Capitalists provide the rope

 In which it becomes apparent that Vladimir Lenin wasn’t entirely wrong about capitalism:

One-shot cures for diseases are not great for business—more specifically, they’re bad for longterm profits—Goldman Sachs analysts noted in an April 10 report for biotech clients, first reported by CNBC.

The investment banks’ report, titled “The Genome Revolution,” asks clients the touchy question: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” The answer may be “no,” according to follow-up information provided.

Analyst Salveen Richter and colleagues laid it out:

The potential to deliver “one shot cures” is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically engineered cell therapy, and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies… While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.

For a real-world example, they pointed to Gilead Sciences, which markets treatments for hepatitis C that have cure rates exceeding 90 percent. In 2015, the company’s hepatitis C treatment sales peaked at $12.5 billion. But as more people were cured and there were fewer infected individuals to spread the disease, sales began to languish. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the treatments will bring in less than $4 billion this year.

“[Gilead]’s rapid rise and fall of its hepatitis C franchise highlights one of the dynamics of an effective drug that permanently cures a disease, resulting in a gradual exhaustion of the prevalent pool of patients,” the analysts wrote. The report noted that diseases such as common cancers—where the “incident pool remains stable”—are less risky for business.

Appalling, of course. But this will serve a useful reference example for explaining to mindless GDP idolaters that higher corporate profits and rising Gross Domestic Product are not the primary objectives of a civilized human society. 

“Dozens of meetings”

Like his very good friend Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates also didn’t kill himself:

Jeffrey Epstein suggested Bill Gates should leave his wife Melinda during dozens of meetings at the convicted pedophile’s $77million Manhattan townhouse, according to a person who attended the ‘men’s club’-style get-togethers.

Gates’ visits to Epstein’s ‘lair’ were an escape from his unhappy marriage, and the pair ‘were very close’, a source told The Daily Beast.

The report alleges the pair’s friendship blurred personal and professional lines, and was much closer than Gates had previously admitted. 

A spokeswoman for Gates said he had never talked in a disparaging way about Melinda.

The Daily Beast revealed Gates sought marriage advice Epstein during dozens of meetings between 2011 and 2014, far more than had previously been reported. 

It appears that the history of the personal computer is going to have to be completely rewritten. If, at this point, you don’t realize that Bill Gates is little more than an actor playing the role of “tech billionaire” and “vaccine pusher”, then you’re simply not paying any attention to how the world works.

Remember when Bill Gates only flew on Epstein’s plane once, and he didn’t even know whose plane it was? Yeah, that was the official line as recently as last week.

It’s interesting to see that Gates is clearly being burned. Which tends to lead to the obvious questions: why and by whom?

UPDATE: Jeffrey Epstein is not the only convicted pedophile with whom Bill Gates has been very closely associated. And by “very closely associated” I mean “literally arrested at Gates’s house”. At this rate, it won’t be long before it comes out that Bill Gates’s real name is William Gatestein.

Dancing around IQ

It’s rather amusing to see one of the sporting world’s most converged organizations, the National Football League, finding itself caught between social justice and its pocketbook:

Race norming is sometimes used in medicine as a rough proxy for socioeconomic factors that can affect someone’s health. Experts in neurology said the way it’s used in the NFL settlement is too simplistic and restrictive, and has the effect of systematically discriminating against Black players.

“Because every Black retired NFL player has to perform lower on the test to qualify for an award than every white player. And that’s essentially systematic racism in determining these payouts,” said Katherine Possin, a neurology professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center.

In other major settlements, including those tied to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing, all claimants were treated the same.

“We concluded, fairly quickly, that we would take the top compensation for the white male and everyone would get the same, the top dollar,” said lawyer Ken Feinberg, who has overseen many of the largest settlement funds. “We would cure this compensatory discrimination by having a rising tide raise all ships.”

The first lawsuits accusing the NFL of hiding what it knew about the link between concussions and brain damage were filed in 2011. A trickle soon became a deluge, and the NFL, rather than risk a trial, agreed in 2013 to pay $765 million over 65 years for certain diagnoses, including Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. But as the claims poured in, Brody feared the fund would run out early and ordered the cap removed.

The NFL, which foots the bill, began challenging claims by the hundreds, according to the claims website.

In appealing one filed by Najeh Davenport, the NFL complained that his doctor had not used “full demographic norms” in the cognitive scoring. That meant factoring in age, education, gender — and race.

“I remain unsure what you are talking about. He was done using standard norms like everyone else. Using different racial standards is indeed discriminatory and illegal. We stand by our scores,” the physician said in response, according to court records….

