Drug Companies Disappoint Me Again

I want to believe in America's pharmaceutical companies. I want to believe that people in these companies believe that the best strategy for success is to do what is best for patients. I want to believe that they are interested in scientific truth and eager to know of any safety issues and ready to share that information with the public.

This week I was disappointed again.

Over the years GlaxoSmithKline has repeatedly reassured the public about the safety of its blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia. But this weekend the Senate Finance Committee released a report revealing that inside the company Glaxo's own experts and advisors were raising concerns about whether the drug could cause heart problems all along.

The report, based on more than 250,000 internal documents, provides a rare and unsettling glimpse into the decision by company executives to deflect safety issues--even as their own experts agreed with conclusions of outside researchers who were warning the public about possible harms.

The documents reveal that company researchers were deeply concerned about the cardiovascular safety of the drug as far back as 2003. The pages of the Senate report read like a spy novel: Glaxo receiving confidential documents leaked by a sympathetic academic who consulted for the company; the company embarking on a campaign to intimidate critics who warned about potential safety issues with the drug; and executives pulling strings to release data early from a scientific study that was supposedly controlled by an "independent" committee of researchers.

While Glaxo was publicly downplaying safety worries, a company statistician indicated that concerns raised by critics, including Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven Nissen, were legitimate. In one internal document the head of research states that analyses from the FDA, Nissen and GSK all suggested that Avandia could be causing heart attacks. Meanwhile, Glaxo's media relations department was telling the public that there was no link between the drug and heart disease.

The story here is less about the drug--the Senate report breaks no new ground about Avandia's safety issues (even among experts there remains some controversy)--and more about the ethical behavior of a company. What is clear: Glaxo failed to disclose its own concerns even as it sought to discredit outside researchers who were raising questions about the drug.

This type of behavior is eroding the public trust in the pharmaceutical industry. The fix is simple: Once a drug is approved, all data relevant to drug safety should be placed in the public domain and independent investigators across the country should be able to use it. There should be big financial penalties for withholding relevant information. Drug studies sponsored by industry must be truly independent--outside of company control. Companies should give outside investigators independence over every aspect of the study. There are too many examples of companies wresting control of clinical studies from their consultant investigators for reasons that seem more related to product promotion than clinical science.

And on all sides there should be a commitment to protect against the intimidation of academics who are willing to raise questions about the safety and effectiveness of company products. The free flow of information about the effects of drugs and medical devices will best serve the public's interest.


Dr. Harlan Krumholz is a cardiologist and the Harold H. Hines professor of medicine and epidemiology and public health at Yale University. In the past, he did consulting for plaintiff lawyers suing Merck
© Forbes

88 Important Truths I’ve Learned About Life

Everyone gets drilled with certain lessons in life. Sometimes it takes repeated demonstrations of a given law of life to really get it into your skull, and other times one powerful experience drives the point home once forever. Here are 88 things I’ve discovered about life, the world, and its inhabitants by this point in my short time on earth.

1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.

2. It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.

3. If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about whatever you’re talking about than you do.

4. The cheapest and most expensive models are usually both bad deals.

5. Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.

6. Bad moods will come and go your whole life, and trying to force them away makes them run deeper and last longer.

7. Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.

8. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.

9. Yelling always makes things worse.

10. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.

11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.

12. You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.

13. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.

14. Managing one’s wants is the most powerful skill a person can learn.

15. Nobody has it all figured out.

16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.

17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.

18. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.

19. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works alone can teach you everything you need to know about living with grace and happiness.

20. People embellish everything, as a rule.

21. Anger reveals weakness of character, violence even moreso.

22. Humans cannot destroy the planet, but we can destroy its capacity to keep us alive. And we are.

23. When people are uncomfortable with the present moment, they fidget with their hands or their minds. Watch and see.

24. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.

25. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.

26. Credit card debt devours souls.

27. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what’s going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.

28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.

29. A person who is unafraid to present a candid version of herself to the world is as rare as diamonds.

30. The most common addiction in the world is the draw of comfort. It wrecks dreams and breaks people.

31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.

32. The greatest innovation in the history of humankind is language.

33. Blame is the favorite pastime of those who dislike responsibility.

34. Everyone you meet is better than you at something.

35. Proof is nothing but a collection of opinions that match your own.

36. Knowledge is belief, nothing more.

37. Indulging your desires is not self-love.

38. What makes human beings different from animals is that animals can be themselves with ease.

39. Self-examination is the only path out of misery.

40. Whoever you are, you will die. To know and understand that means you are alive.

41. Revenge is for the petty and irresponsible.

42. Getting truly organized can vastly improve anyone’s life.

43. Almost every cliche contains a truth so profound that people have been compelled to repeat it until it makes you roll your eyes. But the wisdom is still in there.

