Spin, After a Long Illness...

Maybe I'm old, and my memory embellishes the carefree days of yesteryore, when someone would look you in the eye while fucking you over and actually, y'know, try to lie to you about it.

People used to put thought into their duplicity.  Make some effort at trying to pull the wool over your eyes.  Give a crap about giving you crap.  It was actually a sign of respect for you as an individual, that your feelings mattered somehow - more than that of an inanimate rock or spot of mildew, at least.

But could it be that those days are behind us?  Is it now acceptable to show blatant disdain for notions of fairness and morality, without so much as a shredded veil of euphemism or a thin pretense at weasel-words?  I fear this dark circumstance is upon us, and it's not what I wished for when I wished for the end of spin...

I present as my evidence, the following bespoke examples:

Says it like it is

• Marjin Dekkers

As has been covered several times before in this blog, the cost of some cutting-edge pharmaceuticals is higher than insert hilarious drug abuse metaphor.  They're priced ridiculously far beyond the reach of people in emerging economies - sorry, in keeping with the no-spin customs of today, I'll call them what they are: poverty drenched, boiling hot, overpopulated, sometimes-war-torn countries as fabulously rich in culture as they are cripplingly poor in cash.

Or to be even more direct - in this case we're talking specifically about India.  There, I said it!

Now the Indian government has announced measures to enable local firms to manufacture patented drugs at drastically reduced costs, regardless of whether the foreign patent holder agrees to grant permission.

For example, a cancer drug called Nexavar which costs Americans $96,000 is discounted to a mere $69,000 for Indians by the kind-hearted souls at Bayer.  With this Indian court ruling, it can now be made and sold at a 97% discount, which works out to some $2100 - only about $1,000 more than the average annual income there.  Let's call that a good start, and continue...

The excuse given by the government for this appalling disrespect of intellectual property rights is some blather about saving human lives or whatever.

But Bayer CEO Marjin Dekkers has a clearly-argued point to make about why the Indian government's steps are so frustrating:

"We did not develop this medicine for Indians.  We developed it for western patients who can afford it."

In the past you might reasonably have expected something more 'carefully phrased' from a man who earns nearly $5 million per year.  But any spin in that statement is present only in homeopathic levels, if at all.  In other words, it's entirely absent.

Any resemblance to Patrick Stewart
purely coincidental and unfortunate

• Thomas Perkins

Venture capitalist and victimized underclass Tom Perkins recently wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal in which he openly frets about the growing resentment recently shown by the great unwashed masses for the wealthy - the 1% - the job creators - his golfing buddies - call them what you will.

He perceives a rising tide of 'hatred for success' in news media reports, in the Occupy movement, and specifically with the people who protest Google's employee buses (which I'll admit have me a bit puzzled too...) and, bizarrely, those who attack author Danielle Steel.

Media reactions to this letter expressed outrage at how he drew "comparisons" between the Occupy movement and the Nazi Holocaust.  But I disagree - if you read carefully, he's not being that indirect.

He's actually saying that simply expressing anger with rich people shitting on the rest of the world is equivalent to murdering Jews en masse.

In his letter, entitled "Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?", Perkins writes:

"I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent', namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely 'the rich'."

Perkins goes on to point out, "This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking" - but I'm not so sure. The last time Americans got fed up with being treated like scum by an upper class who did not even bother with pretense, a lot of people died, but almost none of them were rich.

Wants you to eat your vegetables

• HSBC Bank, UK

The traditional purpose of a bank is to safely look after your money, investing it to earn profit, which they split with you in the form of interest.  And then - let us not forget - give you back your money when you ask for it.

HSBC has in the past added "launder funds for drug cartels" and other side businesses to this mandate, but lately they've opened a brand-new frontier in customer service - they're now behaving like parents.

That's right - if you want to withdraw your money, you have to tell them why or they can actually refuse. And if you complain about this policy, they have a refreshingly direct response - BBC News quotes their customer letter:

"As this was not a change to the Terms and Conditions of your bank account, we had no need to pre-notify customers of the change"

But wait - there may yet be hope after all!  Reached for comment, the Executive Director of the British Bankers Association Eric Leenders (yes I checked the spelling) defends this practice with at least a hint of old-school spin:

"I can understand it's frustrating for customers. But if you are making the occasional large cash withdrawal, the bank wants to make sure it's the right way to make the payment."

If spin is not quite dead, it's at least gravely wounded, flopping around uselessly, no longer able to provide the veneer of phony respect that once pulled a gauzy curtain over the raw contempt  the privileged seem to have for anyone not on an equally high horse.

So for all those who profess to hate spin, who just wanted folks to say what they mean and mean what they say - you may have got your wish.  Happy now?  Let me know in the comment section below...