The Weekly Watch
Warmongering, Wealth, and World Wide Deception
BoJo and Brandon are in political hot water. What to do? Better stoke another war, and make the war machine puppet masters happy. After all the CIA controlled main stream news will create public support. It's the empires last gasp (I hope). I find it interesting how few, even in alternative media, delve into Brandon's role in the Ukrainian coup. I mean how did his son (and Kerry's nephew) end up with a $50,000/month gig on an Ukrainian oil board? More recently US incompetence was on display in the failed coup in Kazakhstan. With Ukraine, seems we're in a Cuban missile crisis in reverse.
(43 min) Excellent recounting of US wars. More here:
https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/allwarsarebankerwars.php
And here we go again... Double down on dumb.
https://yournews.com/2021/12/14/2266193/biden-official-steering-ukraine-...
(worth a full read or at least scan)
As tensions mount along the Ukraine-Russia border, critics have questioned why some of the same U.S. officials who contributed to regional instability during the Obama administration are again in charge of America’s response to the crisis, although some top Republicans support the Biden administration’s position.
Last week, U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland briefed members of the Senate on the situation between Ukraine and Russia—warning that Russian president Vladimir Putin has amassed some 100,000 soldiers along the border in a possible plan to invade.
If the name Nuland sounds familiar, it might be from her role in the previous Ukrainian crisis during the Obama administration—one that critics say is the reason the two countries are again on verge of war today.
As an assistant secretary of state in 2013 and 2014, Nuland participated in the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s then-democratically elected president. The pro-Russia Yanukovych was facing political controversies at the time, and Nuland and others in the State Department saw his rising unpopularity as an opportunity to unseat him in favor of a more Western-friendly leader.
Nuland and the State Department were found to have supported the armed coup against Yanukovych. Most damningly, a leaked February 2014 phone call between Nuland and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt revealed the two officials handpicking Ukraine’s next government in the wake of Yanukovych’s downfall.
“Yats is the guy,” Nuland said at the time, referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was designated as the new prime minister of Ukraine following Yanukovych’s removal in February 2014.
Months later, Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings in May 2014. More consequentially for the people of the region, the coup is widely seen to have contributed to regional instability that persists to this day.
Another view of the story...
https://www.rt.com/news/233439-us-meddling-ukraine-crisis/
More evidence of US backed coup...
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/06/03/how-why-us-government-...
Incontrovertible proofs will be presented here not only that it was a coup, but that this coup was organized by the US Government — that the US Government initiated the ‘new Cold War’; Russia’s Government reacted to America’s aggression, which aims to place nuclear missiles in Ukraine, less than ten minutes flight-time from Moscow. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, America had reason to fear Soviet nuclear missiles 103 miles from America’s border. But, after America’s Ukrainian coup in 2014, Russia has reason to fear NATO nuclear missiles not just near, but on, Russia’s border. That would be catastrophic.
New story same as the old story...
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/12/11/ukra-d11.html
Biden’s backing of Ukraine’s “sovereignty” is particularly telling as it directly contradicts the 2015 Minsk protocols, which call for Ukraine to grant special federated status to the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Zelensky also stressed to Biden that he would only enter further discussions on the Minsk protocols once Kiev was back in control of the separatist-controlled regions, essentially negating any possibility that the Minsk protocols could ever lead to a negotiated peace and end the over seven-year-long civil war that has killed over 14,000.
Despite initially coming to power over widespread popular disillusionment with the nationalist, militaristic politics of former President Petro Poroshenko, Zelensky, with the backing of NATO, has made a series of aggressive, reckless decisions that have now led his country to the brink of a full-scale war with Russia.
Earlier this year, the Ukrainian government issued a new national security strategy, announcing its intention to “recover” Crimea, the peninsula in the Black Sea that was annexed by Russia after the US-backed 2014 coup that overthrew a pro-Russian government in Kiev and threatened to deprive the Russian navy of its only major warm water port. The strategy was a clear declaration that Ukraine was preparing for war against Russia and had no intentions to peacefully resolve the civil war in the Donbass.
In September, the Biden administration explicitly expressed its support for Ukraine’s “Crimean Platform.”
Zelensky’s government has also entered into an increasingly close military alliance with Turkey, earlier purchasing armed drones that Ukraine first used against separatist forces in October.