44. People cause suffering when they are suffering themselves. Alleviating their suffering will help them not hurt others.

45. High quality is worth any quantity, in possessions, friends and experiences.

46. The world would be a better place if everyone read National Geographic.

47. If you aren’t happy single, you won’t be happy in a relationship.

48. Even if it costs no money, nothing is free if it takes time.

49. Emotions exist to make us strongly biased towards or against something. This hinders as often as it helps.

50. Addiction is a much greater problem in society than it’s made out to be. It’s present in every person in various forms, but usually we call it something else.

51. “Gut feeling” is not just a euphemism. Tension in the abdomen speaks volumes about how you truly feel about something, beyond all arguments and rationales.

52. Posture and dress change profoundly how you feel about yourself and how others feel about you, like it or not.

53. Everyone thinks they’re an above average driver.

54. The urge to punish others has much more to do with venting frustration than correcting behavior.

55. By default, people think far too much.

56. If anything is worth splurging on, it’s a high-quality mattress. You’ll spend a third of your life using it.

57. There is nothing worse than having no friends.

58. To write a person off as worthless is an act of great violence.

59. Try as we might to be otherwise, we are all hypocrites.

60. Justice is a human invention which is in reality rarely achievable, but many will not hesitate to destroy lives demanding it.

61. Kids will usually understand exactly what you mean if you keep it to one or two short sentences.

62. Stuff that’s on sale usually has an annoying downside.

63. Casual swearing makes people sound dumb.

64. Words are immensely powerful. One cruel remark can wound someone for life.

65. It’s easy to make someone’s day just by being uncommonly pleasant to them.

66. Most of what children learn from their parents isn’t taught on purpose.

67. The secret ingredient is usually butter, in obscene amounts.

68. It is worth re-trying foods that you didn’t like at first.

69. Problems, when they arise, are rarely as painful as the experience of fearing them.

70. Nothing — ever — happens exactly like you pictured it.

71. North Americans are generally terrible at accepting compliments and offers of help.

72. There are not enough women in positions of power. The world has suffered from this deficit for a long time.

73. When you break promises to yourself, you feel terrible. When you make a habit of it, you begin to hate yourself.

74. A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about.

75. You can’t hide a bad mood from people who know you well, but you can always be polite.

76. Sometimes you have to remove certain people from your life, even if they’re family.

77. Anyone can be calmed in an instant by looking at the ocean or the stars.

78. There is no point finishing a book you aren’t enjoying. Life is too short for that. Swallow your pride and put it down for good, unfinished.

79. There is no correlation between the price of a brand of batteries and how long they last.

80. Breaking new ground only takes a small amount more effort than you’re used to giving.

81. Life is a solo trip, but you’ll have lots of visitors. Some of them are long-term, most aren’t.

82. One of the best things you can do for your kids is take them on road trips. I’m not a parent, but I was a kid once.

83. The fewer possessions you have, the more they do for you.

84. Einstein was wiser than he was intelligent, and he was a genius.

85. When you’re sick of your own life, that’s a good time to pick up a book.

86. Wishing things were different is a great way to torture yourself.

87. The ability to be happy is nothing other than the ability to come to terms with how things change.

88. Killing time is an atrocity. It’s priceless, and it never grows back.

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Greek saga won't kill the euro but the end may begin here

Could the endgame of this Greek tragedy be a eurozone break-up? The single currency's supporters maintain that such an outcome is mere mythology.

Greece accounts for only 3pc of the 16 member states' combined GDP, they say, and has lower debts than some of the banks bailed-out during sub-prime. A loan of €20bn (£17.5bn) would do the trick, we're told. That's less than the British government injected into either Lloyds or the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Such analysis sounds vaguely plausible. But its naïve and politically dishonest. Then again, the single currency was built on political dishonesty. That's because, at the heart of the eurozone project there was always a fundamental contradiction – one that the architects of monetary union never dared to address. Now its being highlighted for them, whether they like it or not.

While the European Central Bank controls eurozone interest rates and the money supply, the size of each country's fiscal deficit results from the spending and taxation decisions of its own sovereign government.

How can you enforce collective fiscal discipline in a currency union of individual sovereign states, each answerable to their own electorate? The truthful answer is you can't – not unless you subjugate the autonomy of democratically-elected politicians and, by proxy, their voters.

