How globalization produces our drugs

I've already kvetched about some of the ridiculous (and extremely carbon-intensive) supply chains that are coming to light as a result of all the talk and discussion about US tariffs. Well, a new report shows the journey of a single anti-anxiety drug as it makes its way across the globe, sometimes as long as 52,000 km, en route to a Canadian consumer. The report follows the production of clonazepam, a common anxiety and insomnia drug, but it could have been any drug. 

The active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) start their journey in Guangzhou and Hangzhou in China, before being shipped to Shanghai and then Mumbai and Bangalore in India. The excipients (substances added to stabilize and help patients' bodies absorb the APIs) are produced separately in China, before being sent to India or Germany to be combined with the API into tablets. The tablets are then shipped to New Jersey in the USA to be tested and then to Tennessee to be repacked into smaller bottles. From there, they are transported to a distribution centre in the Greater Toronto Area to be distributed to Vancouver, Winnipeg, or wherever needed. The total journey can be as much a 52,000 kilometers (and God knows how much in carbon emissions).

Wow.

Of course, this raises all sorts of questions. Why can the pills not be repacked in New Jersey rather than going all the way to Tennessee? In fact, why can't the testing and repacking all be done in Toronto? Or in Germany, or India, or in China for that matter? In fact, why can't the whole process be done in China, or in India, or even in Canada?

I'm sure the initial ingredients are probably available in Canada, and there is no compelling reason that I can see for any part of the process to be carried out anywhere else. So, why don't we produce our own drugs? Sure, Canadian labour is way more expensive than Chinese or Indian labour, but think of the savings in transportation, fuel, time, and carbon emissions.

The more I find it about how the whole globalized capitalism system the works, the more skeptical and mistrustful I become.

The strange story of the Lumbees

Here's a developing story I have managed to miss until now. Unfortunately, it involves Donald Trump, but that can't be helped.

It seems that, for whatever reason, Trump has taken on the plight of the Lumbees, a native American tribe from North Carolina, which Trump has vowed to help become federally recognized, with all the financial and other benefits that come with that designation, including healthcare, education and economic development. In fact, one of his very first executive orders was to press the Department of the Interior to find a way to make that happen.

The 55,000 strong Lumbee nation has been recognized in North Carolina for over a hunded years, but federal recognition involves a very specific set of requirements including proving that their nation existed before the founding of the USA, that they have been recognized as Native since at least 1900, that they have operated as an "autonomous entitiy", and that they have genealogies that demonstrate Native heritage and ancestry from previously recognized tribes.

These are quite onerous requirements and, thus far, the Lumbees have not been able to fulfill them. In fact, strangely, there was even a 1956 federal act, the Lumbee Act, that specifically prohibits the US from having a federal relationship with the group. It gave them only limited recognition, and specifically prohibited them from receiving federal benefits. I have no idea why.

Now, Trump is asking the DoI to find a way round the Office of Federal Acknowledgement (OFA) that has always had responsibility for federal recognition of Native groups, and that has officially recognized over 570 Native tribes across America over the years. And this has other Native groups worried. 

They worry that, by circumventing the OFA, a bad precedent for future tribal recognition will be set, and that it will water down the stringent requirements that have been in force up until now. They argue that the Lumbees have tried repeatedly to attach themselves to various historical tribal and non-tribal names in order to identify themselves, but without success, meaning that they remain "not necessarily Native". 

Apparently there are many other groups out there diligently trying to prove their indigeneity, and this move by Trump could open up a real can of worms, and ppotentially even pit one Native group against another. Futhermore, it is very unlikely that the pot of money devoted to the country's Native tribes will grow if more tribes are recognized, so the same money will be spread more thinly around more groups (another reason why existing Native tribes are suspicious of this new process). In fact, it surprises me that this system has not already foumd itself facing the keen axe of Trump or the much-hated Department of Government Efficiency.

Of course, the only reason Trump is even listening to these people is for their votes (as reflected in the voting trends of recent elections): he doesn't care about their Native heritage. The whole controversy is leading to a politicization of Native issues. And we know that Trump thrives on both politicization and controversy.

How does Trump get Republicans to tow the line?

