Clinton Foundation Head Schemed to Keep Aids Drugs Expensive in the U.S.

Ira Magaziner, former healthcare advisor for President Clinton and current CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative for the Clinton Foundation contacted Amitabh Desai, foreign policy advisor for the Clinton Foundation, in December of 2011 — chagrined by comments made by Bill Clinton, suggesting that the deliriously high price of aids drugs in the U.S. needed to come down.

Here was Ira’s rationale for keeping drug prices expensive in the U.S.

Source: Wikileaks

This note and the attached memo are in response to your inquiry as to whether CHAI has any thoughts on how to proceed on the comments President Clinton made on lowering domestic AIDS drugs prices at the World AIDS day event. Attached is a detailed memo with recommendations on how CHAI and President Clinton could be helpful in the domestic fight against AIDS. We have been working on this memo since the last CHAI board meeting when this issue first came up and had planned to send it to President Clinton and the CHAI board in December for further discussion.

We were taken by surprise by President Clinton’s comments on world AIDS day and wish that someone had consulted with us before he made these comments.As you will see when you read this memo, we think that publicly pressuring the US and European AIDS drug companies to lower prices and bringing pressure to allow generic AIDS drugs into the United States will have limited if any success and could seriously jeopardize our negotiations to continually lower prices in poor countries. We also believe that there are other more impactful ways to address the US AIDS crisis today.

In other words, Ira was pissed Bill made a speech without his prior approval. Moreover, he didn’t want Bill lobbying the drug companies to lower their prices in America — because it would hinder negotiations for cheap prices in poor countries. These people aren’t American, but foreign mercenaries working on behalf of corporations. This is proof.

We have always told the drug companies that we would not pressure them and create a slippery slope where prices they negotiate with us for poor countries would inevitably lead to similar prices in rich countries. If we were going to change our view on this, we should have informed the companies before President Clinton went public with his statement and attempted to negotiate a way for them to participate in and get credit for whatever steps we could have persuaded them to take to help the crisis in the states. We might or might not have been successful in getting them to do something, but we believe the chances of success would have been higher than by trying to pressure them through a public campaign. It has taken us many years to build positive relationships with these companies while at the same time pushing them to continually lower their prices.We will now have to try to repair these relationships.Since President Clinton’s comments were made, we have been contacted by a number of advocacy groups who are now intending to wage a public campaign to bring in generics and lower drug prices.

By making a speech calling for lower prices for life saving aids drugs, President Bill Clinton fucked up long term relationships with big pharma. As a result of this faux pas, pesky, liberally minded, advocacy groups contacted Ira to wage campaigns for generics and lower prices. What these advocacy groups didn’t know was that Ira and the Clinton Foundation wasn’t a liberal organization and not interested, whatsoever, in lower prices in the developed world. Fuck America.

We do not feel we can participate in this without jeopardizing our work around the world. We cannot oppose what they might do, but we also cannot be publicly supporting it either. This campaign will not get started until January, so we have some time to figure out and act upon our own strategy. If we do try to do something in this area, we suggest that we approach the innovator companies that can currently sell products in the US with the idea of making donations to help clear the ADAP lists. For a variety of reasons, the companies will likely favor a donation approach rather than one that erodes prices across the board. I would guess that they would also likely favor a solution that involved their drugs rather than an approach that allowed generic drugs from India to flood the US market at low prices or one that set a precedent of waiving patent laws on drugs. This will be complicated to work out, but it might be possible. We would have to initiate discussions with multiple state health officials as well as HHS in addition to talking with the drug companies. If President Clinton wishes for us to be proactive, we suggest that we try a cooperative approach first. We can go to war with the US drug companies if President Clinton would like to do so, but we would not suggest it.

Ira was between a rock and hard spot. He couldn’t let the advocacy groups know he supported very high drug prices in America, while damaging the hard fought relationships with his buddies in big pharma. Could you imagine if the fucking Indians flooded America with affordable life savings drugs? Ira must’ve soiled himself by the prospect. Nevertheless, like Tony Montana, Ira was willing to ‘go to war’ if Bill wanted to.

Whatever we decide, we need to make a decision quickly and President Clinton and CHAI need to be in synch. I do not think it is a good idea for President Clinton to be taking one position and CHAI another. Once we have decided what to do on the drug question, we can then decide if we want to work with state health authorities in the ways that the memo suggests to implement programs to expand testing and treatment. CHAI management is willing to expand the mandate of CHAI to add a focus on domestic AIDS, though this will involve having to build an organization to do the work and significant time and resources. We would need to go to the CHAI board for approval as it would represent a major add on to the strategy that we presented to the board and that the board approved at its last meeting.

