Free Shkreli T-Shirt

I’ll admit the first time I heard of this millenial Jordan Belfort wannabe I had a brief fantasy of rubbing shoulders with him at some NY party then laying out on the floor with a well-placed elbow to the jaw. Then I found out that this smirking shaved meerkat bought the rarest album in existence and my rage nearly collapsed in on itself. He’s not evil, he’s what a nine-year-old would do if he was trying to achieve status as the world’s biggest jerk. It’s like the movie Big if Tom Hank’s childhood hero was Snidely Wiplash. Dude bought a company, made some money then immediately bought a RAP ALBUM. This is a kid plain and simple. However, I forgot my own advice and got caught up in the tide of a public shaming. The weekly tradition when the internet finds a villain to target all of their frustration with the corrupt and indecent world. I neglected to read past the headline an ignored any scrutiny of this story which was a convenient little anger magnet wrapped up in a little package. Is Martin Shrkreli a good guy? Probably not. However he’s not as evil as he seems. For starters this is industry standard; raising the price of drug to charge Insurance. It’s a crappy practice which probably raises the cost of health care for all of us, but then again, I’m not economist and have no idea what I’m talking about. Shkreli claims that anybody who cannot afford the drug will be given it for free. That may be a lie, but we have no proof of that. Second, almost immediately after he jacked the price of the drug, a competitor announced a generic at the cost of a dollar a pill. So, the net effect on poor AIDs sufferers might be negligble. It’s less about what he did and how he affects the world, as it is about what he represents. And admit it, he is entertaining. He's not he hero we need, but the hero we deserve.