Mylan has upped EpiPen prices by 400 percent since it bought the decades-old device from Merck in 2007. The company says the moves are justified by “product improvements,” a line that presumably even they couldn’t possibly believe.

What makes this so worrisome is that the big three have simultaneously hiked their prices. From 2010 to 2015, the price of Lantus (made by Sanofi) went up by 168 percent; the price of Levemir (made by Novo Nordisk) rose by 169 percent; and the price of Humulin R U-500 (made by Eli Lilly) soared by 325 percent.

 curran12 wrote:
I actually need epi-pens for my food allergies, so this is very close to home for me. And I'm not happy with how it is going.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Drug companies? Surely you must mean "Drug maffia"? Because I honestly think there is not much difference. IMO, the whole pharmaceutical industry should be nationalised.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Drug companies? Surely you must mean "Drug maffia"? Because I honestly think there is not much difference. IMO, the whole pharmaceutical industry should be nationalised.

You want the industry nationalized? Those wonderful Soviet-era nationalized industries sure were picture of efficiency and innovation, right? How about all those nationalized companies operating down in Venezuela? Can you say failed country? That's not the answer. The free market is always the answer. "Free Market", however, can often become polluted by crony-capitalism, government bureaucracy, etc. and you end up with this situation.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
The free market is always the answer. "Free Market", however, can often become polluted by crony-capitalism, government bureaucracy, etc. and you end up with this situation.

 whembly wrote:
Plus, Obamacare slapped an additional tax on it as it's considered a "medical device'.

Interestingly, that Mylan CEO Heather Bresch is the daughter of a Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia... so we'll see how long this outrage lasts.

EDIT: I just looked at the insulins... and yup, they're going up. Not sure how to explain that one... and sure does look to be some price gouging.

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Plus, Obamacare slapped an additional tax on it as it's considered a "medical device'.

Interestingly, that Mylan CEO Heather Bresch is the daughter of a Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia... so we'll see how long this outrage lasts.

EDIT: I just looked at the insulins... and yup, they're going up. Not sure how to explain that one... and sure does look to be some price gouging.

October 2007, $100 - Mylan acquires Epipen.
October 2008, $110
September 2009, $125 - ACA introduced in the house.
March 2010, $150 - ACA signed into law.
June 2011, $175
January 2011 $185
July 2012, $210
January 2013, $250
January 2014, $300 - ACA medical device tax of 2.3% is finalized by the IRS
May 2014, $350
January 2015, $450
December 2015, $450 - ACA medical device tax has 2 year moratorium issued.
January 2016, $550
May 2016, $600

Yeah, tell me more about how Obamacare's medical device tax did this.

 feeder wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
The free market is always the answer. "Free Market", however, can often become polluted by crony-capitalism, government bureaucracy, etc. and you end up with this situation.

I fail to see how crony capitalism or red tape created this situation.

The problem with the free market in medicine is one cannot "vote with their wallet", so to speak, when the choice is pay up or die.

 Ouze wrote:
Definitely the latter. I want single payer, or at least something close to it - epipens are $100 in Canada and the price hasn't budged in years.

I'd also like to see, much like Canada, stricter controls - nearly a ban, really - on drug advertisements. It's out of control.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Drug companies? Surely you must mean "Drug maffia"? Because I honestly think there is not much difference. IMO, the whole pharmaceutical industry should be nationalised.

You want the industry nationalized? Those wonderful Soviet-era nationalized industries sure were picture of efficiency and innovation, right? How about all those nationalized companies operating down in Venezuela? Can you say failed country? That's not the answer. The free market is always the answer. "Free Market", however, can often become polluted by crony-capitalism, government bureaucracy, etc. and you end up with this situation.

Soviet industry defeated Nazi Germany, gave the US a big scare during the space race and produced submarine technology that wasn't matched until decades later. *shrug*

The "free market" is inherently less efficient because it must siphon money away as profit. Private companies are a very bad idea for anything that matters because their goal is never to cure disease, provide housing or feed people. The goal is always to maximise profit. Quality, laws and dignity are secondary concerns, if they are concerns at all and not viewed as obstacles to profit. Clearly both approaches can be done by people who are competent and incompetent alike but on paper the profit-driven system has the obvious and massive drawback of not just leaking money but being only about money.

Take a look at train infrastructure in the UK.

 whembly wrote:
With reasonable regulation BigWaaagh.

EDIT: Also, I found out more why insulin's price is increasing...

The various insulins goes through frequent drug shortages. (I'm saying this, at least in part, may explain why insulins are going up by virtue of supply & demand).

US is an obese country and the number of diagnosed diabetes patients is increasing rapidly.

 Ouze wrote:
I'd also like to see, much like Canada, stricter controls - nearly a ban, really - on drug advertisements. It's out of control.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
The free market is always the answer. "Free Market", however, can often become polluted by crony-capitalism, government bureaucracy, etc. and you end up with this situation.

 kronk wrote:

I have looked at the face of evil, and it wears shiny, Butterscotch chapstick.

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
The free market is always the answer. "Free Market", however, can often become polluted by crony-capitalism, government bureaucracy, etc. and you end up with this situation.

You're right that nationalised pharmaceuticals are not the answer. However you've fallen for the old 'free market is perfect' thing. Thing is, there is no economic model for the 'free market', it's a political invention. In economics you will see talk about lots of different models, and it includes the idealised 'perfect market'. However the perfect market is really just a starting point, it is how things would work if everything was, well, perfect. The point then is to acknowledge all the imperfections, and start modelling how things work when under various degrees of imperfection.

This naturally leads to the kinds of government laws you need to move things closer to a perfect market. Where an information asymmetry means consumers can be duped in to buying unnecessary or even dangerous products, you introduce consumer safety laws. Where a monopoly or oligopoly is allowing price fixing, you either review pricing or bring in anti-trust laws.

It is quite an unfortunate thing that 'free market' rhetoric has led many people to believe that the most efficient markets are ones with no regulation. Actually the only way to move to closer to perfect market situations is with regulation. This doesn't mean all regulation is good, as much regulation is simply for special interests and will not benefit the consumer at all, and in other cases well-intentioned but poorly executed legislation will produce negative results.

So while legislation should be carefully applied, it is completely wrong to run with the idealisation of a free market, that regulation can only harm.

 whembly wrote:

US is an obese country and the number of diagnosed diabetes patients is increasing rapidly.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
The Free Market I speak of is one with a level playing field. No bias, no cronyism, no favoritism, no protectionism, etc., etc. True economic Darwinism. Capitalism as it should be.
The fact that it's not perfect...nothing is and that is also something I didn't come even close to stating...is a function of reality meeting theory and the introduction of manipulation and abuse to that playing field. Even so, it's head and shoulders the best system I've seen in my half century of existence. There's not even a close second.

 feeder wrote:
The problem with the free market in medicine is one cannot "vote with their wallet", so to speak, when the choice is pay up or die.

 sebster wrote:
In economics you will see talk about lots of different models, and it includes the idealised 'perfect market'. However the perfect market is really just a starting point, it is how things would work if everything was, well, perfect. The point then is to acknowledge all the imperfections, and start modelling how things work when under various degrees of imperfection.

tneva82 wrote:
But why they can't vote? Are there laws in place ensuring there's only one private supplier? If so then that's not actually free market.

On free market there would be multiple options so if one company price gauges there would be another company that sees market chance to sell stuff for cheaper and compensate smaller sale price with higher sale count.

It's when there's only one source for the stuff where price gauging happens. But that's not really free market then...

 sebster wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
But why they can't vote? Are there laws in place ensuring there's only one private supplier? If so then that's not actually free market.

On free market there would be multiple options so if one company price gauges there would be another company that sees market chance to sell stuff for cheaper and compensate smaller sale price with higher sale count.

It's when there's only one source for the stuff where price gauging happens. But that's not really free market then...

Once again, 'free market' is not a thing. It means nothing.

Second up, it's all good and well to say that other companies should be able to make the product, but patent laws exist for a reason. Without them you'd have one company sink a few hundred million in to developing a new drug, only to find the day after approval there's 50 companies selling copycat generics at a fraction of the price. No-one would ever bother to develop a new drug ever again.

