Originally published at: Vivek Ramaswamy reminds me of Hollywood snake oil salespeople | Boing Boing
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I don’t really care if the media pushes Ramaswamy on these ridiculous things he says. They’re giving him a pass on his business bona fides. The media continually describes him as a successful entrepreneur, even CNN and MSNBC. He is not. He reminds us of a snake oil salesman because that’s what he is. He founded Roivant Sciences. He incorporated it in Bermuda to avoid taxes. He raised a fuck ton of venture capital. Roivant’s business model is to buy the rights to drugs on the cheap from pharma companies who failed to gain FDA approval on those drugs, and then to somehow get approval and take the drugs to market. He then created a bunch of subsidiaries to focus on different market segments. One of his big pushes was for an Alzheimer’s drug. He failed to get approval on the drug, because of course he did, and the subsidiary declared bankruptcy. Why anyone thinks he could gain approval on these drugs when huge pharma corps like GlaxoSmithKline couldn’t baffles me. Roivant has never been profitable. This also explains why he keeps pushing deregulation in his campaign. He wants an easier path to approve these drugs that already failed to gain approval at least once. If he gets his way, a thalidomide level disaster in the US is all but inevitable. I have said some of this before on other posts. I will say it again. I will keep saying it here and everywhere else because the media is not calling him out on this. He is a slightly more polished con artist than Elizabeth Holmes. That’s all he is. And I’m tired of him not being called out on this nationally. His campaign should already be in the garbage, and it’s driving me nuts that it’s not.
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An accurate characterisation, not only of the fictional silver-screen grifters but also of old-style studio execs. He’s slick, with that big sparkling grin and the expensive suit and the gleeful “screw it, why not” attitude of someone who’s never faced consequences for a gamble not paying off. I’d have trusted Robert Evans sooner than I would this huckster – the former was more honest and the societal stakes were a lot lower.
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When did they do this before? Do you remember? Seems like it wasn’t that long ago…
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Exactly, and that’s why I said I’m going to keep bringing this up. I should probably just copy my rant up there to save time.
ETA: The thing that really drives me up the wall is that none of this is hidden information difficult to find. It’s literally in his wikipedia article. And there’s even sources for it. Like…if you just take 5 minutes to do the most basic research on who this guy is, you’ll very quickly conclude he’s a con man.
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I think part of the problem is that some people seem to like and admire conmen, for some fucked up reason…
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I have started to call this guy Ramasmarmy. I think I first heard it here, but it could have been elsewhere. The guy is just slimy and unpleasant to hear, watch, and think about.
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I’m not above taking credit for that one. 
Also: Ramasmarmy is the perfect running mate for trump this cycle. Watching him try to pronounce his name consistently will be fun. Hopefully his inevitable loss (yeah, I’m calling it!) will put enough stink on this fucker to sink him, too.
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Until someone gets caught, then all that stuff you describe IS for many Americans today the definition of a ‘successful entrepreneur’. Making money any way you can get away with, and morals be damned.
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He somehow reminds me of Kari Lake. I think it’s the way he looks in the camera like a snake calmly mesmerizing its prey.
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In my head, it comes out as Ramaswampy.
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He’s like the hyper-confident guy on the university debate team that will happily debate in favor of the most heinous positions and policies - up to and including a Modest Proposal. It’s not about what he believes, it’s what he can get others to believe. It’s all a performance in service to a larger goal.
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a larger goal.
An attack surface on Democracy in which he gets paid to stan the vuln. I think I’m just overcomplicating something here…
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