What’s wrong with these people, er, this picture?

Oo! Oo!  I know how to fix this!  Maybe we can take the fines from the banks like Chase, who now consider fines just protection money they have to pay so they can keep doing what they want, and use it to make Detroit solvent.  Or would we hear whining from Wall Street that it is unfaaaaair to redistribute our country’s tax dollars to the unworthy?

Assholes

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In another story of bad deed doing, Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) is creating an international incident in China where it has been accused of bribing government officials and doctors with about $500 million in order to raise the price of their prescription drugs.  Note that it was probably the testosterone and amphetamine soaked sales department that came up with this brilliant idea.  Now, China is forbidding GSK’s finance director from leaving the country.  What a splendid idea!  Maybe we should send all of our misbehaving finance directors to China.  Derek Lowe has more on the story.

If I recall correctly, the GSK research site in Shanghai was also accused of some falsification of data that lead to publications being pulled from Nature.  Hey, the management in China wanted to show it could get publications in Nature so it did- by lying.  For a brief time there, the Shanghai site was probably held up as a model of research brilliance by the executive class to all of the other global, loser “centers of excellence” at GSK.  That ought to give the King of Prussia, PA site a nice warm and fuzzy feeling.  We shouldn’t be surprised by the China syndrome.  One of my Chinese colleagues told me that China wasn’t like the US in terms of business infrastructure and relatively low levels of corruption but that only time would prove to the executive class that China wasn’t ready for a world class research industry.

It’s also GSK that proposed to pay their scientists million dollar bonuses if a drug candidate goes blockbuster.  Read Derek Lowe’s post on the topic for a run down of why this is a phenomenally bad idea.

GSK, this week’s poster child.

Obama is like a “too big to fail” bank

He failed the stress test but the party heavy hitters feel obligated to save him no matter how badly he f^&*s up and can’t make the case.

We all know that left to his own devices, he’s going to screw up again and put all our economic lives in jeopardy.  It’s just that the party is so invested in him.

So, we see the spectacle of Joe Biden spending a good portion of the debate propping Obama up on foreign policy.  At some point, he ditched the script and just defended his party.

He scored on abortion.  It’s perfectly fine if you have a religious objection to it as long as you don’t seek to impose that religious doctrine on others.  He was a little vague on social security.  I would have liked to have heard a definitive stance against raising the retirement age.  It’s unclear if that is Obama’s policy speaking or Biden’s.

Afghanistan was a wash.  We should be out of there by now.  Otherwise, Biden owned foreign policy.  He smiled and laughed to mock Ryan but he could have been just funnin’ with the young’un.  Biden excels in this area.

I think he kicked Ryan’s ass on the economy and how Ryan’s plan would hurt the middle class.  He was very good at selling the pitch, addressing the camera, and by extension, us, directly.

It would be great if we could just declare the Obama presidency insolvent and nationalize the office for a better candidate.  I’d vote for Biden in a pinch.  Too bad he’s not on the top of the ticket.