We need to allow (temporary) monopolies in order to reward the development of new drugs. However the use of those monopolies needs to be closely monitored to avoid price gouging, and perhaps most importantly we need to look at how long we allow those monopolies to exist.

tneva82 wrote:
Yeah so it's not free but monopolized. Monopoly everywhere is always bad and will result in customer getting worse deal. If you switch monopoly to other party you just switch the one screwing customers.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

The Free Market I speak of is one with a level playing field. No bias, no cronyism, no favoritism, no protectionism, etc., etc.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

True economic Darwinism. Capitalism as it should be. The fact that it's not perfect...nothing is and that is also something I didn't come even close to stating...is a function of reality meeting theory and the introduction of manipulation and abuse to that playing field. Even so, it's head and shoulders the best system I've seen in my half century of existence. There's not even a close second.

 Ouze wrote:
Definitely the latter. I want single payer, or at least something close to it - epipens are $100 in Canada and the price hasn't budged in years.

I'd also like to see, much like Canada, stricter controls - nearly a ban, really - on drug advertisements. It's out of control.

 kronk wrote:
They do it because they can.

She, and the other two companies' CEOs that make the EpiPen and similar products, should share a cell with Shkreli for price gouging.



I have looked at the face of evil, and it wears shiny, Butterscotch chapstick.

 dogma wrote:

 kronk wrote:

I have looked at the face of evil, and it wears shiny, Butterscotch chapstick.

That is an impressive amount of transparent spin.

"No one's more frustrated than me," Bresch told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday when she was pressed on the question of why Mylan needed to have such a high price for EpiPens, and why she just didn't cut their price.

"Everybody should be frustrated," said Bresch, who in recent days has come under fire from U.S. Senators, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and patients who are outraged by EpiPen's 400 percent price increases in recent years.

Spetulhu wrote:
Shkreli or the company he worked for didn't even develop the drug he pressed up in price, they just bought the rights to it.

 BigWaaagh wrote:


You're actually trying to defend the "quality" of Soviet Russia's industry? Just please.

Free Market is the most efficient when operating unencumbered in a true environment of open competition. Competition drives improvement, innovation and efficiency, period.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Her father is Senator Joe Manchin, and her company donated somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation

Rosebuddy wrote:
Competition is inherently inefficient because you'll end up with losers having wasted resources and will have spent a lot of time to get to this point. It's needless effort.

 Manchu wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:
Competition is inherently inefficient because you'll end up with losers having wasted resources and will have spent a lot of time to get to this point. It's needless effort.

Sure, the government should just order industry to get it right the first time, huh?

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

The Free Market I speak of is one with a level playing field. No bias, no cronyism, no favoritism, no protectionism, etc., etc.

A market without bias is not free. .......HUH?

 BigWaaagh wrote:

True economic Darwinism. Capitalism as it should be. The fact that it's not perfect...nothing is and that is also something I didn't come even close to stating...is a function of reality meeting theory and the introduction of manipulation and abuse to that playing field. Even so, it's head and shoulders the best system I've seen in my half century of existence. There's not even a close second.

When did you observe that? Because I can't think of a country like the one you're describing.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:


You're actually trying to defend the "quality" of Soviet Russia's industry? Just please.

Free Market is the most efficient when operating unencumbered in a true environment of open competition. Competition drives improvement, innovation and efficiency, period.

The United States powered through WW2 on the back of a command economy.


Competition is inherently inefficient because you'll end up with losers having wasted resources and will have spent a lot of time to get to this point. It's needless effort.

 skyth wrote:
I think it's more of a duplication of effort than not getting it right that causes the inefficiency.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
.......HUH?

 BigWaaagh wrote:

That's because you're naively applying an absolute concept to reality. If that's your yardstick, you'll always be disappointed and missing the point. If you want to see a very real application of what I'm talking about, try Silicon Valley. Free flow of private capital pursuing and promoting innovation.

 Manchu wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:
Competition is inherently inefficient because you'll end up with losers having wasted resources and will have spent a lot of time to get to this point. It's needless effort.

Sure, the government should just order industry to get it right the first time, huh?

 Manchu wrote:
The real question is, How many times must tens of millions die of starvation before Western teenagers realize that command economies don't actually feed the masses?

 feeder wrote:
The other real question is, How many times must tens of millions die of starvation before Western grognards realize that free market economies don't actually feed the masses?

 LordofHats wrote:
All you have to do is organize the economy to do so.

 Manchu wrote:

 feeder wrote:
The other real question is, How many times must tens of millions die of starvation before Western grognards realize that free market economies don't actually feed the masses?

I don't recall making the claim that capitalism feeds the masses. I expressed skepticism about Rosebuddy's criticism of competition as inherently inefficient, inasmuch as the alternative is a fairy tale.

 Manchu wrote:
I don't recall making the claim that capitalism feeds the masses. I expressed skepticism about Rosebuddy's criticism of competition as inherently inefficient, inasmuch as the alternative is a fairy tale.

 feeder wrote:
Ah, I fell into the classic "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists!" trap. My apologies.

 LordofHats wrote:
There are some economy models though where I'd argue competition is destructive, and healthcare is one of them (other examples are the very back end of the tech industry, and operating systems).

 Manchu wrote:
Oh well why didn't I think of that???

"Just make everything perfect!"

 LordofHats wrote:
The failure of such an economy to do so would be political more than economic.

 Manchu wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The failure of such an economy to do so would be political more than economic.

We're talking about Marxism - this is a distinction without a difference.

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
.......HUH?

Even a level playing field requires bias towards policies which enable that. And then there's consumer choice, employer choice, and all the other forms of choice which involve bias.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

That's because you're naively applying an absolute concept to reality. If that's your yardstick, you'll always be disappointed and missing the point. If you want to see a very real application of what I'm talking about, try Silicon Valley. Free flow of private capital pursuing and promoting innovation.

So a relatively small part of a State in a much larger country that is supported by both? And one where production workers can't actually live?

If the free flow of capital leads to a median home price of 1 million USD, and a ~1,900 USD median monthly rent, then there is something wrong.

 LordofHats wrote:
Even in Marxism political and economic considerations are not the same thing.

 Manchu wrote:
That's false, practically speaking.

but it was not because they had no political aspiration to

 Manchu wrote:


Anyhow, a command economy is not the solution to providing affordable epipens.

 LordofHats wrote:
There is 0 economic reason for people to starve to death in a command economy.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The case in hand involves a company that has found it necessary to sell a device no longer in patent containing a substance no longer in patent for about 10 times the price that the same device is sold in many other countries.

In the interview, Ms. Bresch said the company’s latest actions would do the most to help patients where it mattered, by reducing their out-of-pocket costs. And she said that the $600 list price was necessary for the company to recoup its investment in the EpiPen, which includes raising awareness for severe allergic reaction and making improvements to the way the product works.

But she also sought to shift blame away from Mylan, saying that patients are feeling the pain in part because insurers have increased the amount that customers must pay in recent years.

“What else do you shop for that when you walk up to the counter, you have no idea what it’s going to cost you?” she said. “Tell me where that happens anywhere else in the system. It’s unconscionable.”

To some, the company’s response seemed to ring hollow. “It’s a real challenge to understand how a management team sits around a board table and makes a decision to raise the price of a lifesaving medication over and over and over, and when the P.R. storm hits, decides to blame someone else for that price increase,” said David Maris, an analyst for Wells Fargo. He had warned investors in June that Mylan’s price increases on EpiPen and other drugs could soon draw unwanted media scrutiny.

 Manchu wrote:
What? Scarcity is the reason.

I mean, it seems like you are really arguing that there is no reason why some hypothetical, ahistorical actor definitely cannot aim to feed the masses, which is a non-point.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It has happened because US medical consumers are an easy kill for a profit oriented medical system.

Given the resistance to Obamacare, etc, it's not surprising that this situation should arise. The US public has only itself to blame for not insisting on a proper first world medical system.

 Manchu wrote:
the debate is more like, does history matter or not?

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You think everything should be even across the board? Is that your point? If a 2Ksf house in Peoria is only $150K and in SF it's $1m, that's wrong?

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Actually, no. It proves my point precisely. Supply and demand, free market at it's finest. Also, as recent history shows, free markets are ruthless in their efficiency and invariably self correct excesses, quite violently some times.

 Manchu wrote:

In the interview, Ms. Bresch said the company’s latest actions would do the most to help patients where it mattered, by reducing their out-of-pocket costs. And she said that the $600 list price was necessary for the company to recoup its investment in the EpiPen, which includes raising awareness for severe allergic reaction and making improvements to the way the product works.

But she also sought to shift blame away from Mylan, saying that patients are feeling the pain in part because insurers have increased the amount that customers must pay in recent years.

