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Greece Owes $1.2 Billion To Drugmakers As Government Can No Longer Afford Basic Medical Supplies
Talks between Greece and its creditors went full-retard on Wednesday when the following soundbite from Canada’s FinMin Joe Oliver hit the wires:
“No Greek payment to IMF would be default to IMF”
That seemed self-evident to us, but in a world governed by debt, we suppose everyone occasionally needs to remind themselves that failure to make good on one’s obligations constitutes default.
In any event, Greece apparently owes quite a bit of money to the world’s drug suppliers because, as we reported earlier this week, Athens is now running short on bed sheets and painkillers in its hospitals as the consequences of being completely beholden to the ”institutions” which control the printing of a fiat currency become increasingly clear.
Here’s what we said on Sunday:
The idea that a developed country cannot provide basic emergency medical care because it is in poor standing with the institutions that print a fiat currency is patently absurd and simply isn't tenable meaning that one way or another, this 'situation' will resolve itself in the coming weeks, an event which will put Europe's broken bond markets to a rather difficult test.
And now, we get this from Reuters:
Cash-strapped Greece has racked up mounting debts with international drugmakers and now owes the industry more than 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), a leading industry official said on Wednesday.
The rising unpaid bill reflects the growing struggle by the nearly bankrupt country to muster cash, and creates a dilemma for companies under moral pressure not to cut off supplies of life-saving medicines.
Richard Bergstrom, director general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, told Reuters his members had not been paid by Greece since December 2014. They are owed money by both hospitals and state-run health insurer EOPYY.
And in a further sign that, regardless of whatever outcome emerges from fraught talks between Syriza and group of creditors determined to use financial leverage as a means of subverting the democratic process in the EU, contingency plans are being discussed not only amongst 'the institutions' but amongst private sector firms as well:
Drugmakers and EU officials are now discussing options in the event Greece defaults on its debt or leaves the euro zone, disrupting imports of vital goods, including medicines.
"We have started a conversation in Brussels with the European Commission," Bergstrom said. "We want the Commission to know that our companies are in this for the long run and are committed to Greece."
There is a precedent for the pharmaceutical industry to agree exceptional supply measures during a financial crisis. It happened in Argentina in 2002, when some firms agreed to continue to supply drugs for a period without payment.
But the situation is complicated in Europe, given EU competition rules. They mean the Commission would need to take the initiative in approving any special scheme.
Drugmakers want any emergency program to include steps to mitigate spillover effects on other markets, including curbs on re-exports of drugs and a block on other governments referencing Greek prices when setting their own drug prices.
Simply turning off the supply is not an option for the industry, as Novo Nordisk discovered at the start of Greek debt crisis five years ago when it faced a storm of protest over plans to halt some insulin deliveries.
And while leaving Greeks with a shortage of "life-saving" drugs may "not be an option," Greece has run out of options as well when it comes to coming up with the money to pay for basic medical supplies which means that without a deal, the world's largest drugmakers could find themselves in the same financial place as the IMF and the ECB — that is, holding what amounts to IOUs from the Greek government.
The drugs industry has been here before. Greece also ran up large debts for its medicines in 2010-12, although they have since been repaid, with some companies receiving payment in government bonds that were subsequently written down in value.
Whether or not this is a precedent the industry will be willing to follow remains to be seen.
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Ok Mr. Tsipras, what will it be?
1) Pay salaries & pensions
2) Pay for healthcare
3) Pay the Banks
For some strange reason, I get the feeling you'll choose #3.
Assume the position.
Thank you Sir, may I have another?
Perhaps Tsipiris can turn the collective Greek Citizenry into duracel batteries, ala the Matrix, to pay back the money the bankers created for them out of thin air. Perhaps it's time Greece started printing their own money out of thin air. I think this is the Final Game Theory: Greece doesn't want to be blamed for taken down the European Union, so it must show the world how far it will suffer to prove the bankers are the ones to blame. Then, only then, can Greece blamelessly default on their debts, and start over with the Drachma.
