Here's the deal: $600k/yr, nice office, nice title, responsibilities on paper but not in practice, no employees to supervise, no boss to report to, nothing to do but hold press conferences lambasting your employer and whine to the media about your internet connection. Job security? Sounds near absolute -- good thing too, given the likelihood of difficulties finding another job. ("Sure, I'm a whackjob, and sued the heck out of my two previous employers, but hey, I won. You like to hire winners, don't you?") The NY Times has the story.


Update: Here's the link to the Amazon book review mentioned in the article: scroll down to the first reader review. Also check out the discussion on Derek Lowe's Pipeline -- I'd have to say that Lowe and Rost agree more than they disagree. Also interesting is the "other reviews" section for Peter Rost on Amazon: a couple of books about drugs, a book about taxes and the superrich, and a book extolling the selfless virtue of whistleblowers and their lawyers. Hm!


Even more: check out his Senate testimony. I'm almost convinced, but still maintain my fret that US reimportation of Canadian drugs would just lead to higher prices for Canadians. Of course, the whole economic advantage of reimportation has by now probably been destroyed by the collapse of the US dollar. Before the wars, a USD bought 1.65 Canadian sheckels, now you get one and a quarter, and lots of people think it's going lower. If China and Japan get worried about the giant USD reserves they're building up, and slow their purchases or even start to sell, there's not really a lot of brakes on the fall. With the euro as a potential competing reserve currency, there's no guarantee that the peoples of the world have to accept, as a permanent state of affairs, USD getting crammed down their throats in terms of a current account deficit. To get back to pharmaceuticals, this could even shift the balance of the US consumer as the sole source of profits for funding of R&D. Also see this.