“What else do you shop for that when you walk up to the counter, you have no idea what it’s going to cost you?” she said. “Tell me where that happens anywhere else in the system. It’s unconscionable.”

To some, the company’s response seemed to ring hollow. “It’s a real challenge to understand how a management team sits around a board table and makes a decision to raise the price of a lifesaving medication over and over and over, and when the P.R. storm hits, decides to blame someone else for that price increase,” said David Maris, an analyst for Wells Fargo. He had warned investors in June that Mylan’s price increases on EpiPen and other drugs could soon draw unwanted media scrutiny.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/business/painted-as-a-villain-mylans-chief-says-shes-no-such-thing.html

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You think everything should be even across the board? Is that your point? If a 2Ksf house in Peoria is only $150K and in SF it's $1m, that's wrong?

No, I think when most people can't live in the area they work, there is a problem. This problem is related to housing prices and wage inequality.

And, assuming you're talking about Peoria, Illinois, why would anyone move there? High crime, mediocre schools...I guess they might be working for CAT or going to Bradley; a university which is massively overpriced and has a college named after Caterpillar.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Actually, no. It proves my point precisely. Supply and demand, free market at it's finest. Also, as recent history shows, free markets are ruthless in their efficiency and invariably self correct excesses, quite violently some times.

Geographic relocation is much more difficult for the non-rich, heavily distorting that market.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

And what exactly is your point with this reply? That it's not fair to everyone when prices go up? Relevance? The market will bear what it will bear and correct when out of balance.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Once again, this makes my point to the efficiency and effectiveness of a free market system.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Trying to see your issue here, other than a quasi-socialist soap box position, i.e. housing prices, wage inequality, university overpriced, difficulty for the non-rich, shall I go on?

 BigWaaagh wrote:

...I'm guessing you believe that there should be another price determinant besides the market, which you haven't stated yet, just that because there are winners and losers in free market model I espouse that it's bad.

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

And what exactly is your point with this reply? That it's not fair to everyone when prices go up? Relevance? The market will bear what it will bear and correct when out of balance.

What is balance when it comes to things like living space, or life saving medication? In the former homelessness often ensues, and in the latter death does.

These are both markets in which externalities negatively impact the purchasing power of the consumer, to their significant detriment.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Once again, this makes my point to the efficiency and effectiveness of a free market system.

If you're fully on board with the free market, then silicon valley is one of the worst examples you could choose. It basically exists due to DoD spending.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Trying to see your issue here, other than a quasi-socialist soap box position, i.e. housing prices, wage inequality, university overpriced, difficulty for the non-rich, shall I go on?

I believe Bradley is overpriced because I'm an academic and I believe it isn't worth the ~42.000 USD it charges per year, with room and board. That is entirely separate from any political views I might have.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

...I'm guessing you believe that there should be another price determinant besides the market, which you haven't stated yet, just that because there are winners and losers in free market model I espouse that it's bad.

Yes, because the losers continue to exist as people who need to be regarded by the government. Saying "Oh, they lost, feth them." is not a thing which works; at least absent something like a police state.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

When I made the "socialist soap box" comment earlier I didn't realize you're actually a socialist.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You're still failing, completely, to provide a counter point to my defense of a free market. Pointing out the growing pains of society...any society for that matter...where there are, de facto, winners and losers doesn't condemn a free market mechanism.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

There are mini-silicon valley-like enclaves springing up all over the country...

 BigWaaagh wrote:
But in this instance, your reflex is to, what, punish landowners from making the most from their holdings? That's certainly fair, right? So you'd try to relieve one sector of the population by punishing another...does the hypocrisy of this position register?

Mylan, the makers of the life-saving EpiPen, pushed for laws to make the device mandatory for public schools in at least 11 states through various school incentives. The drug manufacturer has since avoided paying any U.S. taxes on these new profits by moving overseas.

Congress was given $4 million by Mylan Pharmaceuticals to pass the 2013 School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, which incentivizes schools to keep Mylan’s products in stock in the case of an allergic reaction.

One of its other school incentive programs, “EpiPen4Schools,” shut out competitors by temporarily giving schools discounted EpiPens so long as administrators agreed to only purchase epinephrine products from Mylan Pharmaceuticals.

As Mylan reaps the profits from these programs, it continues to receive millions in American taxpayer money through various federal programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. While much of this money is intended to offset consumer costs, Mylan has still jacked up prices of the EpiPen from $104 in 2009 to its present price of $609.

This has resulted in Mylan CEO Heather Bresch giving herself a 671 percent raise, but less than zero corporate tax income for the U.S.

A year and a half after Mylan secured their Congress backing, the company executed a corporate inversion to move its legal residence to the Netherlands while its headquarters and the majority of its employees stayed in Pittsburgh. This freed up Mylan to slash its effective U.S. tax rate from 9.4 percent to -4.7 percent, meaning the Pharma giant actually got money back from the U.S. Treasury rather than paying taxes.

While the U.S. lost all tax revenue from Mylan, the company’s worldwide tax rate plummeted from 16.2 percent to 7.4 percent as its global profits rose by 22.5 percent in the two years following Congress’s passage of the 2013 School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act.

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

When I made the "socialist soap box" comment earlier I didn't realize you're actually a socialist.

I'm a socialist in the sense that I recognize that a country cannot simply ignore people that didn't win the game, and has to incentivize certain forms of winning so the people that lose don't fall through the cracks; for whatever reason.

Seriously, the society you're talking about is the sort that ferments revolution and police states, as I've already said.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You're still failing, completely, to provide a counter point to my defense of a free market. Pointing out the growing pains of society...any society for that matter...where there are, de facto, winners and losers doesn't condemn a free market mechanism.

People dying in your society is not something you can hand wave as a "growing pain". The Soviet Union did that, China did (and does do) that, the great paradox of the objectivist philosophy you're proscribing is that it requires the exact same thing.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

There are mini-silicon valley-like enclaves springing up all over the country...

Miniature enclaves that are funded by the DoD? Because that's how silicon valley got started.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
But in this instance, your reflex is to, what, punish landowners from making the most from their holdings? That's certainly fair, right? So you'd try to relieve one sector of the population by punishing another...does the hypocrisy of this position register?

I don't have a reflex, I would want to see the relevant circumstances. Though I would guess that the landowners could deal with the punishment far more easily than their tenants, especially given how gentrification works. Same thing goes for patent holders in corporations that started with money and can bail, at any time, and minimally keep their money.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

At their core, all your responses are nothing more than a let's fix societies woes by letting the government pick winners and losers...a proven recipe for true disaster...because their choices are better than the natural evolution of market forces. Liberal intellectual nonsense, that.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You can vilify the nature of Capitalism all you want, but the system, btw, has created more wealth and well being in the world than ANY other in history.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Also, venture capital and private equity were as much behind the development and growth of SV as the DoD was.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You can vilify the nature of Capitalism all you want, but the system, btw, has created more wealth and well being in the world than ANY other in history.

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

At their core, all your responses are nothing more than a let's fix societies woes by letting the government pick winners and losers...a proven recipe for true disaster...because their choices are better than the natural evolution of market forces. Liberal intellectual nonsense, that.

No, I'm pointing out why objectivist "intellectualism" is nonsense which involves state distortion of market forces. It literally countermands itself.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You can vilify the nature of Capitalism all you want, but the system, btw, has created more wealth and well being in the world than ANY other in history.

I'm not vilifying capitalism at all, I am merely explaining the problems that it has; problems which most capitalist states have addressed via socialist policies.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Also, venture capital and private equity were as much behind the development and growth of SV as the DoD was.

The only reason venture capital gravitated to silicon valley was government spending, primarily from the DoD.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You can vilify the nature of Capitalism all you want, but the system, btw, has created more wealth and well being in the world than ANY other in history.

Capitalism doesn't create wealth, labour does. Capitalism merely concentrates it into the hands of the ruling class. It is a system that not only creates poverty but requires it. All well being in rich countries have come at the hands of workers' movements, who have quite literally fought to be regarded as anything other than tools and to partake in the wealth they create for their employers.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Point A...anything involving state distortion of market forces is directly counter to the free market and pretty much my point.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Point B...Yeah, you most blatantly are. Firstly, most, if not all, capitalist doctrines espouse safety nets as part of their inherent philosophy...

 BigWaaagh wrote:
While DoD/Military investment was a significant factor in SV's early days, it was by no means at all alone.