Voters don't like that. Neither do politicians. Faced with a choice between seriously annoying their own voters and seriously annoying the ECB, the most ardently "pro-European" lawmakers, even those with years of Brussels trough-nuzzling under their belt, will always side with their own. That's why the eurozone will ultimately break-up – whether Greece is bailed out or not.

The eurocrats blame "speculators" for the single currency's woes. That's a bit like sailors blaming the sea. The eurozone is ultimately doomed because, in the end, economic logic wins and the will of each country's electorate bursts through. This current Greek saga won't end the eurozone – but future historians will identify it, perhaps, as the beginning of the end.

Many have said it's hardly surprising that Greece e_SEnD with its history of financial profligacy and capital flight e_SEnD has emerged as the eurozone's Achilles heel. A more germane observation is that, while fiscally wayward, Greece is also the birthplace of democracy. If the Greek population wants to get upset, throw out its elected politicians and reject austerity, it must be allowed to do so. I think they'd be mad, but it must be their choice.

If Berlin and Brussels try to impose their own view on Greece and the "cuts" come from outside, the situation will become absolutely incendiary. Protests will turn into fully-blown riots. Greece will endure very serious social unrest. Deep-seated rivalries and suspicions between countries will be re-ignited. And for what?

Greece is running a budget deficit of 12.7pc of GDP. The real number could be 15pc or more as Greek politicians have lied for years about the extent of their country's liabilities. They're not the first European leaders to do so and they won't be the last. But Greece was, almost uniquely, assisted in its fiscal cover-up by Brussels – with the usual "convergence criteria" being bent to allow Greek euro entry.

As recently as September 2008, the euro seemed to be going well, despite the massive variation between member states. The five-year Greek credit default swap spread was less than 50 basis points. In other words, buying insurance against Greece reneging on its sovereign debt cost only slightly more than insuring German government bonds. Those, such as this columnist, who continued to warn that the eurozone was "dangerous and inherently unstable" were dismissed as cranks, xenophobes or worse.

Then sub-prime hit in earnest. Insuring against Greek default suddenly became a lot more expensive, the CDS spread rising six-fold in eight weeks. The same risk measure is now around 400 basis points, the cost of insuring against Greek default no less than 20 times higher than it was in January 2008. Default risks are growing in Portugal and Spain too, the eurozone's fourth biggest economy.

The problem is that default dangers in Greece – where €20bn of debt falls due in April and May – are making creditors think twice about lending to other cash-strapped governments. Even if Greece avoids default, this latest crisis means governments everywhere will have to pay more for their finance, which in turn will push up borrowing costs for everyone – right across the eurozone and beyond, including in the UK. This is so-called "contagion".

The Greek government has been desperately trying to convince the rest of the world – the Germans in particular – that it will keep its promise to reduce the deficit in its still-shrinking economy to 8.7pc of GDP next year and less than 3pc by 2012. Yet this would amount to the most severe fiscal contraction in the history of modern Europe. It simply won't happen.

The reality is that Greece has two choices – both disastrous for the eurozone. One is to default, leave the euro and re-establish the drachma at a rate low enough to stimulate exports and growth. To write this is heresy. But with general strikes now in the offing, and the Greek public-sector unions resurgent, such a scenario is possible.

For years, the ECB has set rates low to suit France and Germany. This has made life difficult, causing dangerous debt bubbles, in smaller and more inflation-prone eurozone members. Were Greece to take the exit route, the governments of several other single currency members would come under intense pressure to do the same. The eurozone's vital cohesion would be seriously undermined. Its ultimate break-up - or, at least shrinkage to a Franco-German rump - would only be a matter of time.

The other, more likely, option is that Greece accepts a German-led bail-out and "muddles through". But even that would spark an eventual eurozone split. On extending assistance, Berlin and Brussels would talk tough and Greece would promise to behave. Anything less wouldn't be tolerated by German voters. After the horrors of inter-war hyperinflation, Germany has spent more than 50 years building policy credibility. Backing a Greek bail-out would be a massive step – the first time in decades Germany has departed from its fiscal and monetary hard line.

Yet the German government will do it. Refusing to bail-out Greece would risk being labelled "bad Europeans" – something anathema to Germany's post-war elite. Berlin also has a massive financial stake in the euro's status as the world's second most-used reserve currency.

Although Greece will be presented as a one-off e_SEnD a "very exceptional" case e_SEnD once that line has been crossed there is no going back. Other eurozone countries will want a bail-out. Why should Portuguese, Estonian or Spanish workers endure austerity and unemployment, while those in Greece were spared? Why them and not us? If big banks can compete for bail-outs, walking the line of "moral hazard", political leaders will do so too. A Greek rescue by the Germans would spark repeated bail-outs.

In the end, voters in the big eurozone economies, faced with their own fiscal problems will say enough is enough. Europe's monetary union will collapse, just like every other currency union in the history of man. The exception is America – yet the US, as the eurocrats hate to acknowledge, had been through a century and a half of political union before the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913.

That's the key difference. America is a political union, with a system of explicit inter-regional fiscal transfers, and the eurozone isn't. That's why the single currency will ultimately split and be exposed as what it is – a triumph of European hubris and political vanity over unavoidable economic logic.

© Telegraph

Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis

By LOUISE STORY, LANDON THOMAS Jr. and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

As worries over Greece rattle world markets, records and interviews show that with Wall Street’s help, the nation engaged in a decade-long effort to skirt European debt limits. One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from the budget overseers in Brussels.

Even as the crisis was nearing the flashpoint, banks were searching for ways to help Greece forestall the day of reckoning. In early November — three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety — a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting.

The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards.

It had worked before. In 2001, just after Greece was admitted to Europe’s monetary union, Goldman helped the government quietly borrow billions, people familiar with the transaction said. That deal, hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than a loan, helped Athens to meet Europe’s deficit rules while continuing to spend beyond its means.

Athens did not pursue the latest Goldman proposal, but with Greece groaning under the weight of its debts and with its richer neighbors vowing to come to its aid, the deals over the last decade are raising questions about Wall Street’s role in the world’s latest financial drama.

As in the American subprime crisis and the implosion of the American International Group, financial derivatives played a role in the run-up of Greek debt. Instruments developed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and a wide range of other banks enabled politicians to mask additional borrowing in Greece, Italy and possibly elsewhere.

In dozens of deals across the Continent, banks provided cash upfront in return for government payments in the future, with those liabilities then left off the books. Greece, for example, traded away the rights to airport fees and lottery proceeds in years to come.

Critics say that such deals, because they are not recorded as loans, mislead investors and regulators about the depth of a country’s liabilities.

Some of the Greek deals were named after figures in Greek mythology. One of them, for instance, was called Aeolos, after the god of the winds.

The crisis in Greece poses the most significant challenge yet to Europe’s common currency, the euro, and the Continent’s goal of economic unity. The country is, in the argot of banking, too big to be allowed to fail. Greece owes the world $300 billion, and major banks are on the hook for much of that debt. A default would reverberate around the globe.

A spokeswoman for the Greek finance ministry said the government had met with many banks in recent months and had not committed to any bank’s offers. All debt financings “are conducted in an effort of transparency,” she said. Goldman and JPMorgan declined to comment.

While Wall Street’s handiwork in Europe has received little attention on this side of the Atlantic, it has been sharply criticized in Greece and in magazines like Der Spiegel in Germany.

“Politicians want to pass the ball forward, and if a banker can show them a way to pass a problem to the future, they will fall for it,” said Gikas A. Hardouvelis, an economist and former government official who helped write a recent report on Greece’s accounting policies.

Wall Street did not create Europe’s debt problem. But bankers enabled Greece and others to borrow beyond their means, in deals that were perfectly legal. Few rules govern how nations can borrow the money they need for expenses like the military and health care. The market for sovereign debt — the Wall Street term for loans to governments — is as unfettered as it is vast.

“If a government wants to cheat, it can cheat,” said Garry Schinasi, a veteran of the International Monetary Fund’s capital markets surveillance unit, which monitors vulnerability in global capital markets.

Banks eagerly exploited what was, for them, a highly lucrative symbiosis with free-spending governments. While Greece did not take advantage of Goldman’s proposal in November 2009, it had paid the bank about $300 million in fees for arranging the 2001 transaction, according to several bankers familiar with the deal.

Such derivatives, which are not openly documented or disclosed, add to the uncertainty over how deep the troubles go in Greece and which other governments might have used similar off-balance sheet accounting.

The tide of fear is now washing over other economically troubled countries on the periphery of Europe, making it more expensive for Italy, Spain and Portugal to borrow.

For all the benefits of uniting Europe with one currency, the birth of the euro came with an original sin: countries like Italy and Greece entered the monetary union with bigger deficits than the ones permitted under the treaty that created the currency. Rather than raise taxes or reduce spending, however, these governments artificially reduced their deficits with derivatives.

Derivatives do not have to be sinister. The 2001 transaction involved a type of derivative known as a swap. One such instrument, called an interest-rate swap, can help companies and countries cope with swings in their borrowing costs by exchanging fixed-rate payments for floating-rate ones, or vice versa. Another kind, a currency swap, can minimize the impact of volatile foreign exchange rates.