The NFL’s dementia testing evaluates a person’s function in two dozen skills that fall under five sections: complex attention/processing speed; executive functioning; language; learning and memory; and visual perception. A player must show a marked decline in at least two of them to get an award.

In an example shared with The Associated Press, one player’s raw score of 19 for “letter-number sequencing” in the processing section was adjusted using “race-norming” and became 42 for whites and 46 for Blacks.

The raw score of 15 for naming animals in the language section became a 35 for whites and 41 for Blacks. And the raw score of 51 for “block design” in the visual perception section became a 53 for whites but 60 for Blacks.

Taking the 24 scores together, either a white or Black player would have scored low enough to reach the settlement’s 1.5-level of early dementia in “processing speed.” However, in the language section, the scores would have qualified a white man for a 2.0-level, or moderate, dementia finding — but shown no impairment for Blacks.

Overall, the scores would result in a 1.5-level dementia award for whites — but nothing for Blacks. Those awards average more than $400,000 but can reach $1.5 million for men under 45, while 2.0-level dementia yields an average payout of more than $600,000 but can reach $3 million.

The problem is that since blacks who play in the NFL have lower average IQs than whites who play in the NFL – which is clearly established through the league’s use of the Wonderlic test for all of its draftees – they don’t need to show as much cognitive decline to register as impaired. Indeed, there are probably a few very low-IQ players who would have registered as impaired before they played a single NFL game.

So, the average white player has to take more damage in order to reach the same level of “impairment” as the average black player, but proving this on a case-by-case basis is impossible without having an initial baseline for each player. Hence the need to race-norm, which of course flies in the face of the league’s official position on equality and therefore renders the NFL unable to utilize science or reason to defend itself.

It’s always nice to see the converged hoist on their own petard, and if there is an organization that deserves to be, it is the NFL.

I would LOVE to vote for a Hispanic president

I started to write “who falls for these ludicrous stories” when it struck me, I know perfectly well who falls for them and why.

It goes like this: He was working as a janitor at Frito-Lay’s Rancho Cucamonga plant when he dreamed up a chile-covered Cheeto and believed in himself enough to call up the chief executive to pitch his spicy idea.
Corporate backstabbers tried to sabotage Montañez for stepping out of line, but he out-hustled them, driven by a hunger to succeed. Flamin’ Hots became a runaway hit, and Montañez rose through the ranks and became an icon.
Watching his many recorded speaking engagements, it’s easy to see why his story has taken off.
Montañez is a charismatic speaker, and his tale of a Mexican American underdog whose ingenuity conquered the corporate world is a rags-to-riches fable baked into the origin of a wildly popular snack.
With their spicy kick and neon-red flavor dust, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos have inspired viral rap videos, Instagram-worthy menu items and streetwear designs. Schools have banned the snack altogether over concerns about its popularity with children. Clear revenue numbers are hard to come by, but nearly every major Frito-Lay line, from Smartfood popcorn to Funyuns, now has a Flamin’ Hot variety on the market.
Montañez has built a lucrative second career out of telling and selling this story, appearing at events for Target, Walmart, Harvard and USC, among others, and commanding fees of $10,000 to $50,000 per appearance.

It’s no wonder the Richard Montañezs, the Ben Shapiros, the Candace Owens harbor such contempt for white conservatives. White conservatives will believe literally anything a minority tells them, because it makes them feel good about themselves.

If NASA ever finds itself in serious danger of being exposed, all they need to do is whip up a mission to send a black astronaut, a Hispanic astronaut, and a gay astronaut to the Moon. No white conservative would ever doubt anything NASA said ever again.

Here is the metric. If hearing about a story makes you not only feel good, but feel good about yourself for feeling good, be very skeptical.

MUST HAZ MOAR NEGROZE!

It doesn’t matter if it’s the Oscars, television advertising, NFL head coaching positions, or books about historians. The social justice prescription is always the same: MUST HAZ MOAR NEGROZE!

It has taken nearly a decade to research and write, and runs to more than 750 pages. But The History Makers, described as “an epic exploration of those who write about the past”, has itself been rewritten after its author failed to take into account enough black historians, academics and writers.

Richard Cohen was told by his publisher to produce new chapters and expand others after failing to sufficiently acknowledge the roles of black people and African Americans.

“It was to do with the publisher’s sensitivities,” says Cohen, who previously wrote the highly praised Chasing The Sun and How to Write Like Tolstoy. “I was then asked to write more, and have done about another 18,000 words.”

Now, despite the rewrite, publication of the book in the US has been cancelled, according to sources in New York. Cohen’s contract with Random House in America was signed some years ago and was said by sources to be for about $350,000. Yet, after seeking the changes on black history and historians, the publisher dramatically pulled out of the deal last Wednesday.