Liberal intellectual nonsense, that.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Firstly, most, if not all, capitalist doctrines espouse safety nets as part of their inherent philosophy.

...That's bending it just a bit, don't you think?

So patently wrong. You think the current growth of the middle class in China, Mexico, India...THE WORLD...is at the hands of labour?

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Point A...anything involving state distortion of market forces is directly counter to the free market and pretty much my point.

Yes, and given that all states you could nominate as a "free market" distort them in some way you may need to reconsider.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Point B...Yeah, you most blatantly are. Firstly, most, if not all, capitalist doctrines espouse safety nets as part of their inherent philosophy...

But you outright rejected those philosophies when calling me a socialist.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
While DoD/Military investment was a significant factor in SV's early days, it was by no means at all alone.

But it was still the majority, by a large amount, an amount that attracted private investment. That's what government investment often does.

 LordofHats wrote:

Liberal intellectual nonsense, that.

I love it when I see the word liberal used in this context when talking about economics. It's just funny

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Firstly, most, if not all, capitalist doctrines espouse safety nets as part of their inherent philosophy.

And who provides them?

...That's bending it just a bit, don't you think?

Not really. The boom of the tech industry around the world was pretty much driven by government defense spending. All these computers, cell phones, the internet. All of that began with governments spending huge amounts on their own security, and the technology eventually bled out into the rest of the world because it's pretty damn awesome stuff! Probably would have been invented anyway of course, but all the government spending allowed the industry to boom and grow at a rapid pace, in part because the government's involvement negated a lot of the risk involved with brand new business ventures. The same happened with Railroads, and electric power in earlier decades/centuries.

So patently wrong. You think the current growth of the middle class in China, Mexico, India...THE WORLD...is at the hands of labour?

You're treating it like its one or the other. Labor drives economic growth because labor actually produces the product, and at the same time a market for the product. You think Bill Gates is gonna spend billions dollars on Pokemon games? No. it's Joe Schmo who spends billions of dollars on Pokemon games so his kids can have fun somewhere else and he can relax . Investment drives economic growth because without it the labor would have neither the means to organize or produce the product. Labor is extremely important in driving the generation of wealth, but it's not the end of it anymore than capital is. The general issue in capitalism in the inequality of bargaining power. Capital has a lot more than labor, and that produces a lot of wealth and social inequality. Smith recognized it in Wealth of Nations as a limitation on his economic theories, while Marx grabbed the idea and ran with it to the end zone in his own.

There is no free market (outside of the very narrow definition that it isn't a government owned market, as in the opposite of a command economy). It's a pipe dream. A myth invented by advocates of unregulated market economies as opposed to command economies so they could equate laissez faire with freedom and anything less with tyranny. It's propaganda as much as anything. Markets exist in societies, and are bound to them. It will never be free, and business decisions will never be made devoid of social and political considerations in one way or another.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Labor is a tool. Nothing more. I'm not being cold, just factual.

I'm pointing out the driver behind Capitalism and the creation of wealth in a free market system.

BTW, using Marx as an example of anything successful is not such a good idea. Track record of longevity, or lack thereof, ya know.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. A...Yes! In my early points I stated the pollution of the free market by governments/corporations/etc. as a distorter of the FM system. Human involvement unfortunately brings that corruption as luggage, but as a model, free markets are unparalleled in their efficiency and ability to produce wealth. That stands.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. B...I rejected your ideas of appointing government as the picker of winners and losers. A safety net does not compete with the free market.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You think government, investing only in technology that suits it's needs would have accomplished this? Not a chance.

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. A...Yes! In my early points I stated the pollution of the free market by governments/corporations/etc. as a distorter of the FM system. Human involvement unfortunately brings that corruption as luggage, but as a model, free markets are unparalleled in their efficiency and ability to produce wealth. That stands.

So a model regarding human activity, which is necessarily distorted by that activity, stands?

That seems overly idealistic.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. B...I rejected your ideas of appointing government as the picker of winners and losers. A safety net does not compete with the free market.

I never claimed that the government should pick winners and losers, I claimed that it does so by its mere existence.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You think government, investing only in technology that suits it's needs would have accomplished this? Not a chance.

Will you please review my initial points. You've come around to arguing against yourself right now.

And while you're at it, review your initial comments. You advocated, in no unqualified manner, that government...because who else would you be referring to...should step in and level the playing field for the "losers". Socialism at it's finest. There's no grey area in your comments.

Please find something fresh or relevant to say, you're wasting time at this point and talking in circles. Sorry, but you are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Labor is a tool. Nothing more. I'm not being cold, just factual.

I think its pretty cold to view people as tools. Of course, going forward most labor is automated, so it will be cold, highly factual, and tools! At least until Skynet takes over, and objects to being called a tool by launching nuclear missiles at us.

I'm pointing out the driver behind Capitalism and the creation of wealth in a free market system.

It's not one or the other. Investment organizes. Labor produces. Both drive the creation of wealth. It's a marriage. They both need each other for what they have to be of real use.

BTW, using Marx as an example of anything successful is not such a good idea. Track record of longevity, or lack thereof, ya know.

I didn't say he was successful. By and large I think most of Marx's ideas have failed to pan out*. I'm pointing out many of his theories on labor were based in the work of Adam Smith, own work is probably even more distorted in the modern age than Marx's. Smith postulated that in his economic principals, there was a problem that would inevitably rise between sources of capital and sources of labor. This idea is now called the inequality of bargaining power. Marx took this idea, and proposed that the inequality of bargaining power inevitably leads to exploitation of labor by capital (he wasn't wrong, i.e. Guilded Age). This became the basis for a lot of Marx's work.

*Though as time has gone on, I think he might have been totally right about how capitalism would inevitably kill itself. It's just not going to happen in any of the ways he thought it might.

He, Karl Marx, might have been right about the downfall of Capitalism? This is the guy who espoused a system so inept and corrupt in nature that it had the shelf life of not even a Twinkie? Please! Capitalism will be the only man standing, take a look around actually and do a study of how it works, or is supposed to work in it's purest form without political manipulation. The only other option is governmental guidance, i.e. socialism or communism...or worse...and communism is done, put a fork in it and socialism is breaking the global bank as it tries to get a universal Kumbayah going...sorry, it's not a zero sum game, it never has been, but Capitalism and the free markets...not anywhere near the myth you like to claim...is the only way forward.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. A...Yes! In my early points I stated the pollution of the free market by governments/corporations/etc. as a distorter of the FM system. Human involvement unfortunately brings that corruption as luggage, but as a model, free markets are unparalleled in their efficiency and ability to produce wealth. That stands.

So a model regarding human activity, which is necessarily distorted by that activity, stands?

That seems overly idealistic.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. B...I rejected your ideas of appointing government as the picker of winners and losers. A safety net does not compete with the free market.

I never claimed that the government should pick winners and losers, I claimed that it does so by its mere existence.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You think government, investing only in technology that suits it's needs would have accomplished this? Not a chance.

Will you please review my initial points. You've come around to arguing against yourself right now.

And while you're at it, review your initial comments. You advocated, in no unqualified manner, that government...because who else would you be referring to...should step in and level the playing field for the "losers". Socialism at it's finest. There's no grey area in your comments.

Please find something fresh or relevant to say, you're wasting time at this point and talking in circles. Sorry, but you are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Labor is a tool. Nothing more. I'm not being cold, just factual.

I think its pretty cold to view people as tools. Of course, going forward most labor is automated, so it will be cold, highly factual, and tools! At least until Skynet takes over, and objects to being called a tool by launching nuclear missiles at us.

I'm pointing out the driver behind Capitalism and the creation of wealth in a free market system.

It's not one or the other. Investment organizes. Labor produces. Both drive the creation of wealth. It's a marriage. They both need each other for what they have to be of real use.

BTW, using Marx as an example of anything successful is not such a good idea. Track record of longevity, or lack thereof, ya know.

I didn't say he was successful. By and large I think most of Marx's ideas have failed to pan out*. I'm pointing out many of his theories on labor were based in the work of Adam Smith, own work is probably even more distorted in the modern age than Marx's. Smith postulated that in his economic principals, there was a problem that would inevitably rise between sources of capital and sources of labor. This idea is now called the inequality of bargaining power. Marx took this idea, and proposed that the inequality of bargaining power inevitably leads to exploitation of labor by capital (he wasn't wrong, i.e. Guilded Age). This became the basis for a lot of Marx's work.

