Profit

State AGs Suing FCC For Putting ‘Corporate Profits Over Consumers’

December 16, 2017 ByJake Johnson, commondreams.org Resist! Corporations, FCC, Lawsuit, Net Neutrality, Profit

"The FCC's vote to rip apart net neutrality is a blow to New York consumers, and to everyone who cares about a free and open internet," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman—who is also investigating the flood of fake comments that "corrupted" the agency's policymaking process—said in a statement announcing his intent to sue. "The FCC just gave Big Telecom an early Christmas present, by giving internet service providers yet another way to put corporate profits over consumers." Soon after Schneiderman's announcement on Thursday, more than a dozen other state AGs followed suit, with both red and blue states joining the public repudiation of FCC chair Ajit Pai's plan.

US Education Segregation Is Highly Profitable Business For Some

December 5, 2017 Mark Karlin, truth-out.org Educate! Education, Profit, Segregation

By Mark Karlin for Truthout - However, as I completed the research and writing for the book, I found that in this country we have had and continue to have a stubborn insistence on educating children who are economically vulnerable in completely different ways than we do the children who are wealthy. We try to convince students who are not wealthy that certain forms of education (such as those that are vocational in nature, or that include art, music and support for different learning styles) would work best for them. In this way, educational apartheid has remained constant. At the same time, children of color, or poor children who are somehow able to live in school districts and neighborhoods that have high performing schools can actually attend them. So, that's a definite change. The late poet, Amiri Baraka, referred to [the US] as a "changing same." I think in many ways that construct aptly describes our nation's educational system relative to students who are poor and of color. Educational apartheid is a changing same. How is capitalism related to the "segrenomics" of education in the US? Segrenomics is a term I came up with to describe what I saw in so many discrete educational periods in [the US] where there was a consistent cycle for plundering funds supposedly for our nation's most vulnerable students and then hoarding those same funds to educate students who were either wealthy, or white and often times ... both.

Trump’s Health Nominee Implicated In Insulin Price-Gouging Scheme

November 29, 2017 Mike Ludwig, truth-out.org Educate! Activists, Big Pharma, Profit, Trump Administration

By Mike Ludwig for Truthout - "That means that a significant number of people who already paid premiums for their health insurance then end up paying more than their insurer does for a medicine," Azar said, adding that some patients may go without medicine rather than pay high out-of-pocket costs to fill a prescription. Within months of Azar's speech, Eli Lilly and other big drug companies were hit with a barrage of lawsuits and government investigations questioning the rising price of insulin and other diabetes medications and accusing major manufacturers of price fixing. As Truthout has reported, Eli Lilly raised the price of Humalog, a fast-acting form of insulin, by 345 percent during Azar's eight-year tenure at the company. However, it was Azar's comments on rising drug prices and the plight of consumers that helped him become President Trump's latest nominee for health secretary. Azar served as deputy health secretary under the Bush administration, and the White House says his experience in both the public and private sectors makes him the perfect candidate for reining in drug prices at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Advocates say Azar's ideas for lowering drug costs could make an already confusing system even more opaque. They also warn that he engaged in the very reimbursement schemes he criticizes before leaving Eli Lilly earlier this year.

Myths About Rooftop Solar Are Outshining The Reality

November 1, 2017 Jessica Herrera, hcn.org Educate! Fossil Fuels, New Economy, Profit, Solar Energy

By Jessica Herrera for High Country News - It’s undeniable that renewable energy is booming, changing the way we get our power and shifting us away from fossil fuels that damage the environment. Yet in my home town of Tucson, which gets nearly 300 sunny days every year, a lot of plentiful Arizona sunshine is going to waste. And it isn’t just happening in the Copper State. Across the West and throughout the U.S., in the face of this rapidly changing energy market, investor-owned utilities and some energy co-ops are impeding the transition. They’re trying to protect their profits and coal-fired power-plant investments at the expense of the wellbeing of people and the planet. These power companies support lobbying groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and Edison Electric Institute, which spout myths about renewable energy. In Florida, a Koch brothers-funded consultant encouraged the use of “political jiu-jitsu” to mislead the public and policy makers about solar. Perhaps one of the most misleading claims is that solar energy customers don’t pay their fair share for grid services and that everyone else pays the price. This “cost shift” claim has been repeated over and over again.