The crazy thing is that neither Booker T. Washington nor Frederick Douglass, for all their virtues, were historians! Why not throw in George Washington Carver, Michael Jordan, and Doctor Dre, while you’re at it? If this historians of the future learn anything, anything at all, from the decline and fall of the United States of America, it is this: 1) sink the ships, and, 2) always pick your own damn cotton.

It’s strange, but in all my days, I have never, ever, heard anyone ever say that what is required is more American Indians. It’s also strange how the one-drop rule is sufficient to make a man black, but not even a substantial amount of American Indian blood will prevent people from aggressively denying that a man is red.

UPDATE: NOT ENOUGH NEGROZE! MUST HAZ MOAR!

Producers of the much anticipated Friends comeback show are at the centre of a race row after failing to cast any black actors. While the one-off return of the much loved US sitcom will feature all six members of the original line-up, the list of celebrity guests stars announced by broadcaster HBO has been criticised for a lack of diversity. 

I think they have no choice but to go their critics one better and replace Ross and Monica with Rakeem and Monique. Diversity demands it!

The canceling of literature

Huckleberry Finn has long been the first book that Easton Press sells at a heavy discount to its Book-of-the-Month buyers. But given how Easton is mostly run by young women who have recently graduated from Ivy League universities, I expect it won’t be long before they stop publishing it at all in light of the bad odor in which Mark Twain is now held by the universities:

St. John’s University joins a list of woke universities, schools, and programs willing to reshape its curriculum to coddle students who feel challenged on a mental or emotional level.

During a reading of Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson, Professor Hannah Berliner Fischthal became another casualty in the way of a race-based movement that cost her a profession and livelihood – one built on years of garnering her students’ trust through thoughtful and open conversation.

During a read-through that prompted Berliner Fischthal to use the N-word directly from the text, one student exited the online session and sent an email detailing the emotional distress this cause.

The student’s email stated that the professor’s use of the term was “unnecessary and very painful to hear.” The message became a public ordeal and prompted the university to investigate the action, leading to the professor’s dismissal from St. John’s University.

This is just another reason why it’s not only desirable, but vital, to subscribe to Castalia Library. Regarding which, I have a few things to mention.

First, the first three leatherbound Junior Classics have been sent to the printer. We’ll order the leather this week, so the production is in process. We don’t know how long it will take, as that depends upon the bindery’s schedule. Below is the front endpapers, which will feature the appropriate names and sections of the specific volume. We’re also close to getting the regular volumes 4, 5, and 6 out the door.

Second, we’ll stop taking orders for the leatherbound Junior Classics on Monday at noon, since we have to finalize the number. We’re going to print a few extra interiors since it’s economical for us to do so, so there will probably be an opportunity to acquire a leather set at some point in the future, but this will be your last opportunity for some time.

Third, as I’ve already announced, the Castalia Library and Libraria Castalia editions of Summa Elvetica will NOT be signed. There have already been sufficient delays that Heidi will be shipped first, and it’s just going to take too long to print the special pages, ship them to Europe, ship them back, and have them tipped-in. It was a stupid notion and I’m sorry we won’t be able to deliver on the signed editions. Obviously, if anyone who bought the one-off on that notion wants a refund, we will certainly provide it. And for those who don’t care about the signature, the book is nearly sold out already so you might want to consider grabbing one while you can.

Speaking of sell-outs, beginning with Rhetoric, we’re increasing the number of Library editions to 850. This is because the books are nearly sold out on the basis of the subscriptions alone now. Libraria editions will remain at 100. The current subscription book is Discourses on Livy by Machiavelli.

We are aware that some people received doubles of Plutarch, and others still haven’t received their Divine Comedy – me included. Let us know at library -at- castaliahouse -dot- com in either case; the bindery is actively resolving each case one at a time. They have a new system in place which should prevent these problems in the future and we’ve reserved enough books to make certain that everyone who paid for one will receive one. In the meantime, don’t bother letting me know, as I can’t do anything about it and don’t even have my copy of Dante or Plutarch. 

And finally, the rear endpapers for the leather editions, which will be the same for every volume.

UPDATE:  If you have an issue, send it to the email address above and it will be directed to the responsible party, who will address it. Scores of issues have been successfully resolved this way. If you post it here in the comments, it will be deleted. If you email it to me, it will be deleted. If people want me to write anything at all in the future, then they will have to stop treating me like a call center based in India simply because I am accessible. And to think some people wonder why I absolutely refuse to do book tours, speeches, or any other public appearances….