan Macleod

MintPress News | November 23, 2020

The world is abuzz today after a team of medical researchers from Oxford University in the United Kingdom announced that advanced trials of their experimental coronavirus vaccine were a roaring success, with the vaccine possibly being rolled out before Christmas. Testing was done on 24,000 volunteers in the U.K, Brazil, and South Africa, with an average effectiveness of over 70%. However, when the vaccine was administered as a half dose, then patients were later given a full one, effectiveness increased to 90%. Encouragingly, there were no serious side effects registered among any of the volunteers, none of whom had to go to the hospital as a result of being immunized. The U.K. government has already ordered 100 million doses.

Capital Vol. 3 lectures: The Falling Rate of Profit– Transforming Industry to Empire

CAPITALISM

Red Line | November 21, 2020

This is the fifth lecture in the lecture series by Andy Higginbottom on superexploitation. Part one of the lecture series is here, part two is here, part three is here and part four here. (Unfortunately the first minute of the lecture where the content of the lecture is outlined was not recorded.)

https://youtu.be/NXPY6D-QTGI

Corporations Profit from Peoples’ Suffering

CAPITALISM

Richard D Wolff

Prof. Richard Wolff argues that the system in the US is falling apart. Capitalism is surviving because of all the support provided by the American government to corporations — who are receiving the bulk — and to Americans.

U.S.A: As One of the Largest Bailouts in History Looms, “Crisis-Ridden” Corporations Reap Record Profits

by Alan Macleod

MintPressNews | April 15, 2020

Hospitals overflowing with sick and dying patients. Overworked staff risking their lives wearing garbage bags as makeshift protective equipment against an invisible but deadly virus. Refrigerated containers left outside medical facilities, filling with the dead. Mass graves being dug in the city. It is like something out of a horror movie. But it is very real and is happening right now in America. “We are doing the best we can,” Derrick Smith, a certified registered nurse anesthetist in New York City told MintPress last week, “but people are dying left and right, no exaggeration.” “I’ve never imagined or seen our healthcare system take such a beating before,” he said. “This is something that none of us have ever really seen.”

Predictive analytics: How capitalism’s “knowledge economy” profiles us all

by Joel Wendland-liu

People’s World | January 20, 2020

Dermalog Identification Systems GmbH via AP Images

“Communicative capitalism,” writes the communist philosopher Jodi Dean, refers to a phase of knowledge- and technology-based commodity production in which information on a massive scale is produced, gathered, and sold for profit. What we now call the “information society” or “knowledge economy” sees the large-scale proletarianization of often highly-educated people in low-paying (often low-skilled) jobs, precariously scraping by to pay student loans, cover health insurance, and living paycheck to paycheck, wondering what happened to the “American Dream.”

Another more insidious feature of communicative capitalism is the role of technology companies in exploiting the participatory features of the knowledge economy (especially social media, digitized personal information archives, search engines, and online shopping) to harvest, store, organize, and sell consumer information to other companies. We all know something happens to the information we share on Facebook, input into Amazon or Google when we search, and are rarely surprised anymore when we see ads in our feeds and email for commodities that are similar to what we’ve searched for.

Wall Street weapons company CEOs cash in on Iran war danger

by Sarah Anderson

People’s World  | January 09, 2020

Thomas J. Cassidy, former president and CEO of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. stands in front of the prototype unmanned Predator B drone on Thursday, Sep. 6, 2001, in El Mirage, Calif. Cassidy, who’s now retired, founded General Atomics, the company which made the MQ-9 Reaper drone that assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. | Doug Benc / AP

The prospect of war with Iran is terrifying.

Experts predict as many as a million people could die if the current tensions were to lead to a full-blown war. Millions more would become refugees across the Middle East, while working families across the U.S. would bear the brunt of our casualties.

But there is one set of people who stand to benefit from the escalation of the conflict: CEOs of major U.S. military contractors.

Profits before people: Boeing papers show employees hid 737 Max problems

by David Koenig

People’s World | January 10, 2020

In this Monday, Dec. 16, 2019, photo, a Boeing 737 Max jets sit parked in Renton, Wash. Newly released Boeing documents show that company employees knew about problems with flight simulators for the now-grounded 737 Max jetliner and talked about misleading regulators. | Elaine Thompson / AP

Boeing employees knew about problems with flight simulators for the now-grounded 737 Max and apparently tried to hide them from federal regulators, according to documents released Thursday. In internal messages, Boeing employees talked about misleading regulators about problems with the simulators. In one exchange, an employee told a colleague they wouldn’t let their family ride on a 737 Max.

Boeing said the statements “raise questions about Boeing’s interactions with the FAA” in getting the simulators qualified. But said the company is confident that the machines work properly. “These communications do not reflect the company we are and need to be, and they are completely unacceptable,” Boeing said in a statement.

Who profits from the end of the mid-range nuclear treaty?

by Pepe Escobar

OpEd News | October 24, 2018

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved its Doomsday Clock to only 2 minutes to midnight. It might be tempting to turn this into a mere squabble about arrows and olives if this wasn’t such a terrifying scenario.

US president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, secretary-general of the USSR, signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 1987.