Social Emotional Data. New Cash Cow In Corporate Assessment

October 23, 2017 Staff, www.pegwithpen.com Educate! Capitalism, Profit

By Staff of Peg with Pen - Recently I was asked to allow my son to participate in a survey at school. The "opt in" survey form specifically stated, "the questions on the survey relate to peer relationships, how safe students feel at school, and the quality of student-teacher relationships." It went on to say that the questions might make my son feel uncomfortable and that this was all voluntary, with the ultimate goal being to "inform a more effective bullying prevention program and help improve the safety, social and emotional skills, and well-being for all students." There it was. Social Emotional. The new cash cow in corporate assessment building. ESSA created an additional data point which schools must use to report their progress. Each year schools must report back on school quality in some shape or form; in other words, how is the school climate? Is there bullying? Is it safe? How well are students or teachers engaged and are they feeling confident, successful? More or less, it's about feelings. How we feel and interact as humans, is complex and incredibly difficult to confine to a data point. Confining learning to a data point is not new. They've managed to confine academic learning to data points by defining finite standards which must be measured in small bites in order to create the ability to control teaching and learning (therefore humans) and profit off of public schools.

“Worse Than Big Tobacco”: How Big Pharma Fuels Opioid Epidemic

October 14, 2017 Lynn Parramore, www.ineteconomics.org Educate! Big Pharma, Health Care, Opioids, Profit

By Lynn Parramore for Institute for New Economic Thinking - Over a 40-year career, Philadelphia attorney Daniel Berger has obtained millions in settlements for investors and consumers hurt by a rogues’ gallery of corporate wrongdoers, from Exxon to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. But when it comes to what America’s prescription drug makers have done to drive one of the ghastliest addiction crises in the country’s history, he confesses amazement. “I used to think that there was nothing more reprehensible than what the tobacco industry did in suppressing what it knew about the adverse effects of an addictive and dangerous product,” says Berger. “But I was wrong. The drug makers are worse than Big Tobacco.” The U.S. prescription drug industry has opened a new frontier in public havoc, manipulating markets and deceptively marketing opioid drugs that are known to addict and even kill. It’s a national emergency that claims 90 lives per day. Berger lays much of the blame at the feet of companies that have played every dirty trick imaginable to convince doctors to overprescribe medication that can transform fresh-faced teens and mild-mannered adults into zombified junkies. So how have they gotten away with it?

Top Pipeline Safety Official Profits From Oil Spills

October 13, 2017 Itai Vardi, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Oil Spill, Pipelines, Profit

By Itai Vardi for Nation of Change - A newly appointed federal regulator charged with overseeing pipeline safety personally profits from oil spill responses, a DeSmog investigation has found. Drue Pearce is the acting administrator for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), an agency in the Department of Transportation responsible for ensuring oil and gas pipeline integrity. However, she is also associated with a company specializing in the sale of oil spill equipment. Pearce, a Republican from Alaska, was appointed on August 7 by the Trump administration to serve as PHMSA’s deputy administrator, a position that does not require U.S. Senate confirmation. However, since at the time the administration had yet to nominate an administrator for the agency, Pearce stepped into the role as acting administrator. In early September, Trump finally nominated, and last Friday the Senate confirmed rail transport executive Howard Elliot as PHMSA administrator. Once Elliot formally takes the helm at PHMSA, Pearce will serve as his deputy. Business records filed in the state of Alaska and reviewed by DeSmog show that since 2009 Pearce and her husband, Michael F. Williams, have owned Spill Shield Inc., an Anchorage-based company selling equipment for oil spill responses. The company’s website offers various products, including booms, baffles, skimmers, absorbents, and oil spill response kits.