The Trump administration's horrible and ridiculously-named One Big Beautifully Bill Act has passed in the House of Representatives by the slimmest of margins, 215-214. This means that all the Democrats and a couple of Republicans voted against it, and several clearly didn't vote at all for whatever reason (the House is currently made up of 220 Republicans and 212 Democrats, with 3 seats vacant - why?)

The mega omnibus bill enacts over a trillion dollars in tax cuts, predominantly benefitting higher earners, and introduces various new tax write-offs, but only during the period of Trump's presidency. It puts significantly more money into detention faculties and deportation operations for Trump's anti-immigration agenda. It restricts the ability of federal courts to put restraining order and injunctions on illegal government activities. It slashes Medicaid (which provides healthcare to poor and disabled Americans) and the SNAP program ("food stamps", which help poor people afford groceries). It phases out green energy and EV tax incentives introduced by Joe Biden. And it increases the US governments debt limit, because all those tax cuts will hugely impact the national debt. It may be big, but wow, is it ugly.

The bill only passed in the House at all because of a desperate last-minute high-pressure push by both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who says he prayed for it. Natch. But it made me wonder what form those last minute negotiations took.

Some of the Republicans who objected to the bill wanted it toned down because of the hit that poorer working people would take, while some wanted it made even more radical, with even bigger cuts to Medicaid, for example. So, how do you corral these disparate and opposing views?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't happen by an earnest discussion of policy issues. I would imagine it involves making deals - quid pro quo - or possibly through veiled or not-so-veiled threats. That seems more like the Trump way.

Trump, of course, is heralding it as a major victory. But surely a true victory would have been a 220-212 vote (in a Congress where votes tend to run completely along party lines, and free thinking is actively discouraged). Even the Rules Committee that put forward the Bill vote barely managed to squeeze it through. In the scheme of things, then, given the way the system works, this is actually very unpopular bill, even among members of Congress.

The bill still has to go before the Senate to be finally passed. It is expected to get a bumpy ride there too, and several changes are expected to be proposed. I'm sure Trump will make sure it gets through, unpopular or not, but just how that happens is not much to do with democracy.

UPDATE

Weeks later, the One Big Beautiful Bill is still not passed, but the GOP has managed, at great pains, to squeeze it through the House and the Senate by the narrowest of margins (the stalemate-breaking vote of the Vice President!), although with amendments to make it more palatable to those Republicans who still cannot stomach it. 

Given the amendments, it still has to go back to the House, and maybe back to the Senate again. Its fate hangs precariously in the balance, despite the GOP's theoretical comfortable majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. And the only reason it has got this far is due to what is euphemistically described as "considerable pressure" from Trump on individual members of Congress.

So, essentially, Congress does not want to pass the bill, but Trump is putting on pressure (whatever form that might take) to make sure it passes anyway. This is not how things are supposed to work. What price democracy, then?

UPDATE UPDATE

The bill finally passed in the House of the Representatives by 218-214. In the end, only two Republicans were able to resist the arm-twisting and vote with their consciences. Whatever it is that Trump and Johnson say to the GOP caucus behind closed doors, it certainly works.

Generations are getting shorter (and more meaningless)

There's a fun article in the Globe and Mail about all the named generations we seem to attach so much significance to these days, about how the names came about, how they have come to define certain age groups, and ultimately how random and pointless they are.

First, a quick summary for those who are not keeping up:

• Greatest Generation: born 1901 to 1927.
• Silent Generation: 1928 to 1945.
• Baby Boomers: 1946 to 1964.
• Gen X: 1965 to 1980.
• Gen Y (Millennials): 1981 to 1996.
• Gen Z: 1997 to 2010.
• Gen Alpha: 2011 to 2024.
• Gen Beta: 2025 to 2039.

It used to be the case that we looked at older generations, after the fact, and tried to attribute some social/economic/technological generalizations to them. Thus, the Baby Boomers were an optimistic post-war generation that felt emboldened to have lots of kids, relatively speaking. That kind of made sense.

Generation X was just a generation that happened to follow the Baby Boomers ("a note to follow 'soh'"?), named after a novel by Canadian writer Douglas Coupland, whose jaded, cynical characters came to identify and stereotype the generation, whatever the actual reality.