As Russia has gathered its forces across the border in response to a massive NATO build-up in the Black Sea, Zelensky, rather than even attempting to abide by the Minsk protocols, has continued to undertake measures that are not only intended to antagonize Moscow and sabotage peace negotiations, but also directly attack the basic democratic rights of the Ukrainian population.
The following pretend scenario, putting those exact events inside Canada, instead of Ukraine, and exchanging the Russian and U.S. roles, may help Westerners better understand what happened then and the roots of the crisis today. What if what is happening on Russia’s borders was instead happening on America’s?
I must admit that I couldn’t help but smile when I read that Putin was threatening to send Russian troops to Cuba and Venezuela in response to U.S. attempts to absorb Ukraine into NATO, which would enable the Pentagon and the CIA to send U.S. troops, missiles, and tanks to Russia’s border.
When I read Putin’s statement, I knew immediately what the U.S. response would be … and that it would not be a principled one. Not surprisingly, U.S. officials didn’t like Putin’s idea at all, as reflected by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan exclaiming, “If Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively.”
Whoa! Now just wait a minute. We keep hearing U.S. officials saying that Ukraine is an independent, sovereign country (despite the fact that the U.S. government helped foment the regime-change operation that installed a pro-U.S. puppet regime in the country). As such, U.S. officials maintain that Ukraine has the rightful authority to join NATO, that old Cold War dinosaur that should have gone out of existence decades ago.
https://www.fff.org/2022/01/18/good-for-putin-for-exposing-u-s-hypocrisy/
Ben Norton: US journalists complicit in coverup of NATO lies (5 min)
Ben Norton of the Gray Zone weighs in US media narratives about turmoil in Ukraine. He argues that "spy agencies" actively feed disinformation to US reporters, who in turn "obediently reiterate" Washington's viewpoints. He also says US journalists work to "coverup" the proven dishonesty of NATO's diplomats, who swore to their counterparts from the collapsing Soviet bloc that NATO wouldn't expand eastward.
The date February 9, 1990 will be forever remembered among historians as a ‘day of infamy’ as far as NATO-Russia relations are concerned. That was the date when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker famously assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, during glasnost-era talks on German unification that the Western military bloc would not advance “one inch eastward” towards Russia’s borders.
The level of deception contained in that empty pledge is easily discernible today as NATO membership has exploded since the Cold War times to 30 member states. In 2004, the former Soviet states of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined NATO at the 2004 Istanbul summit; Albania and Croatia became members in 2009, while North Macedonia joined in 2020.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/12/22/russia-advises-nato-to...
John Pilger on Ukraine, US tensions with Russia & China: An Enemy is Essential for US & Its Vassals! (28 min)
John Pilger discusses the scandal surrounding Boris Johnson over Downing Street parties during Coronavirus lockdowns, growing US tension with Russia over Ukraine amid the backdrop of NATO enlargement to Russia’s borders, tensions with China and the West’s need for a perpetual enemy, aswell as the continuing persecution of Julian Assange
Now, I find it obvious to see the aggressor, and it ain't Russia...
- An undisclosed number of US special operators has been training Ukrainian forces inside Ukraine for several years under a mission led by US Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR). https://news.antiwar.com/2022/01/19/us-special-operations-forces-continu...
- The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.
- US Giving Ukraine Extra $200 Million in Military Aid
The additional aid was confirmed while Blinken was in Kyiv
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-cen...
UK Sends 30 Elite Troops, 2000 Anti-tank Weapons To Ukraine Amid Russian Invasion Fears
All as we lie about Russian aggression...
https://news.antiwar.com/2022/01/19/blinken-hypes-threat-of-russian-inva...
Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Ukraine on Wednesday and hyped up the threat of a potential Russian invasion, warning Russia could attack on “very short notice.”
“We know that there are plans in place to increase that force even more on very short notice, and that gives President Putin the capacity, also on very short notice, to take further aggressive action against Ukraine,” Blinken told the staff of the US Embassy in Kyiv.
Biden said something rather weird yesterday. He said:
https://thesaker.is/the-apparent-disagreement-between-ze-and-biden/
Quote: “Russia will be held accountable if it invades and it depends on what it does – it’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having to fight about what to do and what not to do, but if they actually do what they’re capable of doing with the force amassed on the border it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine,” Biden said, adding that Russia has overwhelming superiority over Ukraine”
- Russia has no need or desire for ANY type of incursion
- Russia can totally defang the Ukronazis without moving a single solider across the border (according to specialists, this would take less than a week)
- The Empire has waged a total but “short of kinetic” war against Russia since at least 2013 and that all happened while Russia did not move into the Ukraine. If no incursion results in such a sustained campaign by the West against Russia, how would a “minor incursion” make things better and placate the crazies?