Greecy
https://youtu.be/llbzUyv1CLU
Greece was actually done and dusted once they had to do the olympics.
Sorry, once they "won" th eright to host the olympics in 2004.
I'd imagine that for a country that was in Greece's condition even back then, THAT was th estraw that broke the camel's back.
Now all those stadia lie disused and in ruins. All the big money must have been spent on International contractors....
Olympics/World cups etc... Kisses of death.
People going "wild" when they "win" the right to be ass fucked by the elite is a comi-tragedy...
just becoz....
https://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/art-a-thoughtstream-and-book...
I'm getting tired of it all. Greece should never have joined the EMU and got screwed by GS then again by the EU. BUT a lot of its problems are self-created. Greec has never been able to collect taxes adequately. The solution must include either establishing a working tax collection method (It isn't rocket science if the people at the top wanted it to happen, which they don't) OR give up on Government and return to a Government-lite State in which the people have to fend for themselves. A lot of us would believe that the latter solution is a better one. The US used to be like that in its glory days??
Throw those pathetic Greeks out of Europe already.
Throw those pathetic pharma companies out of the monopoly already
Yeah, you idiot think it´s a shame they demand to be payed for their products and don´t give the stuff to the Greeks for free. Shows you how braindead some here on ZH really are.
Well, Germans banks made bad investments in Greece and got bailed out by the European tax payers. Sounds fair to you? Not to me. Nobody will bail you out when you made bad investments so why should banks? That is not capitalism true form.
Wolferl wasn't talking about banks. Can you find the words "banks," "bankers," "banksters" etc in his post? No? Then STFU up about the banks already. We already know that they are stupidly corrupt.
Wolferl was talking about companies that produce a product out of something other than thin air. (ie fiat) Such sompanies should expect to be paid in full for their products. Your avatar must be a mirror.
Bail everyone out. I mean every single person/company with any claim, however small and weak.
Taxes? Not needed to be collected. Just print money.
Until it all blows, nothing will be solved.
They should have just crafted obamacare over there and everything would have been fine.
WELCOME!... to socialism. Everything is great as long as you can print money or take money from other people. When you've finally destroyed your economy and people's livelihoods you blame others for your irresponsible, criminal, government spending.
The equal distribution of [medical] misery, except for the elites.
Street drug dealers are smart enough to NOT extend credit to junkies.
I kind of hope big pharma gets screwed here just on principle.
Actually, they do. However, if the payment plan is not followed satisfactorily, the results are graphic. I guess we should hope big Pharma doesn't recruit them as representatives.
Miffed
How neatly done Joe A. Dont answer the question but go entirely off the page. So you think that everyone but you who might produce something useful should hand it over for free. Gee, I think that they used to call that slavery here in the states as in "you do the work and I'll eat the bread". Another Maserati Marxist at work.
You're the #1 canadate for braindead, ready for the bondy default here right?
It is maddening. Everyone is a villian here. The irony is that Greece is complaining about the LACK of drugs whereas they wouldn't exist at ALL for anyone without evil pharma. Lots of anarchists around here that just want to watch the world burn.
The Greeks could of developed their own generic manufacturers with less than one of their IMF payments.
What we are learning from greece...taxation of the serfs must be agenda #1 of fiat .gov. it is laughable that so many even on ZH are calling the tax serfs the guilty party here. why? well because they have been able to keep what they earn and avoid taxation unlike the serfs in USA/EU, like it is a citizen's duty to pay off the graft and back door deals of the oligarch's and bankster's who have coopted the pols..and taken pork barrel programs and corruption to new hights..laughable.
It apparently takes 4 weeks for a default to the IMF to be properly registered which takes us from June 5 to July 3.
Given there are several IMF payments spread throughout June, this could be a very painful month for Greece!
I hope you've all got your gold bullion sorted - next week might be too late!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ
He sold that choosing 3) is for cowards.