And from there, Y, Z, Alpha and Beta just flowed automatically, in a lazy progression of increasingly meaningless labels. For no good reason, Gen Y also has a separate nickname, "Millennials", so named because the cohort would graduate around the turn of the millennium, as though that has any deep significance.

These generations are not really defined by any social, economic or technological parameters, though. Rather, sociologists and social media influencers try to impose characteristics on them, with varying levels of success, on the assumption that such generalizations are useful or significant, and that each cohort is sufficiently different in some way from preceding generations.

Interestingly, generations are now being named and defined in advance. Generation Beta already exists, even though just a few babies have been born into it since the start of this year, and their characters and defining circumstances are far from apparent yet. There is now a whole industry of demographers, market researchers and influencers, all clamouring to be the ones to define generations in the same way as Douglas Coupland (accidentally) did for Gen X, and Strauss and Howe did for Millennials.

It also seems that generations are getting shorter and shorter. While the Greatest Generation spanned 27 years, the Silent Generation 18 years, and  the Baby Boomers 19 years, Gen X and Y were only 16 years long. Gen Z, Alpha and Beta, though, are only 14 years each, which suggests that they are expected to procreate a new generation by age 14!

It's a tongue-in-cheek article, and the generations identified are clearly only generalized guides, and their timings are mere conventions and open to debate. They are not designed to be taken too seriously, except maybe by marketers. But it brings up some interesting points about how we love to compartmentalize and categorize, however meaningless the categories may actually be.

The Dark Enlightenment is coming

It's a phrase I haven't really come across before, but it's out there and it's increasing in its influence. 

"Dark Enlightenment" emerged in the late 2000s in the murkier reaches of Silicon Valley, California, and its two main "intellectual" leaders are American software engineer Curtis Yarwin and British philosopher Nick Land. It's a far-right philosophical movement that explicitly rejects most of the core principles of the 17th/18th century Enlightenment movement in Europe, including democracy, egalitarianism and universal liberty. 

Instead, it espouses hierarchical,  authoritarian systems of governance, enabled by technological innovation. Thus, according to Dark Enlightenment, a president should assume complete, monarch-like executive authority, and work to completely dismantle government systems and tear down institutions like the media, the civil service and academia. Sound faniliar?

As you might guess, then, Dark Enlightenment is seeing growing influence among certain segments of the American elite. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel, venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, US Vice President JD Vance, hard-right political strategist Steve Bannon, and, yes, Elon Musk, are all devotees. And Mr. Yarvin was a guest of honour at Donald Trump's presidential inauguration ball in January. If the Trunp administration can be said to have any kind of philosophy other than just selfishness, this, then, is it.

The name itself is interesting, isn't it, at least from a psychological perspective. Democracy is still asssociated with light and good, authoritarianism with darkness and evil. These people, though, still want to flirt with the darkness and the evil ("go over to the dark side"?), but they don't want to be seen as going full dark ("Endarkenment"? "The Darkening"?), so they end up with an oxymoron like Dark Enlightenment. Or maybe they think that's clever?

It's a pretty scary "philosophy", but expect it to be increasingly mainstream in the coming years, particularly in the USA.

Maple Leafs are in improbable territory again

We're deep in hockey play-off season and, as usual, the Toronto Maple Leafs are deep in a hole and deep in controversy.

In recent years, they have had a good team, or at least a team of good players, but they never seem to make any headway when the playoffs come around. This year they easily topped the Eastern Conference, and relatively easily won their first round series against the Ottawa Senators.

In the second round, though, they squandered a 2-0 early series lead over the Florida Panthers, losing three straight, the last game by an embarrassing 6-1 margin at home. The further they go, the worse they seem to get. In the last game, they seemed to move sluggishly, lost most one-on-one battles on the boards, turned over the puck repeatedly, and had hardly any shots on goal.

As usual, the worst culprits were their "best" (i.e. most expensive) players, the ones that contributed so much during the regular season - Marner, Matthews, Tavares. (Matthews has underperformed all season and must be injured, I would say.) Nielander and Knies still seem to have a bit of energy about them at this point, and, to be fair, Joseph Woll is just the back-up goalie after star performer Stolarz was taken out of the series with an egregious hit. So, it's hard to blame him but, nevertheless, the Maple Leafs' goaltending challenges persist. And the fans? Well, you know how they're reacting, and that doesn't help.