And of course if we do this, we need to find a way to get it funded. I do not know if President Clinton has any thoughts on funding for a domestic AIDS project. Even a negotiation on how to clear the ADAP lists by getting drug companies and state officials and the federal government to work together on a deal would take a significant amount of time and resources to accomplish. We can undertake it, but unless we can get the work funded or the board gives us leave to do it as an unfunded project, we could not move forward.

Perhaps we should have a discussion with President Clinton about next steps.

Thanks Ira

One question for you night owls out there: Does the Clinton Foundation sound like an ‘American First’ organization?

You fuckers are desperate.

Some truly obscure website, with an Alexa ranking higher than 1 million and less than 3k Twitter followers, is causing shares of TWTR to spike by 5% in the after-hours, after publishing a ‘RARE ALERT‘ that Disney might bid for Twitter.

Without getting into the nuances of small websites trying to make big splashes to gain traffic, this rumor is stupid — especially since the Disney brand should never become tainted by the perverts and miscreants who traverse Twitter. It would be a very bad deal for both entities.

For the love of God, the article hasn’t even been retweeted and was only liked by 4 people.

The problem with the economy is the god damned debt. Any fiscal stimulus out of the next administration will only provide a brief boost to the economy — thanks in large part to the drunken man spending of Obama, who has more than doubled the national debt under his reign of terror. Granted, he inherited a fucked up economy, but so did Bush.

That’s right, fucked faces. I was trading stocks back in 2000 and remember with great clarity that the bubble had already burst under Clinton. Many people revere Clinton as some sort of economic genius, when in fact he was merely lucky for presiding over the dot com bubble and detente with Russia, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the end of Clinton’s shenanigans in the White House, the economy was well on its way towards disaster. It was only after 9/11 did the United Steaks pull itself out of the mud — boosted by an egregious lift in defense spending.

So here we are again, at the end of a Presidential 8 year term, with an economy on the brink of collapse. All of the schemes of the central banks have failed to boost wages and productivity. As such, all of the mice from all of the various corners on Wall Street are calling for an increase in government spending, in order to boost output.

This is nonsense.

Board the ark.

After H. Clinton is coronated and her minions descend upon Washington, it’s entirely possible that her long term ally in crime, J. Podesta will become the next AG, prosecuting all sorts of bad alt-right guys, of these vast lands. Oh, you think I’m fucking with you. Believe me, I’m not fucking with you (extra Glenn Gary Glenn Ross).

Amusingly, Tim “the clown” Kaine was also on a short list of people to become AG. Also, if you look closely at this fuckery of a document, Hillary Clinton was under consideration to become the SECRETARY OF DEFENSE!

The fuck is going on here?

DEVELOPING…

The era of rapid growth for Apple is over. Finally, the laws of large numbers have cooked the company (pun intended) — as the company just reported its third consecutive quarter of sales deceleration. I am certain S. Jobs is peering down on Tim ‘Pole Grabber’ Cook right now, like an  eagle in the nest — wanting to pick him up by his talons and shred his transexual ass all over the earth — pecking away at his eyes.

This is truly a disgraceful number, one that should instill a sense of apathy into the employees of the company — convincing them to leave a sinking ship. Apple is the new Microsoft, before Microsoft figured out how to make its share price rise again.  It’s all shit, really. Margins are weak and sales in China are down 30%, on top of weak American sales of -7%.

Apple beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs above consensus, gross margin below (118.25 +0.60)

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.67 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.66; revenues fell 9.0% year/year to $46.85 bln vs the $46.98 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Apple reports Q4 gross margins 38.0% vs 38% ests vs 39.9% last year.

iPhone shipments 45.5 mln vs 45.2 million ests and 48.05 million last year.
iPads 9.3 mln vs 9.3 million ests versus 9.9 million in Q4 of last year.
Macs 4.9 mln vs 5.2 million ests versus 5.7 million in Q4 of last year.
Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $76-78 bln vs. $75.33 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margins of 38.0-38.5% vs 39% ests vs 40.1% last year; op-ex $6.9-7.0 bln;

“We are pleased to have generated $16.1 billion in operating cash flow, a new record for the September quarter.”
Rev by geography: Americas -7%; Europe +3%, Greater China -30%; Japan +10%, Asia Pac. -1%.

The stock is lower by 2%. There’s no reason to ever buy this piece of shit again.

UPDATE: Recode touches upon the China sales decline.

Chipotle is a dead brand. Look at the operating margin erosion for the quarter, coming in at just 14.1% v 28.3%. On top of that, if it weren’t for their new rewards program, essentially giving away food, this quarter would’ve been far worse. Even still, they missed by $1.06 — citing a 14.8% drop in sales. With all of the evidence stacked against them, the board of directors continues to throw money down the drain through share buybacks. To date, they’ve spent upwards of a billion in buy backs and for what? Sharply lower share prices, nonetheless.