But with the help of JPMorgan, Italy was able to do more than that. Despite persistently high deficits, a 1996 derivative helped bring Italy’s budget into line by swapping currency with JPMorgan at a favorable exchange rate, effectively putting more money in the government’s hands. In return, Italy committed to future payments that were not booked as liabilities.

“Derivatives are a very useful instrument,” said Gustavo Piga, an economics professor who wrote a report for the Council on Foreign Relations on the Italian transaction. “They just become bad if they’re used to window-dress accounts.”

In Greece, the financial wizardry went even further. In what amounted to a garage sale on a national scale, Greek officials essentially mortgaged the country’s airports and highways to raise much-needed money.

Aeolos, a legal entity created in 2001, helped Greece reduce the debt on its balance sheet that year. As part of the deal, Greece got cash upfront in return for pledging future landing fees at the country’s airports. A similar deal in 2000 called Ariadne devoured the revenue that the government collected from its national lottery. Greece, however, classified those transactions as sales, not loans, despite doubts by many critics.

These kinds of deals have been controversial within government circles for years. As far back as 2000, European finance ministers fiercely debated whether derivative deals used for creative accounting should be disclosed.

The answer was no. But in 2002, accounting disclosure was required for many entities like Aeolos and Ariadne that did not appear on nations’ balance sheets, prompting governments to restate such deals as loans rather than sales.

Still, as recently as 2008, Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, reported that “in a number of instances, the observed securitization operations seem to have been purportedly designed to achieve a given accounting result, irrespective of the economic merit of the operation.”

While such accounting gimmicks may be beneficial in the short run, over time they can prove disastrous.

George Alogoskoufis, who became Greece’s finance minister in a political party shift after the Goldman deal, criticized the transaction in the Parliament in 2005. The deal, Mr. Alogoskoufis argued, would saddle the government with big payments to Goldman until 2019.

Mr. Alogoskoufis, who stepped down a year ago, said in an e-mail message last week that Goldman later agreed to reconfigure the deal “to restore its good will with the republic.” He said the new design was better for Greece than the old one.

In 2005, Goldman sold the interest rate swap to the National Bank of Greece, the country’s largest bank, according to two people briefed on the transaction.

In 2008, Goldman helped the bank put the swap into a legal entity called Titlos. But the bank retained the bonds that Titlos issued, according to Dealogic, a financial research firm, for use as collateral to borrow even more from the European Central Bank.

Edward Manchester, a senior vice president at the Moody’s credit rating agency, said the deal would ultimately be a money-loser for Greece because of its long-term payment obligations.

Referring to the Titlos swap with the government of Greece, he said: “This swap is always going to be unprofitable for the Greek government.”

© New York Times

Under Obama, crony capitalism again rules the day

In his best-seller "Inside U.S.A.", the hugely readable journalist John Gunther described America as it was in the last year of World War II. He interviewed hundreds of politicians, businessmen and journalists, but only four men rated a separate chapter -- three politicians and Henry J. Kaiser, the California construction magnate who built dams and ships and manufactured concrete and steel and aluminum.

Kaiser was, Gunther wrote, "tough, creative, packed with ideas and energy, above all a man who likes to make things." But he was also, he noted, a "link of enterprise by government, since government was on his side."

That was putting it mildly. Kaiser hired Tommy Corcoran, a brilliant former aide to Franklin Roosevelt, to open doors and got a $645 million contract to build ships and $28 million financing to manufacture magnesium. Corcoran, according to the first-rate biography by longtime Democratic staffer David McKean, got $200,000 in fees. Believe it or not, that was a lot of money in Washington in the 1940s.

Government spent a lot of money in World War II, and mostly spent it well. Kaiser delivered on his contracts and even managed to build ships out of concrete, most of which did not sink. But, as always happens when government is shoveling out money, lobbyists thrived.

Fast-forward to the present day. Lobbyists, reports the Center for Responsive Politics, had a record 2009 in Barack Obama's Washington. Despite candidate Obama's promises to shun them, they raked in $3,470,000,000. Somewhere up there, Tommy Corcoran is chuckling.

Last week, amid Washington's blizzards, Obama was asked about the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and the $9 million bonus for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

"I know both these guys; they are very savvy businessmen," he said. "I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth." So much for campaign-trail denunciations of "fat cat" bankers and bloated bonuses.

From what I know, Dimon and Blankfein are in fact first-rate CEOs, as able in their way as Henry J. Kaiser. Their banks soured on mortgage-backed securities before most of their competitors and started unloading them early or, in Goldman's case, getting them insured by AIG (and getting the government to pay 100 cents on the dollar for them, thanks to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then head of the New York Fed). They paid their Troubled Asset Relief Program money back as fast as they could, with interest.