Optimum is choosing 1) AND 2) with 3)'s people currency (in his mind, I suppose).
Let's see what he thinks about what others think about what he really thinks.
He's well assisted by a "Gambling Theory" PhD payed with 3)'s currency.
Option four. Go back to the Dracula - let the Greek govt suck the life out its own citizens by printing its own funny rather than allowing the big bank in Frankfort. Negotiate being allowed to stay within the EUnion - thus contine to collect all those needed regional grants and subsidies. Negotiate to repay all that legacy Euro debt at 70% - this year and when they find that impossible - they will - renegotiate down to 50%, and then to 30%. ..
Eventually the cheap currency will draw in the tourists, make whatever it is that Greece sells price competative, and end the bleed of Greeks moving their hard money assets (that is Euro-bsased assets) out of the country.
I see it a little differently.
Greece can't pay the salaries, pensions & health care unless they can BORROW THE FUCKING MONEY from someone.
They must pay the current debt payment so they can borrow more.
Sort of like -
Make your mortgage payment even though you don't have the money to buy food - but then you can qualify for a new CREDIT CARD that you can use to buy food.
If you skip the mortgage payment - no new credit card will be issued.
The mortgage payment is $1,000 - but then you qualify for a $3,000 credit card.
I know this is stupid in the long run - but this is right now.
Ummmm if they can't pay for drugs, what else can't they pay for................. everthing?
Number ONE trumps everything if we are talking lifetime guaranteed work (cough, cough) contracts for the bureaucrats.
Drug laws need to be rethought.
Incorporation law needs to be re-thought. Fucking shielded parasites!
Thinking,,,,,
We are going to know all we need to know about Tpuss in a day or two.
Not to worry. The rich and powerful just go elsewhere for services in their private jets. As for the little people, let them eat bed pans.
When will the sheeple get out the pitch forks and hang a few bankers from light poles? What do you say we start in London and New York first?
Sheeple won't wake up until it's far too late. See Greece! Those who have been royally fucked are too poor to get to Jew York or the shitty of London.
Considering I work on patients on up to 25 meds/ day to keep them alive, I think they'd be dead before they had a chance to wake up if any shortage occured here.
Miffed
Death by corporate medicine. Doubt it will ever be officially acknowledged.
Death by lack of medicine, "corporate" or otherwise - undoubtedly much higher than with it.
A few years ago some greeks who were angry at the bankers burned a pregnant bank teller alive while throwing rocks and swearing at her. Sadly, I think they are still a bit unclear as to who the enemies are (one is in the mirror for sure).
With the amount of money that we keep giving Israel to create ISIS and other terrorist organizations in the middle east and in America. We could easily have bailed out Greece and the rest of Europe with money left over to help the poor and the needy in America. I wonder why our politicians, banksters and other crooks treat Europe as if it were their enemy. They only lend at ridiculous interest rates and they force the countries to eliminate their work force. Which by the way is the only revenue most of those countries have thanks to patents and regulations which forbid competition with multinational corporations. So of course there is no way that any of these countries can pay back those loans.
Meanwhile the real welfare state whic is also a terorist state is demanding that Washington sack the poor in its own country to give Israel 4.5 billion per year for ten years to keep up ISIS and other terrorist organizations. There is homelessness everywhere and the only thing that Israel does for America is devalue our currency, destroy our revenue by sending our jobs to other countries, destroy our pension plans and even sack social security etc. Don't forget the illegal immigration which AIPAC is 100% involved with from the very beginning.
Why doesn't our government treat Israel the way it treats other countries?
well it ain't a crime if you don't get caught, or if you do get caught and you're the Jewish State.
They're special!
This book, which was written by God, and we know this because the book says it, also says Jews are very very special, and while we are to not view this as any kind of supremacism, of course, it is. Hence a former chief sephardic rabbi, no halakhic slouch, saying goyim were born only to serve Jews, etc.
Have you actually ever read the Torah?
http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/0507.htm
Strange holy book, all in all.