*Though as time has gone on, I think he might have been totally right about how capitalism would inevitably kill itself. It's just not going to happen in any of the ways he thought it might.

He, Karl Marx, might have been right about the downfall of Capitalism? This is the guy who espoused a system so inept and corrupt in nature that it had the shelf life of not even a Twinkie? Please! Capitalism will be the only man standing, take a look around actually and do a study of how it works, or is supposed to work in it's purest form without political manipulation. The only other option is governmental guidance, i.e. socialism or communism...or worse...and communism is done, put a fork in it and socialism is breaking the global bank as it tries to get a universal Kumbayah going...sorry, it's not a zero sum game, it never has been, but Capitalism and the free markets...not anywhere near the myth you like to claim...is the only way forward.

I totally gummed up the responses, please see the text at the end of your relevant quotes.

Reply by: LordofHats - click to view full reply 

21720

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 12:47:06

Post by: LordofHats

 BigWaaagh wrote:
He, Karl Marx, might have been right about the downfall of Capitalism?

I think he might have been on to it. We'll have to wait and see if any of it pans out at all.

Marx theorized that capital would inevitably invest increasing amounts of their profits into technology, marginalizing the share of wealth generation that entered the hands of labor. This has happened. We can already observe that. It started in Marx's time and continues to this day. However, Marx thought that the inequity of the system would eventually cause a mass uprising of the working class, spurring them to seize control of the means of production and through some very ill defined process, produce a utopian society devoid of inequality. That obviously didn't happen. There was no global uprising of workers. I think Marx underestimated that the emergence of unions and socialism in politics and industry in the Western World would ultimately be so successful in redressing many of the most obvious and gross inequalities he observed in his own era. Its not hard to see why he thought Revolution was inevitable. His time was filled with political uprisings and upheaval throughout Europe.

I think though that his base premise, that increasing investment would inevitably be capitalism's end, may have more merit. It's already possible to see a future where automation takes over the bulk of industry, and capitalism as we know it doesn't function in an environment where capital becomes labor (in the form of automation). Marx thought the reverse would happen (that labor would become capital via revolution).

This is the guy who espoused a system so inept and corrupt in nature that it had the shelf life of not even a Twinkie?

There's nothing particularly corrupt about Marx's idea of communism (especially since at its nuts and bolts, its very vague past the "revolution" part). Marx denied that Communism was a state of affairs, or status quo. He rather used the term to collectively refer to a sort of economic end game that was an inevitable result of capitalist economies. It bares little resemblance to many of the command economies that rose in the 20th century and took the name "Communist" to describe themselves. As a basic example, Marx envisioned the communism as a democratic society subject to universal suffrage. The USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. None of them were/are democracies, and they largely denounce democracy as a tool of capitalism to keep the working class fooled. Marx laid the seed for that later thought in his own description of Alienation in society, but it's not a critique he directed at democracy, but rather at Labor itself. Marx further differentiated between the nationalization of production (command economy), and the socialization of production (worker owned economy). Pretty much every Communist state got started by nationalizing its economy under the "Stewardship" of a political elite. Marx actually considered nationalization a simple continuation of capitalism by other means. It was an obstacle he saw in the eventual formation of Communism, one he never seems to have formulated a concise solution for.

I think there's a great argument to be made that there is no solution, and thus Marx's idea of the Communist Revolution is functionally a dead end that can only result in what he called "State Capitalism." One of the most curious things about the communist states that rose in the 20th century is that they didn't emerge from strong capitalist economies. They emerged from very agrarian, underdeveloped quasi-Feudal and mercantile economies that latched onto the optimistic ideal of revolution as a means to resolve the inequality of their societies (Didn't exactly work out did it?). It's one of the reasons the rapid industrialization of Soviet Russia was so shocking to the world. No one expected the Russian Empire, technologically and economically behind its peers for many decades by the time it fell, to suddenly become so strong. It was so shocking everyone missed when that growth completely stuttered out in the 60s, and Soviet Russia went back to being decades behind its peers before its own fall in the early 90s.

And, you do realize he wrote a lot more than the Communist Manifesto? His work on Value Theory is still relevant today, after having previously overridden that of Smith and Ricardo. He's one of the fathers of Sociology, and his influence in Political Science is profound. Especially in history, his break from the "Great Men of History" model to describe past events as the produce of Class Struggle was incredibly significant. Marxist History isn't very popular in the field anymore, but many historians do occasionally bounce back to his models when examining class struggles and economics. His theories on Communism are a very small faction of his work.

it's purest form without political manipulation.

There's not such thing. It's an ideological myth.

it's not a zero sum game

If you recognize its not a zero sum game, why are you so keen to treat it as such?

Reply by: A Town Called Malus - click to view full reply 

43578

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 14:50:43

Post by: A Town Called Malus

 reds8n wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Definitely the latter. I want single payer, or at least something close to it - epipens are $100 in Canada and the price hasn't budged in years.

I'd also like to see, much like Canada, stricter controls - nearly a ban, really - on drug advertisements. It's out of control.

https://www.treated.com/allergies/epipen

https://onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/uk/allergy/epipen


about £50 -- $66 odd --- over here.

And I believe if you are diabetic you will get the pen and insulin for free as Diabetes is on the list of long term health problems which gets you free medication, even for other unrelated problems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:


And the "first world medical system" nomenclature is ridiculous.

Cost is an issue... yes. But, the level of care is not.

If your system is too expensive for people of all incomes to receive equal access to the levels of care then your system is not to a first world standard.

Reply by: dogma - click to view full reply 

5534

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 14:59:11

Post by: dogma

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Will you please review my initial points. You've come around to arguing against yourself right now.

No, I haven't. I'm arguing against some of the positions that your objectivist ideology requires me to have because I can point out the holes in your reasoning. I can do this because I'm not an ideologue, and can therefore have nuanced beliefs.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

And while you're at it, review your initial comments. You advocated, in no unqualified manner, that government...because who else would you be referring to...should step in and level the playing field for the "losers". Socialism at it's finest. There's no grey area in your comments.

Yes, that is socialism. We've already established that socialist policies are required in a capitalist society. You even admitted as much when you said societies based on the free market include a social safety net, as a rule.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

He, Karl Marx, might have been right about the downfall of Capitalism? This is the guy who espoused a system so inept and corrupt in nature that it had the shelf life of not even a Twinkie?

So, slightly less than eternity? You cannot hurt a Twinkie, silly customer.

And he didn't espouse that, as the Hat has said his work was entirely distinct from the systems which claimed (or were claimed) to rise in his name.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Capitalism will be the only man standing, take a look around actually and do a study of how it works, or is supposed to work in it's purest form without political manipulation.

So, barbarism? A society that inevitably led to people forming groups, and therefore politics of differing sorts, and manipulating the system into one which eventually became capitalistic?

I mean really, the evolution of the "state of nature" concept pretty well covers this. It's only people that reach back to Hobbes and assume people don't like to socialize, or need to for population diversity, that latch onto the idea that political manipulation can not exist.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

The only other option is governmental guidance...

Government guidance is inevitable. Even a corporate oligarchy is a form of government.

Reply by: BigWaaagh - click to view full reply 

78313

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 18:30:37

Post by: BigWaaagh

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Will you please review my initial points. You've come around to arguing against yourself right now.

No, I haven't. I'm arguing against some of the positions that your objectivist ideology requires me to have because I can point out the holes in your reasoning. I can do this because I'm not an ideologue, and can therefore have nuanced beliefs.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

And while you're at it, review your initial comments. You advocated, in no unqualified manner, that government...because who else would you be referring to...should step in and level the playing field for the "losers". Socialism at it's finest. There's no grey area in your comments.

Yes, that is socialism. We've already established that socialist policies are required in a capitalist society. You even admitted as much when you said societies based on the free market include a social safety net, as a rule.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

He, Karl Marx, might have been right about the downfall of Capitalism? This is the guy who espoused a system so inept and corrupt in nature that it had the shelf life of not even a Twinkie?

So, slightly less than eternity? You cannot hurt a Twinkie, silly customer.

And he didn't espouse that, as the Hat has said his work was entirely distinct from the systems which claimed (or were claimed) to rise in his name.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Capitalism will be the only man standing, take a look around actually and do a study of how it works, or is supposed to work in it's purest form without political manipulation.

So, barbarism? A society that inevitably led to people forming groups, and therefore politics of differing sorts, and manipulating the system into one which eventually became capitalistic?

