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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 23, 2015)
2 Wednesday,December23,2015The Nugget Newspaper,Sisters,Oregon O P I N I O The Nugget will close at 3 p.m. on Thurs., Dec. 24, and will be closed on Fri., Dec. 25 Early deadline for display advertising and the events calendar for the issue of December 30 is Thursday, December 23 at 3 p.m. Deadline for classified advertising, announcements, letters to the editor and press releases for the issue of December 30 is Monday, December 28 at noon. Happy Holidays! Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. TotheEditor: WhatawonderfulprogramIwitnessedat SistersAthletic Club last Friday afternoon. SistersHighSchoolLifeSkillsstudentsare allowed access to our SistersAthletic Club pool for swimming lesson and water skills enrichmentexperiencethatI’msurechanges lives. AsIviewedtheactivityinthepool,Iwas amazedatalltheexcitementandwondered what was going on. The joy these students weresharingwaswortheveryminuteIwasn’t allowedinthepool. ItseemsthatTateMetcalf,SistersAthletic ClubCEO,aquaticsstaff,andJoshNordell, Sisters High School instructor have teamed togetherinthisefforttoproviderecreational activitiesthatcouldnothaveoccurredwith- outthiscollaborativeagreementoftwogreat- heartedmen. After the six-week SistersAthletic Club experienceIfindthatMr.Nordellwillpartner withHoodooinawinterenrichmentprogram. WhatagreatjobbeingdoneatSistersHigh School,anditbenefitsusasthoseparticipants who may not have had these opportunities withouttheeffortsshownbyallinvolved. Inthespiritoftheseason,thankyouTate andtheclubforsupportingthisonce-a-year, six-week,45-minuteskillsclassthatcontrib- utes so much to our school budget. Thank you, Josh Nordell, for going the extra mile inprovidingtheinsightintotheneedsofour students. MerryChristmastoallinvolved. GregJohnson s s s TotheEditor: Wewouldliketothankeveryoneinvolved in this past weekend’s Sisters High Desert ChoraleChristmasconcerts. Over 65 singers, bell ringers, children’s choirandvariousinstrumentalsoloistscome togethereveryyeartomaketheseconcertsa hugesuccess.Theircombinedeffortandhard work is most appreciated. These concerts embodytheholidayspiritandhavebecomea Sisterstraditionenjoyedbyall. IreneLidenandLolaKnox Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Snow Snow showers Partly sunny Mostly sunny Partly sunny Mostly cloudy 35/17 31/10 31/04 29/09 31/22 36/na The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson News Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Williver Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2014 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. N Robert B. Reich American Voices MartinShkreli,theformer hedge-fundmanagerturned pharmaceutical CEO who was arrested last week, has beendescribedasasociopath andworse.Inreality,he’sa brasherandlargerversionof what others in finance and incorporatesuitesdoallthe time. Federal prosecutors are charging him with conning wealthyinvestors. Lyingtoinvestorsisille- gal, of course, but it’s per- fectlynormaltousehypeto lurerichinvestorsintohedge funds.Andthelinebetween thetwoisn’talwaysdistinct. Perhapsprosecutorswent after Shkreli because they couldn’t nail him for his escapadesasapharmaceuti- cal executive, which were completelylegal—although vile. Shkrelitookoveracom- pany with the rights to a 62-year-olddrugusedtotreat toxoplasmosis,adevastating parasitic infection that can causebraindamageinbabies and people withAIDS. He thenpromptlyraiseditsprice from$13.50to$750apill. When the media and politicians went after him, Shkreli was defiant, saying “ourshareholdersexpectus tomakeasmuchasmoneyas possible.”Hesaidhewished hehadraisedthepriceeven higher. Thatwastoomucheven for the Pharmaceutical ResearchandManufacturers of America, Big Pharma’s trade group, which com- plained indignantly that Shkreli’scompanywasjust aninvestmentvehicle“mas- querading”asapharmaceuti- calcompany. Maybe Big Pharma doesn’t want to admit that most pharmaceutical com- panieshavebecomeinvest- mentvehicles.Iftheydidn’t deliver for their inves- tors, they’d be taken over by “activist” investors and private-equitypartnerswho would. Thehypocrisyisstunning. Justthreeyearsago,Forbes MagazinepraisedShkrelias one of its “30 under 30 in Finance”whowas“battling billionaires and entrenched drugindustryexecutives.” Last month, Shkreli got control of a company with rightstoacheapdrugused fordecadestotreatChagas disease in Latin America. Hisaimwastogetthedrug approvedintheUnitedStates andchargetensofthousands of dollars for a course of treatment. Investors who backed Shkreli in this ven- turedidwell.Thecompany’s sharepriceinitiallyshotup fromunder$2tomorethan $40. While other pharmaceu- tical companies don’t dra- matically raise their drug pricesinonefellswoop,as did Shkreli, they would if theythoughtitwouldleadto fatprofits.Manyhavebeen increasingtheirpricesmore than10percentayear—still farfasterthaninflation—on drugsusedoncommondis- eases such as cancer, high cholesterolanddiabetes. This has imposed a far bigger burden on health spending than Shkreli’s escapades, making it much harderforAmericanstopay fordrugstheyneed.Evenif they’reinsured,mostpeople are paying out big sums in copaymentsanddeductibles. Not to mention the impact on private insurers, Medicare, state Medicaid, prisons and the Veterans HealthAdministration. And the prices of new drugsaresky-high.Pfizer’s new one to treat advanced breast cancer costs $9,850 a month. According to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, that price isn’t based on manufacturing or researchcosts.Instead,Pfizer setthepriceashighaspos- siblewithoutpushingdoctors andinsurerstowardalterna- tivedrugs. Unlikemostothercoun- tries, the United States doesn’tcontroldrugprices. It leaves pricing up to the market.Whichenablesdrug companiestochargeasmuch asthemarketwillbear. So what, exactly, did Martin Shkreli do wrong, by the standards of today’s capitalism? He played the samegamemanyothersare playingonWallStreetandin corporatesuites.Hewasjust moreaudaciousaboutit. It’s easy to go after bad guys,muchhardertogoafter badsystems. Shkreli may be a rotten apple.Buthedgefundsand the pharmaceutical indus- try are two rotten systems thatarecostingAmericansa bundle. © 2015 By Robert Reich; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.