NARCISSISM
PATRIOTISM
Along those lines, did you see Michael Kinsley’s great
piece
in the Atlantic
Monthly? In part:
.
. . although the 1960s featured plenty of self-indulgence, this
wasn’t their essence. Their essence was selfless and idealistic: stopping
the war; ending racism; eradicating poverty. These goals and some of the
methods for achieving them may have been childishly romantic or even entirely
wrongheaded, but they were about making the world a better place. The Tea
Party movement’s goals, when stated specifically, are mostly
self-interested. And they lack poetry: cut my taxes; don’t let the
government mess with my Medicare; and so on. I say
“self-interested” and not “selfish” because pursuing
your own self-interest is not illegitimate in a capitalist democracy. (Nor is
poetry an essential requirement.) But the Tea Party’s atmospherics, all
about personal grievance and taking umbrage and feeling put-upon, are a far cry
from flower power. There is a nasty, sour, vindictive tone to the Tea Party
that certainly existed in the antiwar movement and its offspring, but never
dominated the atmosphere created by these groups.
.
. . [T]he Tea Party movement is not the solution to what ails America.
It is an illustration of what ails America. Not because it is right-wing
or because it is sometimes susceptible to crazed conspiracy theories, and not
because of racism, but because of the movement’s self-indulgent
premise that none of our challenges and difficulties are our own fault.
.
. . The TPP vision is that you can keep your Medicare benefits and balance
the budget by ending congressional earmarks, and perhaps the National Endowment
for the Arts.
What is most irksome about the Tea Party Patriots is their
expropriation of the word patriot, with the implication that if you
disagree with them, you’re not a patriot, or at least you’re less
patriotic than they are. Without getting all ask-notty about it, I think a
movement labeling itself patriotic should have some obligation to demonstrate
patriotism in a way other than demanding a tax cut. . . .
☞ It’s worth reading the whole thing.
ACORN Totally Vindicated of All Wrongdoing . . .
. . . says
a GAO report – though too late to save it from oblivion. Turns out,
there were no weapons of mass destruction, after all (as it were). Score
another win for those who believe the downtrodden wield too much power.
DCTH
The bearish view here is that,
yes, okay, the Delcath procedure works and will be approved, but the market is
tiny, with maybe 1,000 or 1,500 melanoma sufferers who need it each year, and
annual revenues of maybe $50 million, tops. They see DCTH (which closed at
$8.95 last night, giving it a $350 million market cap) as a $6 stock.
Guru responds that
Delcath’s delivery device will also be used to fight “neuroendocrine tumors,”
which afflict about six to nine times as many new patients each year, and
generally metastasize to the liver. “Early studies of DCTH’s
system in neuroendocrine tumors that did metastasize to the liver showed
significant clinical improvement. Phase II data in this indication will
be available in the October 2010 timeframe. At $50,000 per patient, this
is another $450 million potential annual market, though it may develop more
slowly than the melanoma market as they will likely have to do a Phase III to
get official approval.” (Official approval may be needed for this
procedure to be covered by insurance, but not for docs legally to prescribe
it.)
So if that works out, multiply
the potential revenue, and thus a fair value for the stock, several-fold?