Here is something we can all agree on I think—drug companies are blood-sucking, greedy cheats who cannot be trusted with the health and welfare of tens of millions of people. Am I right? And that’s even more true as we watch the global scramble to be the first company to profit big-time from a vaccine for COVID19. So, I’m going to focus on the Big Pharma corruption today with a friend and investigative reporter, Gerald Posner who is the author of a mind-boggling expose, “Pharma: Greed, Lies And the Poisoning of America”.

Looking for the single most important thing you can do between now and the end of July to slow the pandemic? As I mentioned last week in outlining my proposal for a $6.5 trillion stimulus bill, badger everyone you know, and of course your members of Congress, to get behind Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s bill, and a similar bill in the Senate co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders, to pay people up to $90,000 a year until the unemployment rate declines below 7 percent for three straight months. I talk more about the bill (and you can see last week’s episode for the full plan) which would pay people enough money so they can pay bills like rent and food, and allow them to stay home, either because they are sick or simply to allow a community-wide lockdown for a number of weeks until the so-called curve is dramatically going down.

This blog originally appeared at Working Life on July 15, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Jonathan Tasini is a political / organizing / economic strategist. President of the Economic Future Group, a consultancy that has worked in a couple of dozen countries on five continents over the past 20 years.