Chipotle Mexican Grill misses by $1.06, misses on revs; guides Q4 comps just below estimates; guides FY17 EPS in-line with high single digit comps (405.67 -7.68)

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.56 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $1.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.62; revenues fell 14.8% year/year to $1.04 bln vs the $1.09 bln Capital IQ Consensus. The decrease in revenue was driven by a 21.9% decrease in comparable restaurant sales (modestly below estimates), including a reduction of 0.8% on comparable restaurant sales resulting from deferring $11.5 million of revenue related to unredeemed awards from the Chiptopia Summer Rewards program that ran during the third quarter of 2016, partially offset by sales from new restaurant openings.

Comparable restaurant sales declined primarily as a result of a decrease in the number of transactions in our restaurants, and to a lesser extent from a decline in average check.

Restaurant level operating margin was 14.1% in the quarter, a decrease from 28.3% in the third quarter of 2015. The decrease was driven primarily by sales deleveraging (including 0.9% from the Chipotle revenue deferral) and an increase in marketing and promotional spend which totaled 4.8% of revenue for the third quarter of 2016 compared to 2.4% of revenue in the third quarter of 2015.

Sees Q4 comparable restaurant sales declines in the low single-digits vs. ests near -0.5%. New restaurant openings for the full year at or above the high end of the previously-disclosed range of 220 to 235.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $10.00 vs. $9.94 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
195 – 210 new restaurant openings

Comparable restaurant sales increases in the high single-digit vs. ests near +7.5%
Restaurant level operating margins of 20%.

Board of Directors has also approved the investment of up to an additional $100 million, exclusive of commissions, to repurchase shares of our common stock. This repurchase authorization, in addition to up to ~$69.2 million available as of September 30, 2016.

The stock has initially jumped to $420, but is now lower by 2% to $397.

It’s all relative, really. CAT was higher this morning, now sharply lower. FCX was busting testicles to the upside, soon to give it all up. Everything you fought for is being taken away, as the market rides on a little fucking tricycle around the edges of a volcano which is about to erupt.

Very soon, it’s gonna be Pompeii in this bitch. Most of you will be liquidated, skeletons and all, back into the binary code of the matrix. After it’s all said and done, self driving ubers will be the only things left, solar paneled fucktard cars traveling from ghost town to ghost town in search of human anatomy.

The market you see here is hard and it has been this way for nearly 3 years. While it’s true, there have been pockets of elasticity, whereby investors were permitted to scrape together some solid trades in order to feed their families, I’m afraid we’re delving back into the reality phase of this business — when hard facts matter.

The UA earnings are indicative of a loser consumer. He’s spent, beaten about the brows with ‘affordable care acts’ and he doesn’t want any more.

Look for a very stark and grim holiday season, with blood and guts festooned across Xmas trees, throughout America. I hate to look past national festival day, which is fast approaching. But the fuckery is reaching a high pitch and I’m bearing witness to an unraveling in certain sectors that demands attention.

More on this later.

Enough of the King Dollar nonsense. The eurofags have all but destroyed any chance of normal life for the rest of their existence, through their stupid union, coupled with an immigration policy that is destined to welcome thermal nuclear detonations — continent wide.

The dollar is at 9 mo highs v the euro, which sounds sort of nit pickish — the type of headlines created by jerkoffs. Truth is, the euro is doing far, far worse on a longer time frame.

Observe their failure.

This is the common thread, worldwide. America is a giant fucking ATM for the global kleptocracy which is raping America for everything. First they took the IP, then the jobs. Finally, they want to drop foreign currencies v the dollar to all but eliminate American competition vs their inferior goods and also make their utter crap very cheap for our consumer based economy.

In other words, we’re encouraged to spend and delve into debt, while surplus economies take the cold hard cash and save it. Sounds like a great deal…for anyone but Americans.

The EU is a failed experiment and their QE is the only thing keeping it together. Once they stop rigging markets, the EU will collapse.

Meanwhile, FCX is shooting higher, in spite of bad earnings. This is one of those runs that is based on a short squeeze, not fundies. Also, CAT is higher too following their shortfall.

No one said this shit was easy.

In closing, fuck Europe and their currency. The higher the dollar goes, the worse it is for our exporters.

Shares of Under Armour, led by their asshole CEO, are getting fucking hammered this morning, following a slight earnings disappointment. Growth is expected to slow to just 5-8% — which is not what Wall Street wanted to hear from the fast growing retailer.

Also, the company continues to pay up for revenues, suggestive of a company forcing the top line and susceptible to significant margin erosion and earnings collapse.

For the fourth quarter, expect revenues to grow approximately 20%. (Approx $1.404 bln, Capital IQ consensus $1.43 bln)

Gross margin is expected to be relatively flat versus prior year.

Expect operating income in the range of $186 million to $191 million, representing growth of 5% to 8% over the prior year.
Long-term outlook and associated guidance for next year.