How Profit Deals With Protest: Disappearance Of Argentinian Activist

September 22, 2017 Ramona Wadi, www.mintpressnews.com Resist! Activism, Argentina, Profit, Protests, Repression

By Ramona Wadi for Mint Press News - The Maldonado case has exposed state repression of Mapuche resistance and activism. Digging deeper, we find linkage of the activist’s disappearance to capitalist exploitation — and to the clothing company, Benetton, which owns the largest share of territory allocated to a foreign company in Latin America. Over 40 days have passed since the forced disappearance of Argentinian activist Santiago Maldonado. President Mauricio Macri’s government appears to be more preoccupied with protecting the impunity of the Argentine Military Police, also known as the gendarmerie, than with listening to the demands for Maldonado’s release — or at least for information on his whereabouts and condition — being made by a mobilized populace. Maldonado was detained and disappeared on August 1 while participating in a protest in Chubut calling for the release of Mapuche leader of the Ancestral Mapuche Resistance(RAM), Facundo Jones Huala. Jones had been detained upon extradition requests by Chile. Both Argentina and Chile have labeled Jones a terrorist, on account of his resistance activities against capitalist exploitation of ancestral Mapuche territory.

For Profit Insurers Fueling Opioid Epidemic

September 19, 2017 Katie Thomas and Charles Ornstein, www.propublica.org Educate! health, Insurance, Opioids, Profit

By Katie Thomas for The New York Times and Charles Ornstein for ProPublica - At a time when the United States is in the grip of an opioid epidemic, many insurers are limiting access to pain medications that carry a lower risk of addiction or dependence, even as they provide comparatively easy access to generic opioid medications. The reason, experts say: Opioid drugs are generally cheap while safer alternatives are often more expensive. Drugmakers, pharmaceutical distributors, pharmacies and doctors have come under intense scrutiny in recent years, but the role that insurers — and the pharmacy benefit managers that run their drug plans — have played in the opioid crisis has received less attention. That may be changing, however. The New York state attorney general’s office sent letters last week to the three largest pharmacy benefit managers — CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx — asking how they were addressing the crisis. ProPublica and The New York Times analyzed Medicare prescription drug plans covering 35.7 million people in the second quarter of this year. Only one-third of the people covered, for example, had any access to Butrans, a painkilling skin patch that contains a less-risky opioid, buprenorphine.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are A Staggering $5 Tn Per Year

August 12, 2017 John Abraham, www.theguardian.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Fossil Fuels, New Economy, Profit

By John Abraham for The Guardian - Fossil fuels have two major problems that paint a dim picture for their future energy dominance. These problems are inter-related but still should be discussed separately. First, they cause climate change. We know that, we’ve known it for decades, and we know that continued use of fossil fuels will cause enormous worldwide economic and social consequences. Second, fossil fuels are expensive. Much of their costs are hidden, however, as subsidies. If people knew how large their subsidies were, there would be a backlash against them from so-called financial conservatives. A study was just published in the journal World Development that quantifies the amount of subsidies directed toward fossil fuels globally, and the results are shocking. The authors work at the IMF and are well-skilled to quantify the subsidies discussed in the paper. Let’s give the final numbers and then back up to dig into the details. The subsidies were $4.9 tn in 2013 and they rose to $5.3 tn just two years later. According to the authors, these subsidies are important because first, they promote fossil fuel use which damages the environment. Second, these are fiscally costly.

Insurance Issue Pushing More Expensive Drugs, Not Generics

August 8, 2017 Charles Ornstein and Katie Thomas, www.propublica.org Educate! Big Pharma, Insurance, Profit

By Charles Ornstein for ProPublica and Katie Thomas for The New York Times - It’s standard advice for consumers: If you are prescribed a medicine, always ask if there is a cheaper generic. Nathan Taylor, a 3-D animator who lives outside Houston, has tried to do that with all his medications. But when he fills his monthly prescription for Adderall XR to treat his attention-deficit disorder, his insurance company refuses to cover the generic. Instead, he must make a co-payment of $90 a month for the brand-name version. By comparison, he pays $10 or less each month for the five generic medications he also takes. “It just befuddles me that they would do that,” said Taylor, 41. A spokesman for his insurer, Humana, did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment. With each visit to the pharmacy, Taylor enters the upside-down world of prescription drugs, where conventional wisdom about how to lower drug costs is often wrong. Consumers have grown accustomed to being told by insurers — and middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers — that they must give up their brand-name drugs in favor of cheaper generics.