But the savviness that Obama handsomely acknowledged has been evident not only in their business judgment but in their politics. Goldman employee contributions to Democrats in 2008 ranked second only to those employed by the University of California. JPMorgan Chase's employees ranked No. 7. The stereotype of Wall Street being Republican is decades out of date.

Crony capitalism is now the order of the day in the United States. The government and the United Auto Workers own General Motors and Chrysler, which aren't likely to pay back their billions in TARP money any time soon, if ever. Meanwhile the government tells Americans to stop driving Toyotas.

The government was going to remake the health care sector, and so Billy Tauzin and other health care industry lobbyists were busy in the White House cutting deals to keep their clients above water. The government was going to remake the energy sector, and utility CEOs and lobbyists have been busy flaunting their green credentials.

As my Washington Examiner colleague Timothy Carney has been documenting, Big Business has been busy lobbying Big Government for "reforms" that serve big companies' interests. Wal-Mart backs a health care mandate, Philip Morris shapes tobacco regulation, General Electric is setting up a joint venture to trade carbon offsets (wasn't that Enron's line of work back in the day?).

The picture is not pretty. Government's pets or, in the president's words, "savvy businessmen," use government to get policies that will give them competitive advantages and stifle smaller competitors. Pleasing their masters in government is now absorbing the psychic energy of CEOs who used to concentrate on meeting consumers' needs in order to make profits.

Back in the 1940s, there was an excuse for crony capitalism -- there was a war on. And FDR had a gift for picking people who, like Kaiser, delivered the goods. Today that excuse is not available, and it's far from apparent that Obama has that gift.

© Washingtonexaminer

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K1: - Аз тебе като те хвана ще те направя на 100 метра тел за бушони! Писна ми от тебе бе пияницо! На сека манджа мерудия! Снощи ми скъса нервите, а са у форумо ме гониш!!! Аз ако не те разкарам из половин София да ми носиш пица... К1 да не ми е името повече! Ше ти скъсам люлинските уши! Спамер!

Изисквания за членство в клуба:
K1: - K2, мяташ 600е в банкова сметка: BG0099 000 99- 9AGfGG и след преглеждане на молбата, акта за раждане /на видео/, голи снимки на красиви приятелки, зъби /не трябва да имаш повече от 1 кариес и една амалгама/, тест за интелигентност, лична карта, задграничен паспорт, ЕКГ, кръвна картина, урина, надстомашна жлеза, мозъчна графия, бележник от 5-ти клас, диплома за средно образование, диплома за магистърска степен от технически университет /не е задължително да е от МЕИ/, графиа и скопия на минискус, 100м спринт, 2км гребане, висок скок, народна топка, сертификат за джамджия, сертификат за алармаджия, сертификат и практика в областта мостостроителството /на това държим най-много/, диплома по гънчарство и гинекология от северозападния университет по медицина и глинообработване...

K1: - Абе момци некои от вас знае ли какво казал Батман на Робин, преди да влезе в колата(Робин да влезе)?
К2: - Влез, бе, да та е*а в каиша, айде по- бързо, че направихме задръстване...

По повод побирането на повече гориво на бензиностанция от вместимостта на резервоара :
К1: - Тия да нямат WinRar на колонките

Фабулата е следната: един пич е канен на хабитюренски на 4 мацки и иска съвет какво да им подари.
Съветите:
К1: - Ask Durex...
К2: - Вържи си една панделка на оная работа и си ти човека
К3: - 4 панделки значи да купя
К4: - 99.9% от жените се подмокрят, когато получават букет, особено ако е грамаден и шарен!
К5: - Жените обичат силни емоции -дет има една приказка ако не те запомни като е.ач да те запомни като бияч
К6: - Бижуто неминуемо ще й шунтира системата за контрол на самозадръжките и ще настане веселбата
К7: - Класическото изпълнение.. чехли и вибратор.. ако не и харесат чехлите да се *бе с вибратора...

K1: - на 21 съм и имам гадже. ко да правя
K2: - Убий я.
K1: - не стаа, после че трябва да пущя тема "на 21 съм и нямам гаже ко да прая"

K1: - няма да я кича повече...
K2: - ама то като гледам няма накъде повече..