- And if Russia decides that the united West is already maxed out on its anti-Russian policies, why limit yourself to a minor incursion? If, say, Russia liberated the LDNR, the rest of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, and all the Ukrainian coastline on the Black Sea, something the West would surely describe as a “major invasion”, would the consequences for Russia by the same as those following a “minor invasion”? The point is that the US has expanded all of its sanction options, any further escalation would threaten the entire international economic system and strongly increase the risks of a fullscale war.
What most observers are missing is this: the current tensions are not at all about the Ukraine, or even about NATO. They are about a new, different, new world order. The US wants to hear nothing about it. Neither does the EU. The West is absolutely and categorically opposed to any new international order. What they want is a “rules based order” in which, of course, they alone get to make all the rules.
We openly admit it...from 1992
I thought we couldn't have a worse Secretary of State that old pudgy pompus, but Blinky is giving him a run for the money.
Anthony Blinken and the intellectual bankruptcy of the Biden Administration
George Galloway said Blinky thinks he is ivy league, but he's really just little league.
Ray McGovern is hopeful...
Take heart, most of you who fear war rather than profit from it. You would not know it amid the gloom and doom about "another Russian invasion" of Ukraine, but diplomacy – not war – is about to break out this month.
https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/01/06/putins-quid-no-offensiv...
Ray returns after successful open heart surgery. We discussed the bilateral negotiations that begin tomorrow, January 9-0 in Geneva between high ranking people from both countries. We also discussed the 8 articles of the Mutual Security Agreement. As usual, Ray provides important historical context with expert analysis about what we can expect. (1.1 hour)
I hope he is correct.
Ray isn't alone in his hope for diplomacy...
Head of Russian delegation in Vienna on Arms Control, Konstantin Gavrilov, says Russia is hoping for a breakthrough in security talks with US amid rising tensions with Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f9SjiXj_U8 (14 min)
It isn't just Ukraine. Consider the recent coup attempt in Kazakhstan
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/01/06/steppe-on-fire-kazakhs...
Prime Minister of Armenia, framed it: Tokayev invoked a “threat to national security” and the “sovereignty” of Kazakhstan, “caused, inter alia, by outside interference.” So the CSTO “decided to send peacekeeping forces” to normalize the situation, “for a limited period of time”.
...
And then it all gets down to the level of ridiculous farce, as the EU starts calling on Kazakh authorities to “respect the right to peaceful protests.” As in allowing total anarchy, robbery, looting, hundreds of vehicles destroyed, attacks with assault rifles, ATMs and even the Duty Free at Almaty airport completely plundered.Now compare it to what I learned from two different, high-ranking intel sources.
The first source was explicit: the whole Kazakh adventure is being sponsored by MI6 to create a new Maidan right before the Russia/US-NATO talks in Geneva and Brussels next week, to prevent any kind of agreement. Significantly, the “rebels” maintained their national coordination even after the internet was disconnected.
The second source is more nuanced: the usual suspects are trying to force Russia to back down against the collective West by creating a major distraction in their Eastern front, as part of a rolling strategy of chaos all along Russia’s borders. That may be a clever diversionary tactic, but Russian military intel is watching. Closely. And for the sake of the usual suspects, this better may not be interpreted – ominously – was a war provocation.
The US and UK rat lines poured fighters and weapons out of Afghanistan, Syria, and Turkey
Putin, Xi running circles around Biden’s hybrid war
Washington hawks float expelling Russia from SWIFT but Moscow’s budding geo-economic alliance with Beijing will keep the money flowing
Bypassing a SWIFT mechanism “influenced by third counties” then becomes a must. Ushakov diplomatically put it as “the need to intensify efforts to form an independent financial infrastructure to service trade operations between Russia and China.”
Russian energy businesses, from Gazprom to Rosneft, know all there is to know not only about US threats but also about the negative effects of the tsunami of US dollars flooding the global economy via the Fed’s quantitative easing.
