SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Stiffed: Why Are Bailed-Out Banks Helping Pfizer Buy Wyeth?
Jan 28, 2009
Are U.S. taxpayers getting stiffed? Pfizer, Viagra's
daddy, is using money from taxpayer-bailed-out banks to help buy major
pharmaceutical competitor Wyeth in a $68
billion deal. That won't help taxpayers or consumers. Nor is it designed
to. It will harm the companies' workers, 20,000 of whom will likely be
laid off. It's even likely to hurt
small bio-tech companies, drying up potential sources of capital and leaving
fewer potential major investors or purchasers.
The deal may be good for Pfizer, helping the company recover
from a $2.3 billion legal settlement over misleading marketing on the pain
reliever Bextra, and helping them amplify the clout of the $3 million they recently
spent lobbying against the right to import cheaper drugs from Canada. But it
won't help the rest of us.
So why are banks bailed out with taxpayer dollars furnishing
the $22.5 billion of debt financing for this deal? On NPR, a financial analyst crowed
about how wonderful it was that major banks were lending this kind of money in
the current economy. But it troubles me that among the deal's prime
financial backers--Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman
Sachs and J.P. Morgan/Chase--all but the British-owned Barclays received money
from the Congressional bailout. So the funds they lent to this merger won't
be available to help smaller (or larger) companies keep their doors open
producing and selling products--ideally ones that
actually benefit society--and not just to consolidate control over their
industry. This seems one more case of public subsidies for private gain.
I'm no economist. For all I know, maybe in some Henry
Paulson-Alan Greenspan dream world this will end up boosting America's physical
and fiscal health. Perhaps the new combined entity will come up with some
miracle drug that neither company would have created on their own. But mostly, it
seems just one more example of how a bailout without strong government control,
or even oversight, just feeds the same greed-driven abuses that have gotten us
into our current predicament. It's going to take more than Viagra to strengthen
our economy once more.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Paul Rogat Loeb
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of "Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times" (2010) and "The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear", named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. See www.paulloeb.org
Are U.S. taxpayers getting stiffed? Pfizer, Viagra's
daddy, is using money from taxpayer-bailed-out banks to help buy major
pharmaceutical competitor Wyeth in a $68
billion deal. That won't help taxpayers or consumers. Nor is it designed
to. It will harm the companies' workers, 20,000 of whom will likely be
laid off. It's even likely to hurt
small bio-tech companies, drying up potential sources of capital and leaving
fewer potential major investors or purchasers.
The deal may be good for Pfizer, helping the company recover
from a $2.3 billion legal settlement over misleading marketing on the pain
reliever Bextra, and helping them amplify the clout of the $3 million they recently
spent lobbying against the right to import cheaper drugs from Canada. But it
won't help the rest of us.
So why are banks bailed out with taxpayer dollars furnishing
the $22.5 billion of debt financing for this deal? On NPR, a financial analyst crowed
about how wonderful it was that major banks were lending this kind of money in
the current economy. But it troubles me that among the deal's prime
financial backers--Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman
Sachs and J.P. Morgan/Chase--all but the British-owned Barclays received money
from the Congressional bailout. So the funds they lent to this merger won't
be available to help smaller (or larger) companies keep their doors open
producing and selling products--ideally ones that
actually benefit society--and not just to consolidate control over their
industry. This seems one more case of public subsidies for private gain.
I'm no economist. For all I know, maybe in some Henry
Paulson-Alan Greenspan dream world this will end up boosting America's physical
and fiscal health. Perhaps the new combined entity will come up with some
miracle drug that neither company would have created on their own. But mostly, it
seems just one more example of how a bailout without strong government control,
or even oversight, just feeds the same greed-driven abuses that have gotten us
into our current predicament. It's going to take more than Viagra to strengthen
our economy once more.
Paul Rogat Loeb
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of "Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times" (2010) and "The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear", named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. See www.paulloeb.org
Are U.S. taxpayers getting stiffed? Pfizer, Viagra's
daddy, is using money from taxpayer-bailed-out banks to help buy major
pharmaceutical competitor Wyeth in a $68
billion deal. That won't help taxpayers or consumers. Nor is it designed
to. It will harm the companies' workers, 20,000 of whom will likely be
laid off. It's even likely to hurt
small bio-tech companies, drying up potential sources of capital and leaving
fewer potential major investors or purchasers.
The deal may be good for Pfizer, helping the company recover
from a $2.3 billion legal settlement over misleading marketing on the pain
reliever Bextra, and helping them amplify the clout of the $3 million they recently
spent lobbying against the right to import cheaper drugs from Canada. But it
won't help the rest of us.
So why are banks bailed out with taxpayer dollars furnishing
the $22.5 billion of debt financing for this deal? On NPR, a financial analyst crowed
about how wonderful it was that major banks were lending this kind of money in
the current economy. But it troubles me that among the deal's prime
financial backers--Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman
Sachs and J.P. Morgan/Chase--all but the British-owned Barclays received money
from the Congressional bailout. So the funds they lent to this merger won't
be available to help smaller (or larger) companies keep their doors open
producing and selling products--ideally ones that
actually benefit society--and not just to consolidate control over their
industry. This seems one more case of public subsidies for private gain.
I'm no economist. For all I know, maybe in some Henry
Paulson-Alan Greenspan dream world this will end up boosting America's physical
and fiscal health. Perhaps the new combined entity will come up with some
miracle drug that neither company would have created on their own. But mostly, it
seems just one more example of how a bailout without strong government control,
or even oversight, just feeds the same greed-driven abuses that have gotten us
into our current predicament. It's going to take more than Viagra to strengthen
our economy once more.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy