A third war with U.S. involvement is brewing in South America; a radical new way of pricing medicine; and the $250 million communist.
A Third War with U.S. Involvement Brewing in South America
The world must be getting used to war. An old-fashioned war of conquest to acquire natural resources is on the verge of breaking out between Venezuela and Guyana. And, once again, the United States is taking sides.
Under socialist president Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has gone from being one of the richest countries in Latin America to one of the poorest, plagued by hyperinflation and corruption. After Chavez died in 2013, his handpicked successor Nicolás Maduro has been ruling with dictatorial powers.
Venezuela has long claimed the region of Essequibo, which by international law comprises two-thirds of the territory of Guyana. Since a vast amount of oil was discovered in Essequibo in 2015, Venezuela has been eyeing its neighbor with a new interest.
Maduro placed before Venezuelan voters a referendum on whether the country should annex Essequibo. The residents of that region were not consulted and had no vote. On December 3, the referendum was approved, with each section getting more than 96% of the vote, though the validity of the election–as with other Maduro-mandated elections–is contested. The referendum was interpreted as a vote on whether to go to war with Guyana.
As Maduro seems to be preparing for war, the United States is rallying to Guyana’s defense. According to a Newsweek article entitled US Risks Being Dragged Into Third War,
The U.S. military said on Thursday that its Southern Command forces would carry out “flight operations within Guyana” later in the day, and that Washington would “continue its commitment as Guyana’s trusted security partner.”. . .
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with [Guyana president Irfaan] Ali to “reaffirm the United States’ unwavering support for Guyana’s sovereignty” on Wednesday, the U.S. government said in a statement.
So the United States, already pouring resources into a war in Europe and a war in the Middle East, is now committed to the defense of another ally in South America. These are worthy causes in themselves, but can our stretched-thin and resource-depleted military and our cash-strapped government handle all of these demans?
A Radical New Way of Pricing Medicine
CVS pharmacies, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, has announced a new way of setting prices for medicines. They will take what the pharmacy pays manufacturers for the drug, then tack on a markup to cover overhead and profit margin.
What a great idea! But. . .isn’t that how all retailers set their prices?
The answer is no. The prices of prescription drugs are determined by the pharmacy companies as negotiated with insurance companies. Often, a drug has two prices, one paid by the insurance companies and the other paid by other customers such as hospitals. Insurance companies are fine with the higher price because they get a kickback from the drug companies, even though this often means higher out-of-pocket costs for insured patients. (Here is an explanation from the Wall Street Journal, though it’s behind a paywall.)
CVS, with its 9,500 pharmacies, is a big player in the prescription drug industry, so its new “pass-through pricing” will greatly simplify the cost of drugs. Though some might cost more under the new system, most of them will reportedly cost less. It will be implemented over the next several years. According to the Wall Street Journal [behind a paywall],
The company will call the payment model CostVantage. When it starts rolling out next year, the new prices will first become available to consumers paying cash for their prescriptions using an array of drug discount cards.
In 2025, the setup will be incorporated into CVS pharmacies’ contracts with pharmacy-benefit managers covering drugs paid for under employer plans.
Executives said they plan to implement the new retail pharmacy-payment model for government-backed coverage, such as Medicare plans, in the future.
The $250 Million Communist
Suzy Weiss of the Free Press has written a fascinating profile of Fergie Chambers, who has started a Communist commune in tony Alford, Massachusetts.
Her story is entitled He’s Got $250 Million to Spend on Communist Revolution, with the summarizing deck: “Fergie Chambers is heir to one of the biggest American family fortunes. He’s also a revolutionary with ‘actual bloodlust’ building a mysterious commune in Massachusetts. His neighbors are scared.”
Chambers is a scion of the Cox family, which owns the third largest cable TV company among many other enterprises that make them the eighth richest family in America. The 38-year-old Fergie has a fortune of $250 million, which he is spending on anti-Israel protests, sponsoring Communist publications and activities, bailing out and paying the fines of leftwing protesters who get arrested, giving money to Middle Eastern terrorists, and planning other revolutionary schemes.
What struck me is that Fergie, who despises his family and is quite self-aware about his desire to destroy the very economic system that made him rich, is quite open about advocating violence. He is no mere leftwing progressive motivated by woke idealism. He loves the old school Soviet Union–the vanity plate on his Tacoma is “CCCP”–and he has a tattoo of both Mao Tse Tung and Joseph Stalin.
Here are some of his quotations from the article:
“Make Zionists afraid,” Fergie wrote in a post on his Instagram on November 15. In another he wrote: “We need to start making people who support Israel actually afraid to go out in public. We need to make all of white America afraid that everything they have stolen is going to be burned to the ground. That’s what makes them listen.”. . .
“No descendant of European settlers is oppressed, anywhere,” Fergie posted recently. “Not nearly enough, anyhow.” . . .
“There is nothing more disgusting than rich people who do nothing to undermine the material position of their own class vaguely calling for peace and love,” Fergie wrote on Instagram on November 2. “It gives me actual bloodlust.” . . .
How about the specific events on October 7, where 1,200 people were murdered, women raped, and others burned alive? “The Al-Aqsa Flood was a powerful statement of resistance to genocide,” he said.
On X, he was even more forthcoming about the massacre: “One month ago today, the Palestinian Resistance heroically jolted the occupiers, eliminat[ing] a number of combatant settlers,” he wrote. . . .
“In the future there will be no Israelis.”
Fergie posted a message directly on Instagram to Great Barrington residents who feel threatened by him: “You are rich white [E]uropean settlers in a cultural resort town.” The working class are “coming for you one day soon,” Fergie predicted, and once that happens, “There won’t ever be enough cops to call.”
Though his commune “The Berkshire Communists,” which consists of about 10 comrades at any given time, is in Massachusetts, Fergie himself lives three hours away in New Hampshire due its lax gun laws and lower taxes.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In