I mean really, the evolution of the "state of nature" concept pretty well covers this. It's only people that reach back to Hobbes and assume people don't like to socialize, or need to for population diversity, that latch onto the idea that political manipulation can not exist.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

The only other option is governmental guidance...

Government guidance is inevitable. Even a corporate oligarchy is a form of government.

Pt. A Objectionist vs. subjectionist? Okay, so who's subjectivity will be the arbiter in this Utopian society you paint? Yours? A faceless committee's? A government cabinet Tsar? Don't leave decisions in the hands of the actual market, let a kindly, benevolent bureaucrat guide us to the promised land where we can all drink milk and honey. Oh, come on! Here's the gaping hole in your argument. You'd trade an imperfect...everything, btw...objectionist stance for a subjective one where all kinds of prejudice, bias, political nonsense can run rampant? No thanks. That's a nonstarter. That leads to lovely outcomes such as communism and tyranny. You've lost this one.

Pt. B Please don't deflect from the point I'm making. Your idea of socialism puts the government in the business of dictating winners and losers in the market. That is not, and never has been, government's job. The social safety net prescribed in many Capitalist works does not interfere or compete in the market dynamics. Learn the immense difference, please.

Pt. C(not Twinkie C, the other C) Barbarism is actually your response? Please plug the hole in that bleeding heart. Large swaths of the world have not advanced forward...out of barbarism...at the pace it has without the introduction of a free market system. This isn't even up for debate.

Pt. D Please see point one. You want POTUS Trump guiding you and the market? Have fun with that. It is not inevitable. It is a lie perpetrated by politicians pandering to their constituents with what they want to hear. Please review Milton Friedman's comments on the effectiveness...or absolute lack thereof...of many, if not all, government run social programs.

Reply by: BigWaaagh - click to view full reply 

78313

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 18:41:21

Post by: BigWaaagh

 LordofHats wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
He, Karl Marx, might have been right about the downfall of Capitalism?

I think he might have been on to it. We'll have to wait and see if any of it pans out at all.

Marx theorized that capital would inevitably invest increasing amounts of their profits into technology, marginalizing the share of wealth generation that entered the hands of labor. This has happened. We can already observe that. It started in Marx's time and continues to this day. However, Marx thought that the inequity of the system would eventually cause a mass uprising of the working class, spurring them to seize control of the means of production and through some very ill defined process, produce a utopian society devoid of inequality. That obviously didn't happen. There was no global uprising of workers. I think Marx underestimated that the emergence of unions and socialism in politics and industry in the Western World would ultimately be so successful in redressing many of the most obvious and gross inequalities he observed in his own era. Its not hard to see why he thought Revolution was inevitable. His time was filled with political uprisings and upheaval throughout Europe.

I think though that his base premise, that increasing investment would inevitably be capitalism's end, may have more merit. It's already possible to see a future where automation takes over the bulk of industry, and capitalism as we know it doesn't function in an environment where capital becomes labor (in the form of automation). Marx thought the reverse would happen (that labor would become capital via revolution).

This is the guy who espoused a system so inept and corrupt in nature that it had the shelf life of not even a Twinkie?

There's nothing particularly corrupt about Marx's idea of communism (especially since at its nuts and bolts, its very vague past the "revolution" part). Marx denied that Communism was a state of affairs, or status quo. He rather used the term to collectively refer to a sort of economic end game that was an inevitable result of capitalist economies. It bares little resemblance to many of the command economies that rose in the 20th century and took the name "Communist" to describe themselves. As a basic example, Marx envisioned the communism as a democratic society subject to universal suffrage. The USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. None of them were/are democracies, and they largely denounce democracy as a tool of capitalism to keep the working class fooled. Marx laid the seed for that later thought in his own description of Alienation in society, but it's not a critique he directed at democracy, but rather at Labor itself. Marx further differentiated between the nationalization of production (command economy), and the socialization of production (worker owned economy). Pretty much every Communist state got started by nationalizing its economy under the "Stewardship" of a political elite. Marx actually considered nationalization a simple continuation of capitalism by other means. It was an obstacle he saw in the eventual formation of Communism, one he never seems to have formulated a concise solution for.

I think there's a great argument to be made that there is no solution, and thus Marx's idea of the Communist Revolution is functionally a dead end that can only result in what he called "State Capitalism." One of the most curious things about the communist states that rose in the 20th century is that they didn't emerge from strong capitalist economies. They emerged from very agrarian, underdeveloped quasi-Feudal and mercantile economies that latched onto the optimistic ideal of revolution as a means to resolve the inequality of their societies (Didn't exactly work out did it?). It's one of the reasons the rapid industrialization of Soviet Russia was so shocking to the world. No one expected the Russian Empire, technologically and economically behind its peers for many decades by the time it fell, to suddenly become so strong. It was so shocking everyone missed when that growth completely stuttered out in the 60s, and Soviet Russia went back to being decades behind its peers before its own fall in the early 90s.

And, you do realize he wrote a lot more than the Communist Manifesto? His work on Value Theory is still relevant today, after having previously overridden that of Smith and Ricardo. He's one of the fathers of Sociology, and his influence in Political Science is profound. Especially in history, his break from the "Great Men of History" model to describe past events as the produce of Class Struggle was incredibly significant. Marxist History isn't very popular in the field anymore, but many historians do occasionally bounce back to his models when examining class struggles and economics. His theories on Communism are a very small faction of his work.

it's purest form without political manipulation.

There's not such thing. It's an ideological myth.

it's not a zero sum game

If you recognize its not a zero sum game, why are you so keen to treat it as such?

Well, so far history is not on Marx's side. How it plays out? I'm a fan of the trend and it doesn't favor Comrade Karl.

It's not a myth, it's a sound, well developed theory that gets mucked when politicians decide to overstep the position of government. Government guidance to check abuse is one thing, free market tampering, i.e. subsidies, punitive import taxes, protectionism is the poison that government too easily succumbs to introducing to the market. I posted a link to a speech given by Economics Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman earlier, please take a look.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Milton+Friedman+Pencil&&view=detail&mid=29EA2AD34D6D111BB4E529EA2AD34D6D111BB4E5&FORM=VRDGAR

I don't treat it as such. I readily admit and accept there are winners and losers in Capitalism and that, as painful as it can be some times, is also the dynamic that keeps it rising every time and moving forward.

Reply by: Rosebuddy - click to view full reply 

91440

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 18:53:23

Post by: Rosebuddy

 LordofHats wrote:
I think Marx underestimated that the emergence of unions and socialism in politics and industry in the Western World would ultimately be so successful in redressing many of the most obvious and gross inequalities he observed in his own era.

I would say that social democracy, the grand compromise between capital and the workers' movement, has not actually been "ultimately successful" because we are today seeing how public systems are being rolled back. Many advances were made, that is true, but they could only exist for as long as socialism was a genuine threat to capital in the West. Once the driving force behind public systems was gone the field was wide open for capital to act unopposed.

 dogma wrote:

So, barbarism? A society that inevitably led to people forming groups, and therefore politics of differing sorts, and manipulating the system into one which eventually became capitalistic?

It's always funny to encounter someone who embraces "socialism or barbarism" from the other end.

Reply by: dogma - click to view full reply 

5534

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 18:59:10

Post by: dogma

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. A Objectionist vs. subjectionist?

No, objectivist. The philosophy espoused by Ayn Rand and adored by a lot of American libertarians., in spite of all its glaring problems.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Okay, so who's subjectivity will be the arbiter in this Utopian society you paint?

I would argue that utopia is impossible, it is right there in the name after all. I would also argue that there always exists means to improve society. Sometimes that means less government regulation, sometimes that means more; it all varies according to a large number specific factors.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. B Please don't deflect from the point I'm making. Your idea of socialism puts the government in the business of dictating winners and losers in the market. That is not, and never has been, government's job. The social safety net prescribed in many Capitalist works does not interfere or compete in the market dynamics. Learn the immense difference, please.

Social safety nets interfere with the market, pretty much by necessity. Indeed the very existence of government interferes with the market, pretty much by necessity. All I'm arguing is that we should recognize this fact instead of ideologically hand-waving it.

Honestly you just seem to be hung up on the term "socialism", as if calling a spade a spade altered its nature.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. C(not Twinkie C, the other C) Barbarism is actually your response?