This Russia-China drive is yet another dimension of geoeconomic, geostrategic and demographic power rapidly shifting towards Eurasia and possibly foreshadowing the advent of a new world system related to other matters Putin-Xi certainly discussed: the interconnection of Belt and Road with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the expanded reach of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the coming Chinese presidency of BRICS in 2022.
The US – with US$30 trillion in debt, 236% of its militarized GDP – is virtually bankrupt. Russia-China have already experimented with their alternative payment systems, which will inevitably integrate.
The most important banks in both countries will adopt the system – as well as banks across Eurasia doing business with them, and then vast swaths of the Global South. SWIFT, in the long run, will be used only in exceptional cases if China and Russia have their way.
End Times?
Can Humanity Survive Washington’s Delusional Belief in its Omnipotence? Hat tip Azazello
"If we experience Armageddon, it will be only because Washington refused a security guarantee to Russia."
This tread is open for all comments, stories, and thoughts...
Comments
Thanks for the weekly watch
This warring nation needs a major shift in focus.
How to re-tool the 50 state military economy?
Transition them into sustainable industries makes sense.
But the 'how to do' is daunting. Change the pentagon budget
to include national infrastructure repair, domestic sustainable power
systems, efficient national light rail transportation, preparation of domestic
coastal areas for the rising seas with seawalls, pumps other sensible
alternatives. Spending all of those trillions of buckaroos on national
repair would be a good start. Would require re-defining national defense
as defending the nation from climate changes, re-training the military to do
useful domestic improvements. Shut down the arms contracts. Re-use
warships for coastline repairs, neutralize nuclear weapons, etc.
Talk about wishful thinking! There is a way to change this suicidal path we are on.
As SoE mentioned yesterday, the 1% controlling the military needs rehab.
Confabulated with ending the money in politics, we may have a chance.
We do have a choice.
My approach...
is to live as far outside of the corporate system as possible. Like last week's theme, side step the system.
Now we've brought the war home...treating our own like we've been treating 3rd world people forever.
The utter incoherence and incompetence of the US is simply staggering.
It is a pleasant 40 degrees and sunny today good to get out and piddle.
Thanks for the visit!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
That's funny, it's a chilly 44 degrees here.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The sun makes all the difference
plus no wind, plus highs in the 30's over the last few days. So feels warm today.
Bundle up!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Not to worry
The media will inform us of current events, giving us facts to aid us in coming to wise decisions.
https://www.al.com/go-comics/?amu=/pearlsbeforeswine/
great comic...
family circus was a good choice.
Thanks for the laugh and visit.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning lookout. I had tentatively decided to
tread lightly upon today's WW, but my horoscope, sun sign = Sardonic, says stay the course. Uncle Stupid could simply repudiate all of it's debt and or deflect and tell it's creditors that the debt, like everything else, belongs to da FED, and they can sue it in any jurisdiction they please. We could then adopt bullets as a currency and sell off all military hardware that was purely single purpose, while converting other stuff into airliners and cruise ships and such. Sadly, that pipe dream requires that we be quasi-self sufficient, and not rely upon ROW for damn near all of our consumer and industrial goods. ASIDE: I'd like to introduce you to ROW, an exceedingly useful acronym from one of my former lives, one we used quite frequently in discussing and analyzing things, means RestOfWorld. Often used in diagrams, with arrows and such between, for example:
US Bank ---worthless paper -----> ROW ----goods & services-----> US Bankers
EDIT - had to check and correct preview ++ insert
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I like this one...
which I first saw at the paper museum in Atlanta...
Rags Make Paper
Paper Makes Money
Money Makes Banks
Banks Make Loans
Loans Make Beggars
Beggars Make Rags
—–Anon. English 19th C.
Have a good day!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Crisp, Cold, Sunny
@ Lookout and QMS
in NYC. My outerwear gear collection would be sufficient in the Arctic, so I will be heading out to enjoy the day.
Lookout, I agree with your take on what's happening in the political sphere this week. The lust for war burns even more brightly as it seems the WarLords have caught the scent of profits flowing from stoking even more conflict way up their noses and deep into their bloodstream.
Can this mad stampede be stopped---IDK.
The NY newspapers this morning are stressing that Bojo/UK are calling for war. As if that matters. Like when your fifth grader tells you that so-and-so's parents will let your kids friend do something dumb. So you should get with the program. Unpersuasive, to say the least.
I keep hoping that something can stop the madness.
