Business of Agriculture: The threat of falling oil prices
Can fruit and vegetable farms in the Upper Valley survive the tumbling price of fuel? That’s a question I’ve been thinking about lately, with more than a little alarm, as both gas and diesel have fallen below the $2 per gallon mark. That’s less than half of what they were a few years ago. You might think that tumbling fuel prices would be good for local fruit and vegetable farmers, since we use gas in our trucks, diesel in our...
Business of Agriculture: The threat of falling oil prices
Can fruit and vegetable farms in the Upper Valley survive the tumbling price of fuel? That’s a question I’ve been thinking about lately, with more than a little alarm, as both gas and diesel have fallen below the $2 per gallon mark. That’s less than half of what they were a few years ago. You might think that tumbling fuel prices would be good for local fruit and vegetable farmers, since we use gas in our trucks, diesel in our...
Consumer Confidential: Obama’s Budget Plan Would Allow Greater Scrutiny Of High Drug Prices
Buried deep within President Obama’s $4 trillion budget plan are a couple of health care proposals that could change everything for U.S. consumers. The fact that the drug industry wasted no time in dismissing the ideas — and that their Republican friends in Congress said they wouldn’t even look at them — should tell you something big was afoot. The Department of Health and Human Services broke out Obama’s health care proposals in a...
Consumer Confidential: Drugmakers Preying on the Sick
Congress tried to show it feels America’s pain over high prescription-drug costs by calling Martin Shkreli to account. Shkreli is the former head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, currently out on $5 million bail after being charged with securities fraud and conspiracy. He became the face of Big Pharma greed after jacking up the price of a one-of-a-kind infection medication by 5,000 percent. Shkreli clammed up by citing his Fifth Amendment...
What Unites Congress? Scorn For Shkreli
Washington — A smirking Martin Shkreli briefly united Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill last week, as lawmakers took turns blasting the price-hiking former CEO who has become the new poster child for corporate greed. But the gridlocked state of Congress virtually assures federal efforts to lower drug prices will remain in limbo for years. And even then, experts warn that the options available to Congress would not stop...
