The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Drug Merger:
Follow the Money

Mar 23, 2009

The government claims that its bailout program for banks, the TARP program, will help the banks re-start the economy and save it.

That’s baloney. The TARP program helps the rich provide for the rich, at our expense.

Prime examples are Merck Pharmaceutical’s new merger with Schering-Plough, and Pfizer’s takeover of Wyeth.

These Big Pharma mergers are being financed with TARP money–taxpayer money given to banks like JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which then loan it to deal-makers.

TARP is providing a reported 31 billion dollars to the drug companies–to do what? To fund the mergers by which the drug monopolies take on enormous new debt burdens. This will mean a hike in drug prices and a big impulse to stock market speculation. It also means an estimated 35,000 layoffs as companies consolidate their operations.

Layoffs, price hikes, and stock market speculation. That’s going to save the economy? That’s what sunk it in the first place!