QMS---beat their swords into ploughshares---military production converting to high speed rail, soybeans for China's pigs, back to wheat fields and vegetable gardens to feed America.
It is not impossible, but maybe an impossible dream as the US in its current incarnation could care less about feeding its people or creating a viable world.
Thank you Lookout for compiling all this evidence and posting it for us. It's appreciated more than you can imagine.
NYCVG
There much more evidence...
but this scratch at the surface makes it clear who is the aggressor.
Thanks for reading, and the visit. Get out and enjoy the day!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
This says a lot about that deranged Antony Blinken.
yeah following her war mongering footsteps...
I liked George's description of him as thinking of himself as an ivy leaguer, while in reality being a little leaguer.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Brandon covering up for his son.
I'm glad to see that clip still in circulation
Curious they tried to impeach Trump for far less...on second thought is is pretty obvious.
Thanks for posting it!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The corrupt bankers don't really bother me so much.
It like dealing with poisonous snakes. It's just their nature. So you handle them carefully. And we've known about this endemic corruption for hundreds of years in the US, alone. It is an established part of the historical record. For whatever reason, we have decided not to hold the psychopaths we produce accountable. And that doesn't bother me, either. It's who they are.
What bothers me is the rest of the livestock. They can reproduce, but they cannot think. Like livestock, they eat, breed, obey, shuffle off to work, grumble, expell methane on a daily basis, wear out, and die. But they cannot help themselves. They just keep voting. A million years and no evolution of consciousness; no harmonic convergence. The sociopolitical culture is like a vast network of dumb terminals and no modems. They pray to god instead of becoming god, which is a shame. Maybe in 500,000 years or so, conditions will improve for them.
I was expecting something different. But I will say it is a privilege to have the opportunity to leave everything a little better than I found it. To shape it into something a little more precise. And I'm really grateful to be in the company of such remarkable people during this part of the journey. Onward.
How lucky we were to have lived during the sixties
When questioning, peace, and openness were the norm. Of course there was plenty of conflict in those days too.
Glad to "see" you today. Thanks for the visit!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I got this in my email this morning.
It is from Caity.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/01/23/anonymous-officials-claim-theres...
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
strange, you still trust her? /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
very much so.
She has never written anything I have read that was flat out wrong.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
me neither, but I never received her writings per email
@lookout
sorry for my question. this was very stupid of me. apologies to you both.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Move along...
nothing to see here...
Caity seems spot on most of the time.
Thanks for the article!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I always trust
unknown and unverified sources, doncha know?
The NYT is being fed their headlines by the CIA.
The paper lost me when they forced hedges to quit, rather than follow their marching orders.
Any way, every day without a world war is a pretty damn nice day.
It has been pretty chilly here of late, reaching freezing temperatures 2 or 3 nights last week.
I do not look forward to a full day of rain tomorrow, but I do not have to leave the office, and can avoid it, for the most part.
I wish some veterans would step up, speak out about the craziness of what we are doing. We should be roundly condemned for fomenting a war of aggression. We have nothing to fear from Russia or China. At least the 99%ers don't. I have no interest in seeing anybody killed to support the banksters. I have always been staunchly ant-war.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Up is down and black is white!
no wonder...
TPTB hate truth bombs...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Next comes a bonfire
and an invitation to bring your books, watch the sparks fly.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Nice night for a fire...
Already back in the 30's. Hope everyone is snug and warm this time of year. Reckon I'll sign off and wish you all a good night!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Lo,
we are warm, no matter what.
I remember how difficult it was for my parents and g'parents to survive WWII. I might be prepared for another one, but would rather avoid it.
I know of a book burning that occurred in the 1960s. These were the sinners: The Beatles. Seems the Baptists and Pentecostals were outrage about...something or other.
Hope we never suppress literature, ever, again, anywhere.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Cut off their allowance? Its an addiction.
What do you do with addicts whose spending is out of control? Cut off their supply.
Maybe the militarists in Washington and London could be forced to resign, via some popular vote of no confidence?
The UK is the worst. We should break our association permanently with that sordid greedy monarchistic nation.
Hope nobody is burning their furniture like some have to
in England on particularly cold nights. Prepaid gas, electricity and water meters, here we come.
"Whats in your wallet?"
Its too true, Orwell was smart, TB got him. He couldnt tolerate
the new antibiotics, if he had just been able to hold out another two or three months he would have gotten better ones.