Not sure myself why Palestine and Israel don't belong to the Egyptians or Turks, myself, given their extensive tenures and the complete lack of any evidence of a large and powerful Jewish kingdom under anyone, let alone any evidence for Solomon, or his temple, etc etc.
That's the power of myth, my friend.
Belief is a tool.
Q: why Palestine and Israel don't belong to the Egyptians ?
A: Because Moses was an Egyption priest then he had rebelled and stolen power generator (holy grail) and went missing for 40 years (so that his followers completely forget the old egyption religion) teaching his followers his new religion
"Belief is a tool" EXACTLY
And that is why control of media is the ultimate control mechanism. You will be told what to believe.
fo' d'privelage of doin' bidness wid d'gubmint, all d'bidnusses wud wannah make some munny gotstah gib dey shit away fo' free muthahfuckah...
repudiate.
then revolt.
With the EU and IMF and Nulandistan, there is nothing but debt and death.
Fuck this and fuck that, time to start shooting.
watch out what you talk, some post magically disapear from couple of days now...
tyler start to keep the front door politically clear for the advertisers....
this side is going down.
Now you know why the Greek government was running a "surplus". If you don't pay your creditors anything is possible on paper.
In addition to the pharmaceutical companies there is a staggering amount owing to health professionals, not to mention what pensioners lost when their retirement funds were wiped out.
And if you really want to blow the lid right off then extrapolate the unfunded liabilities situation and you will see that Greece's debt situation is such that no one will escape getting f&^%$ed whether they be taxpayers, banks, other governments or IMF.
Anyone is free to downvote but in this case it reveals a great ignorance.
I repeat....the unfunded liability of Greece is beyond staggering.
In other words, an explosion will inevitably happen at some point.
Issue arrest warrents and crowd fund rewards. They are banksters. I mean that's what banksters do.
Bring out the Drachma.
Golden Dawn is Greece's last hope.
Yeah cause they will euthanize anybody that is 'unfit' or 'un-Greek'. That will take the pressure of the medical system.
I owe $1200 to my drug dealer too! I hope he is as understanding.
Its still safer than oweing money to Goldman Sachs.
My drug dealer OWES ME $200. Bastard.
I wonder what would happen to Israel if we decided to treat them the same way we and the European banksters treat Greece. Now Bibi wants our American social security and pension funds.
Netanyahu demands ‘up to $45 bn’ in US military aid to deter Iran, Gulf Stateshttp://rt.com/usa/262573-biden-spheres-influence-russia/
People who don't take anything that comes of the RT news wire with a one ton block of salt can be safely disregarded. At least you've chosen your own propaganda over the MSMs propaganda, eh?
How long would Israel survive if we imposed sanctions on it like we have done to Europe especially Greece. Make no mistake about it those are sanctions that we are imposing on Europe. You can't trade with Russia or China meanwhile we always trade with China. Most of our manufacturing is over there.
What about Israel? How many bailouts have they gotten up till now and now they want more and more and more. Yet they still haven't paid us back one damn penny. Those multinational oligarch 500 companies really belong to them so why not milk those companies like they do to us Goy?
Israel is the biggest leach this country has and Americans have paid into the system so that in the future we can retire. What happened to that? Oh it went to Israel so are you going to tell me that just because the Jewish controlled media tells me I should call Greece a communist country. Do you think I should? Especially when Israel is a hundred times more communist. You can fool many Americans but you don't fool us all.
I don't see israel gutting its pension plans, its retirement savings or anything else for that matter. So why do we have to tighten our belts to support that piece of shit.
Those parasitic criminals in Israel are the USA's biggest enemy. The number 2 enemy of the USA is in Mexico City!
Careful they now own more of your data than the NSA gets. They are not constrained by any laws with what they do with your data. Isreal is how the NSA continues unabated...