That is pretty much Hobbes' state of nature, the absence of society. Even he recognized it wasn't sustainable, as societies definitely existed when he was writing, and many philosophers since then have agreed. Some have even argued that the state of nature requires society, which obviously leads to government of some sort.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

It's not a myth, it's a sound, well developed theory that gets mucked when politicians decide to overstep the position of government.

You brought up Milton Friedman. Even he didn't believe a perfect free market was possible. No one who has seriously thought about economics, society, politics, history, or a host of other subjects believe that.

Reply by: LordofHats - click to view full reply 

21720

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 19:17:39

Post by: LordofHats

It's not a myth, it's a sound, well developed theory that gets mucked when politicians decide to overstep the position of government.

Who elaborated this theory, and how do they address the innate tendency of power to collude with power? Most people would heavily credit Adam Smith as a the foremost developer of Capitalist theory, and he wasn't as foolish to make such an argument. Also;

subsidies, punitive import taxes, protectionism is the poison that government too easily succumbs to introducing to the market.

These are all things Adam Smith argued for as being necessary in capitalist economies btw.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Milton+Friedman+Pencil&&view=detail&mid=29EA2AD34D6D111BB4E529EA2AD34D6D111BB4E5&FORM=VRDGAR

And Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said "he slipped all too easily into claiming both that markets always work and that only markets work." Given that Friedman didn't win a Nobel for his work in "Free Markets" but rather for his work on consumption and monetary history (probably helped along by his advocation against conscription in the middle of the Vietnam War, the Nobel committees love that stuff peace loving hippies that they are ). " Your video mentions the phrase free market once, with no explanation of it given, then proceeds to rephrase in clever analogy Adam Smith's work on self-interest. It's neither enlightening, nor does it support your claim that the market can magically exist independent of the state. It actually doesn't address the issue at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rosebuddy wrote:
I would say that social democracy, the grand compromise between capital and the workers' movement, has not actually been "ultimately successful" because we are today seeing how public systems are being rolled back.

I don't mean to say it was ultimately successful period. I merely mean that in the end, social democracy and unions had a lot of success in advancing the needs of the Proletariat in the Progressive era and on wards. Their success cut the feet out from under the factors that Marx though would cause the mass revolution. I suppose hypothetically, it could still happen (highly skeptical).

Reply by: Frazzled - click to view full reply 

221

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 20:29:12

Post by: Frazzled

Evidently there is no competitive market as the Fed government won't permit other entities to sell a similar product. If you have a government monopoly you can set the price. Thanks Obama.

Reply by: dogma - click to view full reply 

5534

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 21:19:18

Post by: dogma

 Frazzled wrote:
Evidently there is no competitive market as the Fed government won't permit other entities to sell a similar product. If you have a government monopoly you can set the price. Thanks Obama.

More like "thanks IP law", and the widespread acceptance of its abuse.

Reply by: skyth - click to view full reply 

443

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/28 22:57:42

Post by: skyth

Pure free market systems don't work. Attempts to put them in place just leads to untold suffering unless you were lucky enough to be one of the few that triumph (and it is mostly luck involved).

Putting in safety nets makes it not a free market anymore. Safety nets change the demand curve and involve the government choosing winners and losers to an extent. A pure free market leads to monopolies eventually without goverent intervervention. In this case the government helps 'choose' winners and losers by virtue of what grounds they decide to intervene to prevent monopolies.

Reply by: Ouze - click to view full reply 

12313

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 00:04:21

Post by: Ouze

 Frazzled wrote:
Evidently there is no competitive market as the Fed government won't permit other entities to sell a similar product. If you have a government monopoly you can set the price. Thanks Obama.

There isn't a government sanctioned monopoly on Epipens, just a nearly de facto one.

The FDA settled with Mylan to allow generics nearly 2 years ago. Every very similar competitor so far has dropped the ball somehow - one didn't do enough research before release and was rejected by the FDA, and another got recalled. Even despite that, you can right now get Adrenaclick for about $70 a dose, or if you want to do a little more work, you can get a prescription for epinephrine and just fill a syringe with it for a few bucks per dose.

However, if you want to shift the argument over to Obama dropping the public option - I'd be right there with you.

Reply by: BigWaaagh - click to view full reply 

78313

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 00:15:00

Post by: BigWaaagh

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. A Objectionist vs. subjectionist?

No, objectivist. The philosophy espoused by Ayn Rand and adored by a lot of American libertarians., in spite of all its glaring problems.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Okay, so who's subjectivity will be the arbiter in this Utopian society you paint?

I would argue that utopia is impossible, it is right there in the name after all. I would also argue that there always exists means to improve society. Sometimes that means less government regulation, sometimes that means more; it all varies according to a large number specific factors.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. B Please don't deflect from the point I'm making. Your idea of socialism puts the government in the business of dictating winners and losers in the market. That is not, and never has been, government's job. The social safety net prescribed in many Capitalist works does not interfere or compete in the market dynamics. Learn the immense difference, please.

Social safety nets interfere with the market, pretty much by necessity. Indeed the very existence of government interferes with the market, pretty much by necessity. All I'm arguing is that we should recognize this fact instead of ideologically hand-waving it.

Honestly you just seem to be hung up on the term "socialism", as if calling a spade a spade altered its nature.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Pt. C(not Twinkie C, the other C) Barbarism is actually your response?

That is pretty much Hobbes' state of nature, the absence of society. Even he recognized it wasn't sustainable, as societies definitely existed when he was writing, and many philosophers since then have agreed. Some have even argued that the state of nature requires society, which obviously leads to government of some sort.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

It's not a myth, it's a sound, well developed theory that gets mucked when politicians decide to overstep the position of government.

You brought up Milton Friedman. Even he didn't believe a perfect free market was possible. No one who has seriously thought about economics, society, politics, history, or a host of other subjects believe that.

Ah, my bad. So, where did I interject objectivism? I've stated there's a place for intelligent regulation as a check on abuse. I've stated the necessity of a non-obstructionist social safety net that doesn't interfere with or compete with the market is part of Capitalism. Doesn't sound laissez-faire to me? So what is your point here?
You keep dancing away from the essence of this argument relative to the thread.
You once again respond to my challenge, at the core of this argument and immediately relative to this thread. That the free market with price discovery is superior to a government manipulated one. There is no defense of the interjection of a governmental overlord who would, what, step in when prices are out of control? By what standards? By what relative marker? You've defended introducing a subjective, prejudiced, biased yardstick to what prices are/should be and in so doing, have created perceived relief to one segment at the expense of another. What arrogance! When I pressed you on this early on, with regards to your belief that the SF real estate is unfair and needs addressing, i.e. government regulation and how that would then relieve one perceived unfair situation(perceived unaffordability) with the creation of another(governmental price control which would punish land owners), you incredulously said that well, the land owners could probably handle it. You're in education, right? How about we slash your salary because kids in the projects have a hard time trying to afford higher education? We'll just get the government to underwrite a big check to get everyone access to online programs that don't require all those "expensive" tenured professors and the overhead associated with a full blown campus.
Not hung up on the term socialism, but you confuse, repeatedly, social safety nets which can function outside of the free market with your prescribed government overstep into an area that is outside government's mandate with some perceived need to pick winners and losers.
And yes, MF always noted the disparity of theory vs. what happens when the rubber hits the road. But the rounding of the edges to the free market due to political/social factors was almost always noted as the wrong path, supported by studies time and again. The absolute FM doesn't exist in the world, nothing absolute does except the deliciousness of Pistachio Ice Cream, but the need to strive towards it and adhere to it's essence is absolutely necessary and should not be compromised for political convenience.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

It's not a myth, it's a sound, well developed theory that gets mucked when politicians decide to overstep the position of government.

Who elaborated this theory, and how do they address the innate tendency of power to collude with power? Most people would heavily credit Adam Smith as a the foremost developer of Capitalist theory, and he wasn't as foolish to make such an argument. Also;

subsidies, punitive import taxes, protectionism is the poison that government too easily succumbs to introducing to the market.

These are all things Adam Smith argued for as being necessary in capitalist economies btw.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Milton+Friedman+Pencil&&view=detail&mid=29EA2AD34D6D111BB4E529EA2AD34D6D111BB4E5&FORM=VRDGAR

And Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said "he slipped all too easily into claiming both that markets always work and that only markets work." Given that Friedman didn't win a Nobel for his work in "Free Markets" but rather for his work on consumption and monetary history (probably helped along by his advocation against conscription in the middle of the Vietnam War, the Nobel committees love that stuff peace loving hippies that they are ). " Your video mentions the phrase free market once, with no explanation of it given, then proceeds to rephrase in clever analogy Adam Smith's work on self-interest. It's neither enlightening, nor does it support your claim that the market can magically exist independent of the state. It actually doesn't address the issue at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rosebuddy wrote:
I would say that social democracy, the grand compromise between capital and the workers' movement, has not actually been "ultimately successful" because we are today seeing how public systems are being rolled back.

