07.22.11
Corporate America Hates You
Ralph Nader stating the baldly obvious (although it’s nice he said it):
Corporations say they love their country, especially when it comes to manufacturing modern weapons systems for the Pentagon.So let’s extend this love and see how they measure up patriotically.
Is it patriotic for drug companies to leave our country without any production facilities for ingredients used in penicillin and other key drugs because they have shipped production rapidly in the past decade to China and India which lack the inspection standards we have here? Leaving America defenseless and so dependent in this critical area is especially galling. Remember Big Pharma accepts billions in tax credits and valuable free research, development and clinical testing by the National Institutes of Health for many important pharmaceuticals.
Is it patriotic for CEOs to demand and use taxpayer dollars to facilitate moving abroad with their industries? The latest version of this lack of fealty is taking large federal subsidies for solar energy research and development and then moving the production facilities to China.
It’s good to keep in mind that the big filch Nader mentions re Big Pharm also applies to our arms manufacturers. They get all their R&D money from Uncle Sam for making our marvelous killing technologies, stuff the Lockheed Martins and Raytheons then peddle to various pantywaist militaries around the world.
The rest of the Nader piece is here.