"WISE" is defined by TPTB backwards! Its whats most stupid,
Our government is so beholden to corporations its swallewed a backwards definition of gain and loss. Gain and loss as defined by our corporate state is backwrds. Which would frame an enviromental disaster that shortened millions of peoples lives as a gain, because of the spending they would need to do to keep people alive, that means profits for them, in an environment of buy or die. No it doesnt make sense, except to our warlord class.Only a madman would frame giving people cancer as helping them. Thats how cults think. doomsday cults, to be exact.
The AUM cult that attempted to poison Japanese subway riders framed poisoning people with nerve gas as a gain, as a GAIN, because it would they hoped, cause a societal disruption hastening their milennarium takeover of their government. By all sane peoples thinking, a likely disaster because revolutions statisticlly often cause lots of death and destruction.
The TRIPS agrement, starting January 1, 1995, (yes, its part of the WTO) redefined drug pricing, removing the cost to manufacture a drug completely from the equation, (most drugs cost less than a penny for a months RX. The bottle and its label in fact usually costs more than its contents.) and refocusing on the severity of the disease the drug is intended to treat, and a "co-pay" which is usually more rather than less than the cost to buy the drug wholesale.
This is why many people find generic drugs much more affordble than on patent drugs and there is a good argument to shorten drug patents to only a year or two since the drug industry has gone completely binkers in their pricing of "in patent" drugs, almost without exception. . This requires all cancer drugs to be potentially hundreds or thousands of times more expensive than their manufacturing cost.
Keep in mind that government pays more than 80% of the cost of research, here in the US almost all Rx drugs research was funded by us, the taxpayers already. until 1995 there used to be a law, the reasonable pricing rule, that limited what drug companies could pay, However it was repealed by the Clinton Administration, like the law limiting banks from not selling securities. (The Glass Steagall Act) leading to the 2008 financial crisis. Like the reasonable pricing rule's repeal, the reason cited was the WTO. So we've really been thrown to the sharks, We basically cant win if substances are patented. This is now driving a push to patent all natural substances, so they can be resold as "drugs" and not things like plant extract. Any that show promise will instantly become so insanely expensive most wont be able to afford them. This is because many plant substances, do in fact reduce cancer. Like resveratrol. So there is a push to patent and monopolize them. This is the exact opposite of free trade, its slave trade. In fact, there is a push to bring back slavery and put people into unpayable debt by creating situations that tempt the poor to break the law - could something as trivial as not declaring some ebay ioncome lead to enslavement? Yes, if one gets sick and receives healthcare one is not entitled to receive. It could, and no doubt will, as jobs vanish. The system is set uyp to behave that way, almost certainly, how else would it be set up? Look up 'Market Spiral pricing of cancer drugs.
if cancer drugs become expensive as the Market Spiral Pricing Method for drugs defines them.
This is similar to how industry describes US job losses and offshoring as a gain. Even though its a disaster to a family to have its primary wage earners career suddenly become obsolete or economically no longer viable as often happens when a entire profession's labor is priced out of markets. Its not a gain if somebody is too old to change careers, which is often the case because the higher and higher cost of health insurance as people age, discourages businesses from hiring older people, giving employers "a legal excuse" to lay them off. Thanks, Obamacare. (WHose purpose was actually p[reventing the prices of healthcare and Rx dugs from collapsing, yes, they made the problem worse, intentionally. That's the government and ideology we are pushing, hard, today.
Are people realizing the system now is set up expressly so we the people dont have a chance of winning, and corporations profits are guaranteed, even when huge disasters happen to people, in fact, especially when they do. This is creating an incentive for corporations to exacerbates "crises" and "emergencies" which they can MILK for profits..
Here is a good example, of a totally avoidable "crisis" caused by war. And its one that was avoidable.
https://worldbeyondwar.org/where-did-the-war-on-cancer-come-from/ WARs must be avoided because they are like waving red flags in front of bulls who set up these fake "emergency" situations to take advantage of us and them. Its like firemen setting fires to drive more spending on fire departments. Whe did the war on the poor come from? The ad industry frames older people as "dead weight" because spending falls off as we age. So they would rather older people leave and be replaced by free spending young people, who want to impress others so buy what they dont need.
People have to understand how oligarchs think in private and between each other, the biggest mistake we make is trusting them, (at all) the minute we make that mistake, then our chances of avoiding disaster shrinks exponentially.