Another problem with a trivially simple solution:
FAR too many greeks, constitutes a fundamental corruption to the political system because politicians are always chasing that excess greek population with entitlement program addictions to get and keep their votes as government dependents, eg with largest ratio of government do-nothing-useful jobs in any country, far-too-early retirement on far-too-generous retirement, etc,etc.
Therefore just
1. cut government employees by 4/5, they are what is strangling entrepreneurs
2. recycle ALL greeks living IN greece who are not financially self-sufficient, then their cost is zeroed out either because they get out or expire
True fun for Greece will begin when they go back to drachma. No one will supply them anything at that point. As ekm1 says:Austerity with Eurozone or startvation with Putin. Your choice Tsipras.
"Drugmakers want any emergency program to include . . . . curbs on re-exports of drugs"
Yeah I bet they do. Their Cartel Monopolistic lust for control of the Markets can't have people getting access to affordable treatments. This is racketeering. Why in America are people charged $30,000 for anti venom treatments that cost $100 over the border in Mexico, and if you go to Mexico to buy it and bring it back across the border to sell at a fair price, will you become a criminal for selling your legally acquired property? They want this racketeering gravy train to become Global.
EU residents need to pay very close attention to what is being done to Greece. The looting and pillaging EU will treat your Country exactly the same as they are treating Greece. If you let them. Every EU member Nation needs to get out of this lawless State as soon as possible - yesterday, if not sooner.
Ah see I am not the only one who sees these kinds of things. Brother Nathanael came up with some good advice on how to deal with this mugging of America and Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huXqIcMRtoo
How wonderful to have the government involved in healthcare.
Read somewhere of an idea floating around of having some sort of "Chapter 11" bankruptcy protection scheme for Sovereign Nations instead of just corporates.
It would help prevent the finance vultures and creditors who took risk, from ruining entire countries. Might want to start some reform movement because this global debt ponzi is going to implode sooner or later, and nations should save their own people rather than the pockets of the banks. The corporate fascists have too much power, now with TPP and TTIP they will have even more, fuck these parasites and the politicians they rode in on.
If you lend, you take a credit risk. Deal with it if it eventuates.
"If you lend, you take a credit risk. Deal with it if it eventuates."
How quaint.
Under such a scheme, nations would no longer be sovereign but would be subordinate to?????
Under such a scheme nations will not be ripped to pieces for the benefit of some offshore tax-haven domiciled creditors. Under such a scheme nations will be subordinate to the interests of their populations first and foremost above that of their creditors when push comes to shove.
on june 12th Greece has also to repay the 650mm€ in SRD it borrowed on May 12th...hard deadline...
19 of the 25 are quite unnecessary
The drug makers will keep the flow of drugs going to Greece even if Greece falls behind in payments. The alternative is far worse for the drug makers. What if they cut off the drugs and the Greeks discover that they don't really need some of those drugs?
Yes because insulin & metformin are completely unnecessary for diabetics as is heart medication for bypass patients. Fucking idiot.
A scene coming soon...
....to a country very, very close to you.
In ye olde days of barbaric relics, paying a debt would require the transfer of some barbaric relic from your country to another. This was replaced by the transfer of an electronic number from one country to the debt holder, backed by the full faith and credit of the country (or bank, etc). In a country where the faith is no longer trusted - like Venezuela or Argentina - the currency collapses. While there is little faith in Greece, the Common currency cannot collapse (at least yet) because there is faith in the other EU countries. Stay with me here --
In a world where the Fed can simply create more electronic money with the stroke of a keyboard, why can't the Greek Central Bank simply send an electronic transfer of a couple of 'extra' numbers to the IMF, ECB, etc? Who is going to know that the Greek Central Bank did not get a pile of tax receipts, or deposits, etc to cover the transfer (after all you cannot audit the Fed). And while you may have no faith that this is real - what can you do - trash their currency (the same one that Germany uses)?
As long as numbers are infinite - then this whole scene can go on literally into infinity.
No worries. Greece has 'free' healthcare.
All citizens are covered.
Just don't get sick thats unpatriotic.
