Word: venal
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...feel somewhat sorry for these pharmaceutical companies - the idea of profiting off human misery may seem reprehensible, but it is, after all, the very logic of the market economy in medicine. Pharmaceutical corporations are not venal or callous; they're simply corporations. And they behave as corporations are supposed to do, maximizing their profits, protecting and expanding their market share and pumping money into the political process to keep Washington sweet on their interests...
...critics (not necessarily venal ones, either) and patrons (no more stupid than the ones we have today) lined up, jostling to kiss the artists' nether parts. The artists were laden with gold medals, garlands and titles of honor. They were seen as tradition incarnate, worthy successors to Rubens, Donatello and Titian. Powerful systems of taste enforcement--ministries of fine arts, academies, salons--underwrote the promise of their immortality...
...point of view, being mostly about money and therefore--considering all the ambient death and suffering--weirdly beside the point. It is a little difficult, despite Orey's exertions on behalf of the antitobacco lawyers, to find heroes in the drama. Riches are redistributed from one class of the venal to another. Mississippi's Medicaid legal team is awarded fees of $1.43 billion. Dick Scruggs, a leader of the team, buys himself a bigger private plane and a $200,000 Bentley; he trades in his 61-ft. motor yacht for one 30 ft. longer. Justice triumphs...
...talk-show host). But today's fans, who can spout weekend box-office grosses like football scores, fancy themselves insiders, fascinated with and cynical about media. Action, says Thompson, will appeal by "confirming America's worst fears that people in show business are the crass and venal destroyers of the culture and consumed by self-interest...
...other hand, what happened at Woodstock '99 (arson, pillaging, freelance mayhem) was much in the spirit of the music and of the occasion itself, which, for all the tie-dyed shirts, peace signs, long hair and dope, was only a venal shadow of an irrecoverable ghost...