K1: - С нетърпение чакам някой да кръстоса жираф с прасе, за да се наслаждавам на 4-те метра врат за пържоли

из темата "Как да си направя гуми с червен пушек"
K1: - Намажи ги с кетчуп

K1: - тва не е ли оная с острия гъз, гадните цици и лъскавата китара

K1: - Теглим една тупалка на въздушния филтър, олабвам кранчето на газта,, ТАП-а на 6+, "пидала до митала" и от исполинския вътрящ момент праим каретата на осморки.

К1: - Събуждате ли се у...н?
К2: - възможни приставки: дърве, ака, пика, сра, шмуле, .....

К1: - това не е черна стомана това стомана с висока якост и жилавина която е поцинкована ... ето долу е написано степента на ражда ,якост и т.н.
стомана 45 нисколегирана качествена конструкционна механични или други свойства:
якост на опън, в (rm) = 1200 mpa
гранaица на провлачване 0,2 (r0,2) = 900 mpa
ръждообразуване 0,1 =0,00 zm + (ZnS) относително удължение (а) = 6 %
относително свиване = 35 %
условия на експлоатация: висока еластичност, повишена якост
К2: - смотан!
поне да разбираше какви тъпни пишеш!
стомана 45 ръждясва!
вземи една палка от тоя материал и се прасни по празната глава-дано ти се поизясни кое какво е.

К1: - Сетих се май за кой инвалид ставаа дума ... маа да ти кажем има и много по фрапиращи случай .... Сега щи разкажа
Захванал съм се да пастирам една кола ... аз попринцип си работя само с пасти на 3М с поне 4 вида за да стане както си трябва,и някакъв пишлегар слиза от некфа Omega (opel) и почва да ме разпитва ....
-Бате ,бате ... какво праиш и с какво го правиш ... и му викам :
-Тее гледай ако искаш, нямам време да ти обяснявам сега
Пита ме момчето от къде да си закупи пасти.И му викам отсреща на ъгъла има гъби и пасти (обикновенни) за "домашно" пастиране .Мааа изрично му казах да внимава какво прави ,да не оплеска нещо !
След 20-30 мин пристига баща му бесен, с omega-та с капак станал на пу*ка !!! Вика :
-Тоя ли ти показа как се пастира кола. И малкия отговаря:
-Да.
И аз стоя втрещен и се чудя какво е станало И в последствие разбрах ... Той нашия си помислил ,че машината с която пастирам е флекс ,и съм си сложиш просто гъба и си търкам там И нашия си сложил гъбичката ,цвъркнал малко паста и почнал да си изграе... при което предния капак ... маа буквално на пу*ка ... беше изгоряла боята от търкане ... като го е бил турнал на обороти, не ми се мисли какво е било.. И там последва един як шамар зад врата ,от страна на бащата ... Човека си извини,и си замина

по темата за „вдигането на самолета”:
К1: - На мен ми се е случвало след няколко курса или след един по-дълъг курс като свърши горивото да не мога да завъртя двата двигатела отдолу дето са и самолета не се вдига.. Просто ми се спи.. А отсреща от кулата ми показват червени флагове, демек недоволстват нещо.. баси неуморните.. Не стига, че я издигам в небесата на околосветско пътешествие, ами не иска да слезе да разгледа забележителностите

К1: - Много го разбирам нашто момче! Преди няколко месеца двама ми се ежиха на магистралата и много мислех да ги раздробим,обаче се замислих за полиции ,болници,арест.....със сигурност и аз щех да поема некой токат и си викам ,айде да се оправиме и понеже беха селендури почнах да им говора възспитано и ме отебаха...После поне месец и половина не е минала вечер,в която да не се сетя за тях и да правя възстановки как единия пада,след това другия и т.н.

по повод неработещия форум на почитателите на Рюселхаймските возила:
К1: - Какво се случва с ОПЕЛ Форума???
К2: - Изгнил е сървъра

по темата: "Подарък за НГ":
К1: - мисля да зема пак вибратор,тоз път един размер по-голям....

К1: - Как се справям с джигитите ли?
Карам си спокойно сапунерката, не се натискам, не се гонкам с никой и така. Ако изскочи джигит бегам през три ленти в канавката и го пускам да се оправя, че да ми е мирна главата. Ако ситуацията излезне от контрол и се стигне до светофарни разправии слизам с козия крак и му правя главата и колата кутии за моливи

К1: - Още чувам думите на продавача "......човек, това е гаражна кола.Карал я е учител ,който е живял до училището,после се е пенсионирал и после е умрял ей го е още в багажника."

От темата "Как е името на вашата кола?":
К1: - тъп грозен ръждясъл дърт барутник мазен ше те майкати писна ми от тебе дърт кошник изгнил прокъсан масларник гнусен кенеф тракащ тропащ пе*ал гнойасъл ужасен мразя те...
и на другия ден пак го обичам.
К2: - Моята и викам: Пача, таралясник, коруба, кошница, тиква.

