The fact that a few individuals in Mr. Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services and Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG) are attempting to oust a major corporate CEO – again - should send shivers down every American spine. This is exactly the scenario Ayn Rand depicted in her novel Atlas Shrugged. It is a very dangerous step for all businesses in America.
The HHS strong-arm tactic of employing an obscure policy to force Forest Laboratories’ CEO Howard Solomon out of his job is the latest in the Obama administration’s attempts to control all aspects of American business. As Ayn Rand shows in Atlas Shrugged, this will lead to economic disaster.
We should have been outraged and horrified when the Obama administration fired the CEO of General Motors and converted the American industrial icon of GM to its new meaning - Government Motors. This type of government takeover of a US company was unprecedented and should have signaled great alarm.
But it didn’t. Instead, most people took the popular position that CEO’s make too much money. If they make a lot of money, they must be doing something bad. If they are doing something bad, they are bad people and should be punished.
This type of logic will kill American innovation and in turn, will kill this country.
Just yesterday, the IMF predicted that the US economy will lose its long-held position as the world’s strongest economy by 2016 – just five years from now. Innovation is the last hope that America has of holding onto any semblance of economic strength and power.
How did we get ourselves into this position? By letting government henchmen dictate what privately held businesses do and how they do it.
In this case, HHS is using a policy that says that it can bar corporate leaders from health-industry companies doing business with the government if the company is found guilty of criminal misconduct.
In this particular case, Forest Laboratories was not found guilty of any crime. In 2010, as part of a global settlement, they made a deal in a federal court and plead guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with the marketing of anti-depressants.
Isn’t a misdemeanor by definition a minor crime? In the case of this “misdemeanor,” Forest is paying $313 million in criminal and civil penalties.
In the past, the federal court’s decision would have been the end of the matter.
But the cronies at HHS-OIG think that is not enough. They want more. They want to take justice into their own hands and extract the blood of Mr. Solomon. They want the debarment of Mr. Solomon who has not once been accused of doing anything wrong.
Now, instead of focusing on ways to develop new drugs that can help people with depression, Alzheimer’s, infectious diseases and the like, the company must focus its efforts on ways to protect Mr. Solomon, its 83 year old CEO, President, and Chairman – the man who has developed Forest into a growing, thriving $9 billion dollar company.
While many American companies are having serious financial troubles, Forest is reporting record revenues of $4 billion dollars, increased earnings (up 53% over last 12 months) and positive job growth. Instead of figuring out how to add to its employment base of 5200 workers, the company must spend millions on attorneys to fight an unprecedented legal battle.
According to William J. Candee III, Board member and Chairman of the Audit Committee, speaking on behalf of Forest’s entire Board of Directors stated, “At no time during the government’s six year investigation of Forest was Mr. Solomon ever accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the matters settled in 2010.”
This is why many leaders of companies are choosing to move their businesses off-shore where regulations are not so intrusive. This is why American businesses will continue to be purchased by international companies that are not headquartered in the U.S. and subject to the whims of government bureaucrats.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “the new use of exclusion is meant to “alter the cost-benefit calculus of the corporate executives,” said Lew Morris, chief counsel for the Department of Health and human Service’s inspector general.”
What on earth is that supposed to mean? This government-speak is merely an attempt to confuse the masses and contribute to the class warfare that Obama’s administration is intent on perpetuating. Why? Because it gives them more power. That is what all of this – government takeovers of businesses, class warfare rhetoric, health care reform – is all about: power.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the HHS started using this policy last fall and has used it against two other executives in drug companies. The Defense Department and Environmental Protection Agency – and most other governmental agencies – have similar policies they can invoke if they chose to do so.
It is time for Americans to insist upon a separation of Business and State with the same level of vigilance that they support the separation of Church and State.
If not, then America will continue to lose its most powerful economic weapon – innovation.
As in Atlas Shrugged, the “men of the mind” will eventually go on strike – refusing to contribute their innovative minds to the Looters of the world – the people who take and condemn their innovations, punishing the Producers for producing.
Related Links:
U.S. Effort to Remove Drug CEO Jolts Firms
IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end
http://www.answers.com/topic/forest-laboratories-inc