All of this to say: I don't understand how this keeps happening every year. It's almost suspicious. I don't mean in a "curse" way; I don't believe in that stuff. But is it possible that there is some underhand skullduggery going on? Some sort of collusion? Some illegal bending of the betting rules? Might some members of the team be deliberately underperforming?

I know it seems improbable but as Sherlock Holmes says, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".

UPDATE

Well, it just goes to show you shouldn't believe conspiracy theories, especially not your own personal conspiracy theories.

In Game 6 of the Florida Panthers series, the Toronto Maple Leafs of the first two games were back, and they won 2-0, forcing a Game 7. So, the dream lives on *sigh* .

And the scorer of that all-important first goal? Perennial playoff under-performer Auston Matthews, assisted by perennial playoff under-performer Mitch Marner. I think they just do it to spite me.

Of course, it could just be a way of extending the fix even further, but I don't know any more. An alternative interpretation might be that the Boys in Blue read my blog, realized what they were doing wrong, and pivoted accordingly,. But I'm not sold on that theory either.

Nevertheless, an exasperatingly inconsistent team, and it makes them so hard to support.

UPDATE UPDATE

Well, it was just a mirage, and now we are back where expected to be. It's comforting in a way, comforting but depressing.

Toronto lost Game 7 - again - to the Panthers. No, they were decimated, crushed. It was Game 5 all over again. Apart from a brief interlude (the second half of the first period), presumably designed just to taunt us, they were slower, less accurate, less aggressive - LESS ENGAGED - than Florida, who skated rings around the Leafs, outshot them 34-20, and outscored them 6-1. This was Toronto's seventh consecutive loss in a winner-take-all playoff game. Hmm...

This may have been Toronto's last best shot at a Stanley Cup for a while. Those skillful, expensive players are almost certainly going to be moving on, hopefully to be replaced by younger, less entitled, more hungry talents.

And for the long-suffering fans? Well, it's business as usual. Meanwhile, the conspiracy theory is looking pretty solid to me.

Trump accepting a present of any kind from a foreign state is unconstitutional

I'm intrigued to see how US President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bindi get out of this one.

Trump is keen to accept the innocent "present" of a $400 million jumbo jet from the Qatari government, a veritable "palace in the sky",  by all accounts. The way he tells it, "only a FOOL would not accept this gift", telling an ABC journalist she should be "embarrassed" to even question it.

The optics, of course, are horrible, but Trump doesn't care about optics. A more pressing problem is, it's immoral and illegal. Now, neither of those things have ever worried Trump before either, but occasionally the legal part has come back to bite him. A quick look at the US Constitution makes it pretty clear. Article 1, Section 9 Clause 8 states: 

"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any Present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or Foreign State." [my stress]

Some of the MAGA crowd are comparing it to the gift of the Statue of Liberty by France in 1886 - Trump, of course, reposted those tweets - but that gift was indeed approved by Congress. 

And that "palace in the sky"? It's a modified Boeing 747-8 (yes, an American plane), built in 2012, so not even close to being new. Apparently, the Qatari government has been trying to sell it for years, at least since 2020, to no avail. Plus, it would cost an absolute fortune to customize to meet the requirements to serve as Air Force One.

Who should be embarrassed now? Who's the FOOL now?

Canadians are boycotting the US, but barely

As has been widely reported, a lot of Canadians are changing their US travel plans in protest over Trump's tariffs. Supposedly, there are fewer Canadians travelling south for shopping sprees and sports games and just general vacation purposes. But now we finally have some concrete figures. 

It seems like travel to the US by land has declined by about 34% since January, but travel by air has only declined 17%, according to a National Bank of Canada analysis. Statistics Canada confirms that air flights are down about 20% in April 2025 compared to April 2024.

Hmm. I actually expected it to be more. It seems to mean that a lot of Canadians (e.g. snowbirds, tourists?) are still travelling down to the States just like usual. That's disappointing.