At 2015 Investor Day, we announced our goals of achieving $7.5 billion of revenues and $800 million of operating income by 2018. We are on track to achieve our 2018 revenue goal of $7.5 billion and expect to grow full year revenues consistently in the low-20s in both 2017 and 2018.

Expect annual operating income growth in the mid-teens in each of the next two years as focus on investing to GET BIG FAST.
North America Apparel growth is slowing across the industry.

While expect to continue to significantly outpace the apparel industry, the growth rate going forward will be less than expected from our Investor Day in 2015.

We could choose to optimize for more near-term profits but we believe it is more prudent to invest to maintain superior growth rates while gaining both share and scale. That said, we will invest more heavily in areas that we can grow faster such as footwear, direct-to-consumer and international as well as more aggressively enter Sport Fashion, like UAS, and the much broader sports lifestyle category.

International growth includes being more aggressive in key markets where we are gaining significant awareness such as Asia.

Beyond 2018, we believe we have opportunities across categories, channels and geographies to consistently deliver superior revenue growth relative to our industry. We also believe that as we approach $10 billion in revenues, the scale it provides along with the investments we have made in people, infrastructure and systems will begin to pay off in the form of increasing operating margin rates.

The street sees through the typical UA horseshit and is punishing the shares in an Old Testament fashion.

With a FPE of 50x compared to 20x for NKE, UA is obscenely overvalued, if the growth narrative is dead.

Another member of my FIST OF DEATH thesis missed earnings and warned. Copper is higher by 2% this morning, which is providing succor for the shares in the pre market. But these were abysmal earnings and the shares should reflect that.

Again, this is another company wholly dependent on China, via copper sales. Unless the Chinese are prepared to lever up their economy to 400% of GDP, I see nothing but sheer apathy for the shares of FCX.

Freeport-McMoRan misses by $0.06, misses on revs; Lowers 2016 expected operating cash flows, Lowers CapEx guidance; Lowers debt to $19 bln

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.19; revenues rose 14.6% year/year to $3.88 bln vs the $3.96 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Consolidated sales for the year 2016 are expected to approximate 4.8 billion pounds of copper (including 485 million pounds from Tenke), 1.26 million ounces of gold and 73 million pounds of molybdenum, including 1.3 billion pounds of copper, 590 thousand ounces of gold and 21 million pounds of molybdenum for fourth-quarter 2016.

Average realized prices were $2.18 per pound for copper, $1,327 per ounce for gold and $40.63 per barrel for oil for third-quarter 2016… Q2: Average realized prices were $2.18 per pound of copper, $1,292 per ounce for gold and $41.10 per barrel for oil for second-quarter 2016.

Average unit net cash costs were $1.14 per pound of copper for mining operations and $15.00 per barrel of oil equivalents (BOE) for oil and gas operations for third-quarter 2016… Q2: $1.33 per pound of copper for mining operations and $15.00 per barrel of oil equivalents (BOE) for oil and gas operations for second-quarter 2016.

Unit net cash costs for the year 2016 are expected to average $1.20 per pound of copper for mining operations… Q2: $1.06 per pound of copper for mining operations (including Tenke) and $15.50 per BOE for oil and gas operations.

Operating cash flows totaled $980 million for third-quarter 2016. Based on current sales volume and cost estimates and assuming average prices, operating cash flows for the year 2016 are expected to approximate $3.6 billion (including $0.3 billion in working capital sources and changes in other tax payments)

Q2: Totaled $874 million for second-quarter 2016. Operating cash flows for the year 2016 are expected to approximate $4.5 billion compared to prior guidance of $4.8 bln (including $0.7 billion in working capital sources and changes in other tax payments).

Capital expenditures totaled $494 million for third-quarter 2016, consisting of $333 million for mining operations (including $250 million for major projects) and $160 million for oil and gas operations. Capital expenditures are expected to approximate $2.8 billion for the year 2016, consisting of $1.6 billion for mining operations (including $1.2 billion for major projects) and $1.2 billion for oil and gas operations

.Q2: Totaled $833 million; Capital expenditures are expected to approximate $3.1 billion for the year 2016 (Prior guidance $3.3 bln), consisting of $1.7 billion for mining operations (including $1.3 billion for major projects) and $1.4 billion for oil and gas operations.

At September 30, 2016, consolidated debt totaled $19.0 billion and consolidated cash totaled $1.1 billion. At September 30, 2016, FCX had no borrowings and $3.5 billion available under its $3.5 billion revolving credit facility. FCX expects to receive $5.2 billion in gross proceeds during fourth-quarter 2016 in connection with previously announced asset sale transactions

Q2: At June 30, 2016, consolidated debt totaled $19.3 billion (Compared to $20.3 bln at the end of Q1) and consolidated cash totaled $352 million (Compared to $331 mln at the end of Q1).