Detecting What Unravels Our Society – Bottom-up And Top-down

July 20, 2017 Staff, www.blog.nader.org Strategize! Corporations, Profit

By Staff of The Nader Page - The unraveling of a society’s institutions, stability and reasonable order does not sound alarms to forewarn the citizenry, apart from economic yardsticks measuring poverty, jobs, wages, health, savings, profits and other matters economic. However, we do have some signs that we should not allow ourselves to ignore. Maliciousness, profiteering and willful ignorance on the part of our political and corporate rulers undoubtedly contribute to worsening injustice. Let’s consider some ways that we as citizens, far too often, collectively allow this to happen. Democracy is threatened when citizens refuse to participate in power, whether by not voting, not thinking critically about important issues, not showing up for civic activities or allowing emotional false appeals and flattery by candidates and parties to sway them on important issues. Without an informed and motivated citizenry, the society starts to splinter. If people do not do their homework before Election Day and know what to expect of candidates and of themselves, the political TV ads and the plutocrats’ campaign cash will take control of what is on the table and what is off the table. This leads to the most important changes a majority of Americans want ending up on the floor.

Biomass Industry’s Hollow Self-Regulatory Scheme Has Been Exposed

July 15, 2017 Adam Macon and Sasha Stashwick, www.alternet.org Educate! Corporations, Profit, Regulation

By Adam Macon and Sasha Stashwick for AlterNet - If we want clean air and a livable planet, cutting down trees for fuel is one of the most counterproductive things we can do. Standing forests are a critical tool in the fight against climate change. Cutting trees down to use as fuel in energy production—known as biomass energy or bioenergy—is one of the most counterproductive things we can do if our goal is clean air and a livable planet. Despite this reality, policymakers around the world have invested heavily in bioenergy. Nowhere is this more true than in the European Union, where bioenergy policies in the U.K. and other member states enable billions in subsidies each year to flow to the balance sheets of large utility companies, padding their profits and financing the conversion of old coal-fired power plants to burn wood. Meanwhile, the evidence of the climate and ecological harm wrought by the biomass industry continues to mount. Yet too many policymakers remain unwilling to acknowledge the impacts of bioenergy and adequately limit its growth. They argue that the industry’s impacts on the climate, forests, and people are still uncertain, that we need more studies, more "proof."

18 States And D.C. Sue Betsy DeVos Over For-Profit College Loan Rules

July 7, 2017 Lydia O’Connor, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Higher Education, Profit

By Lydia O’Connor for The Huffington Post - Eighteen states and the District of Columbia are suing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over her decision to suspend a rule that helps student loan borrowers who were defrauded by for-profit colleges. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal district court in Washington, D.C., was led by Massachusetts and joined by 18 other attorneys general. It takes aim at DeVos’ decision to freeze an Obama-era rule known as the “borrower defense to repayment,” which helped forgive student loan debt for people whose for-profit colleges closed amid fraud accusations, leaving students without degrees and with piles of debt. “Across the US, students and families are drowning in unaffordable student loan debt while predatory, for-profit schools rake it in,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey tweeted.

These For-Profit Schools Are ‘Like A Prison’

March 25, 2017 Sarah Carr et al, www.propublica.org Educate! Prisons, Profit, Schools

By Sarah Carr, Francesca Berardi, Zoë Kirsch and Stephen Smiley for Pro Publica and Slate - An alternative school for sixth- through 12th-graders with behavioral or academic problems, Paramount occupied a low-slung, brick and concrete building on a dead-end road in hard-luck Reading, Pennsylvania, a city whose streets are littered with signs advertising bail bondsmen, pay-day lenders, and pawn shops. Camelot Education, the for-profit company that ran Paramount under a contract with the Reading school district, maintained a set of strict protocols: No jewelry, book bags, or using the water fountain or bathroom without permission. Just as it still does at dozens of schools, the company deployed a small platoon of “behavioral specialists” and “team leaders”...

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