The irony in all this is the common perception that the public needs these "life-saving" drugs. Without them some will die due to self-induced stress but many will discover alternative, safe, inexpensive and far more effective natural remedies.
These actually cure disease based on detoxification and improving one’s natural immune system. So there is a bright side to this crisis over a shortage of toxic, expensive, ineffective and dangerous monopoly-medicine drugs.
Withdrawal from anti-depressants can lead to suicide and even homicide as the drug Effexor insert claims but that’s not surprising considering that anti-depressants typically contain 93% toxic fluoride that rivals lead.
Parmaceuticals are not recognized as natural by the body for the same reason that wild animals refuse to eat GMO food. These drugs are unrecognized as natural and regarded as toxic by the body and in fact place a burden on the liver to remove them. Most are synthetic lab-produced medicines derived from petroleum coal tar substances.
Most of these medicines are in fact harmful to the body, cure nothing, approved by fraudulent safety and effectiveness studies and cost a fortune at a typical 28,000 X markup.
Big Pharma meds prescribed to “manage” cholesterol, GERD, depression, blood pressure, cancer, antibiotics, COPD, asthma, arthritis and other autoimmune diseases are part of a colossal hoax that in fact poisons the body and makes the disease and side effects much worse in the long run.
Toxic, useless, dangerous, Big Pharma medicine is part of the elite’s poisoning agenda and is a massive, callous and dangerous deception.
But since the sheeple have been handicapped through a lifelong poisoning agenda that includes fluoridated water, toxic vaccines and GMO Frankenfood that produce anxiety and depression so they are ill equipped to independently investigate and handle their own health recovery.
For those that are independent-minded go to naturalnews.com and mercola.com to research natural remedies and manage your own health and don’t let monopoly quack medicine take advantage of your trust and betray you.
It’s not that your doctor is unscrupulous, few understand he has a straight-jacket on and could lose his license or go to jail if he cures you with any remedy outside of a narrow range of “standard of care” choices.
He’s part of a deceptive, corrupt and dangerous system, much like our Fed that harms the public while claiming to be a savior.
Fuck the Greeks. We don't send food to Africa when they can't pay.
I don't know the numbers in Greece alone, but worldwide, it's estimated that 9% of the population is insulin dependent diabetic---and there are thousands of new cases every month. Type I diabetics will simply die without insulin. There are no substitutes, no surgeries, no diets or herbal medicine. They die. Type II diabetics usually convert from diet/exercise/oral meds for insulin sensitivity---to full blown insulin dependency.
This said.
Globally...NINE PERCENT of the population is insulin dependent. That equates to roughly 630 million people---who will simply DIE, within days---because of the lack of insulin.
This isn't funny, folks. Not at all. These drug manufacturers have everyone by the balls, right along with the banks and Big Ag/Big Oil. Medicines that literally ALLOW LIFE are under the control of manufacturers, the economics of paying for those drugs is controlled by the banks, the actual manufacture/distribution is under the control of Big Oil--and Big Ag...well...they're all tied in.
The Greeks are a testing ground, we know that. But not just as a financial guinea pig. The elites want to see what the world will do when medicines, food and other supplies are denied because YOU CAN'T PAY. Not because of some nebulous "embargo" a la Gaza, where the truth of the matter is just "so complicated". No. Greeks can't pay the money for basic necessities---they are not sold as "terrorists" or even a threat. Just lazy, maybe. Corrupt, possibly.
I'll bet everybody here knows at least one person dependent on some type of medication for the very breath in their body.
630 million. Just with insulin dependent diabetes. Think about that. You want to worry about some stupid box with ANTHRAX in it? Or EBOLA (which is absurd on it's face)---let the drug companies "run short" of insulin. Or Digoxin. Or any of the anti-biotics.
We'll see sporty then. OH and by the way. Why not look to your own portfolios before criticizing any of the "Bigs"---if you're making money off of them and what they peddle---you are part of the problem.
Pay the banks or wait for the coup...