К1: - Какво е това бе братче прилича ми на уред за инквизиция на вальо студеното с което топлото ромче всяка нощ го е поздравявал с песента "не си желан в този бар вече"

К1: - аре ела да те видим!!! Да нема после ,,млад бех сбърках''!!!
К2: - Идем Идем...... кажи на колежката тая височката да се приготви
К1: - Аз лесно ще и кажа ама като те знам какъв си сранежливец като те викне у офиса и ша избегаш с колкото може да вдигне тая Астра!

К1: - Стига с тоя грозен кукер (б.р. K2)
К2: - Следващия път като се видиме специално ще ти дам да ми позваниш на чановете

К1: - ГТИ - готин тунинг илиянци

К1: - толкова много ли ви мързи да си вдигнете прозорците преди да излезете от автомобила ? или просто ви трябва за гъзария ?
К2: - а теб толкова ли те мързи да духаш по предното стъкло, че си пускаш духалката? щом е екстра и я има... значи трябва да се ползва! Така си мисля поне

из обява за продажба на Ауди S8 с газов инждкцион и доста накичен външен вид, граничещ с кич:
К1: - спешно, направете предложение
К2: - да не те разочаровам, но едва ли ще има ... проблем в мотора, колата видимо е удряна, допълнително украсена и в тези трудни времена ... пък и S8 с газови инжекцион е като да сложиш на Анджелина Джоли очила с голям диоптър, дънков гащеризон, гумени ботуши и да я пратиш да събира фъшкии в кравеферма.. За такъв автомобил се иска хубави снимки, пълна история, описана поддръжка, опции и т.н.
К1: - аз лично съм го карал с 320км/ч
К3: - Как по-точно стана това,като километража е до 300км/ч?

К1: - Значи мамичката ви ще разкатая само да се сетя паролата за администратора.

К1: - Здравейте Колеги и Играчи, дайте предложения за спретнати хотелчета с открити минерални басейни през зимата .
Само по-сериозно, за да не се получи както в темата ми - фешън кафенца
К2: - ти ли си най-големия бе????? кви играчи,кви сериали бе,с тоз кенеф си се взел за нещо извънземно ли бе??я земи се огледай бе селски мой,хората търкалят вече самолети,ти с тия пъпки къде пикаеш срещу вятъра??нормален ли си въобще или аналгина не ти действа..баси моноклетъчния тря си,за да си мислиш,че си биг плея с тая умрялата 36-а! такива като тебе,са за поликниника,въобще от носа си по-надалече скиваш кво става или си се филмирал,че планетата ЗЕМЯ се врътка около тебе и кога ти се придреме тя спира движението си,за да не те смущава.. ти ли беше оня пич къде търсеше фяшън кафетата из мегаполиса-зара,че да си покаже тоалетника,колко е зле почистен след тежка нужда?мое ли да си толкова прост бе,ти си за оскара мой,няяш конкуренция
най-големия
вкарай снимка и почвам ти правя паметника,къде го искаш-там го строя.ненормалник,тая пишка толкоз ли е малка,че все из лъскавите заведения одиш или пъпките толкова големи,ама и краката миришат сигура.. потен,имаш ли от онези кожените връвки на вратлето,нъл плейбоите от село ги носите?
ела на съборо,да ти измия краката и да пия водата.. изруд си ей,кумир ми ставаш.пълен олигофрен майка ти съжалява ли, че те е родила толкоз прост или се радва ,че имаш успех из селските феи с мустаци и мазни дънки,кога си бръмкаш уикендо из село.. говори ми

К1: - Имам няколко бухалки за продаване!!!
К2: - Имаш ли две еднакви, че ми трябват за едно съчетание по худ. гимнастика. Ще играем с един тъп комшия.

К1: - Всички А-6 АЕЛ(2.5 ТДИ- б.р.) пушат при кик-даун, особено след чип и след махнат катализатор. Но със спукан мъркуч как пуши - направо като минеш през някое село и кокошките си лягат, защото слънцето изчезва за час-два...

K1: - Снощи около 1 часа на била на люлин първо 2 патрулки надървили бурканите посока от тунела към пощата с над 80 .. след тях е36 и е39 с вратите напред пак на билата за към обеля.. та въпроса ми е от кога бмв-тата гонат полицайте
K2: - застигнали са ги с обиколка

К1: - всяко БМВ има предница на акула, а 1-цата на депресирана скумрия...