I don't mean to say it was ultimately successful period. I merely mean that in the end, social democracy and unions had a lot of success in advancing the needs of the Proletariat in the Progressive era and on wards. Their success cut the feet out from under the factors that Marx though would cause the mass revolution. I suppose hypothetically, it could still happen (highly skeptical).

The video was of a discussion on Price System, I thought it went without saying that PS operates most effectively in a free market environment.

Reply by: ulgurstasta - click to view full reply 

72203

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 01:04:01

Post by: ulgurstasta

I hate to be smug about it but there has been some misuse of the term "socialist" here.

Some seem to think that the government doing stuff in the economy is "Socialism" which is frankly absurd, I mean was the the oligarchical and slave-owning Roman Empire socialist because the government built roads and aqueducts? This also overlooks that capitalism has been dependent on the government ever since its inception and cant function without a government.

Socialism is when the means of production is owned by the workers, think of it as democracy in the workplace. Welfare states, handouts and minimum wage laws has nothing to do with socialism but are rather attempts to make capitalism more bearable for the common people.

Reply by: skyth - click to view full reply 

443

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 01:11:27

Post by: skyth

As soon as you have a safety net or the government preventing 'abuse' it is no longer a pure Free Market system.

Any safety net shifts the demand curve and lets the government pick winners and losers.

Same with the government preventing 'abuse'. What is defined as 'abuse' is the very example of picking winners and losers.

Don't call it a Free Market system when it isn't one.

Reply by: dogma - click to view full reply 

5534

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 01:20:45

Post by: dogma

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Ah, my bad. So, where did I interject objectivism? I've stated there's a place for intelligent regulation as a check on abuse. I've stated the necessity of a non-obstructionist social safety net that doesn't interfere with or compete with the market is part of Capitalism. Doesn't sound laissez-faire to me? So what is your point here?

Literally everything you're saying is party-line objectivism, including the point you just reiterated about a social safety net that is fundamentally impossible. Objectivists are generally just fine with socialist policies so long as they aren't called socialist, and are implemented in a way which is necessarily impossible. Often they know full-well that such policies are impossible, and are using their "advocacy" as a means to dupe others into believing their overall position is reasonable.

In essence they would get into power, vaguely try to implement an impossible socialist policy, throw their hands up and say what they want to do is impossible, then carry on about their main argument of "socialism is evil" while citing their own failure as evidence.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
There is no defense of the interjection of a governmental overlord who would, what, step in when prices are out of control? By what standards? By what relative marker?

The ability of people to pay for medication that is necessary for them to live, and, more broadly, their ability to access basic necessities. Those are pretty basic tenets of a social safety net, something you seemingly advocate.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You've defended introducing a subjective, prejudiced, biased yardstick to what prices are/should be and in so doing, have created perceived relief to one segment at the expense of another.

No, I argued that all measures relevant to the matter at hand are biased, and that what we should be concerned about is how they're biased.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

When I pressed you on this early on, with regards to your belief that the SF real estate is unfair and needs addressing, i.e. government regulation and how that would then relieve one perceived unfair situation(perceived unaffordability) with the creation of another(governmental price control which would punish land owners), you incredulously said that well, the land owners could probably handle it.

They likely could and, if not, they could sell the building to someone with the ability to deal with the costs associated with owning a rental property. At any rate they would almost certainly be more able than the people that are renting from them.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You're in education, right? How about we slash your salary because kids in the projects have a hard time trying to afford higher education?

I was a TA for awhile, but currently I'm a partner in a non-partisan political consultancy who moonlights as a personal trainer and NPO consultant. When I was a TA I was making ~30k USD (though technically I was also a lecturer) plus insurance benefits, free tuition, free board, and school (read: government) subsidized rent. I was doing pretty good, a lot better than any of the undergrads I was teaching who were relying on a mixture Federal loans and school (again, read: government) grants. If the government had back on any of my benefits, because ultimately that's who was paying me, in order to give better benefits to some of those kids I likely would have been fine with it.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

We'll just get the government to underwrite a big check to get everyone access to online programs that don't require all those "expensive" tenured professors and the overhead associated with a full blown campus.

It already does that by way of student loans and school grants. There are plenty of State funded schools where you can get your entire degree without ever setting foot on campus. Hell, I got my MA at Eastern Illinois while living in Chicago (that's a ~3 hour one way drive); I set foot on campus less than 10 times.

But, really, that's an entirely separate thread.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
...but the need to strive towards it and adhere to it's essence is absolutely necessary and should not be compromised for political convenience.

Right, it's "essence". Another thing objectivists are fond of saying. It's like a religious mantra.

Reply by: sebster - click to view full reply 

5470

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 04:01:00

Post by: sebster

Rosebuddy wrote:
The United States powered through WW2 on the back of a command economy.

Competition is inherently inefficient because you'll end up with losers having wasted resources and will have spent a lot of time to get to this point. It's needless effort.

Yes, there is waste in competition. But to compare and contrast the progress of the US economy post WWII with the Soviet economy post WWII and conclude anything other than an obvious win for capitalism is trade in deluded fantasy.

This doesn't mean unfettered capitalism is answer to all our problems, of course, but there is a reason that the reality based community has chosen capitalism tempered by government as their starting point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rosebuddy wrote:
Trial-and-error and competition aren't the same thing, though. You don't need multiple companies working to outlast eachother in order to know what product or service is necessary to fill a need. New products are developed in order to create new markets, not to better fill needs. We get new models of smartphones and cars every year to push their predecessors onto the trash heap despite both of them being of limited necessity, while millions live with food insecurity despite the enormous amounts of food being produced. How's that for innovation? Hah!

Soviet Russia had a poverty rate of 20%. Throughout their postwar history it was shown to be about a third higher than the US at any stage, despite having a much lower threshold for poverty.

The 20th century, the century of managed capitalism, has produced the greatest reduction in poverty in human history.

You are quite simply completely and utterly wrong. Move on. Pick a new cause.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 feeder wrote:
The answer, as is with almost everything in life, lies not at either end but somewhere in the middle.

What we have now, capitalist economies with redistribution and a social safety net, is the middle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
I don't think you'll be able to put forth a compelling argument that a Command Economy is incapable of feeding the masses. All you have to do is organize the economy to do so. The mass starvation in countries historically with such economy set ups wasn't because a Command Economy innately can't do it, but rather because extant examples purposefully chose to not care (or even set out to cause starvation as a way of reducing the population).

The general reason a Command Economy is bad is because there's enough corruption between business and government when they're distinct entities (money, money, MONEY!), and it just goes up to 1,000,000 when they're the same thing. It's one thing to have a state regulate businesses, and another to have the state own them. It is yet another thing to have the State basically own shares in everything to the point it owns the economy.

You're argument is basically that Command Economies can provide for everyone, but because of politics they won't. That's pretty much the same thing.

I can shoot 1,000 three pointers in a row, but because I'm not particularly talented and have never played basketball, I won't.

Reply by: BigWaaagh - click to view full reply 

78313

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 04:12:26

Post by: BigWaaagh

 dogma wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

Ah, my bad. So, where did I interject objectivism? I've stated there's a place for intelligent regulation as a check on abuse. I've stated the necessity of a non-obstructionist social safety net that doesn't interfere with or compete with the market is part of Capitalism. Doesn't sound laissez-faire to me? So what is your point here?

Literally everything you're saying is party-line objectivism, including the point you just reiterated about a social safety net that is fundamentally impossible. Objectivists are generally just fine with socialist policies so long as they aren't called socialist, and are implemented in a way which is necessarily impossible. Often they know full-well that such policies are impossible, and are using their "advocacy" as a means to dupe others into believing their overall position is reasonable.

In essence they would get into power, vaguely try to implement an impossible socialist policy, throw their hands up and say what they want to do is impossible, then carry on about their main argument of "socialism is evil" while citing their own failure as evidence.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
There is no defense of the interjection of a governmental overlord who would, what, step in when prices are out of control? By what standards? By what relative marker?

The ability of people to pay for medication that is necessary for them to live, and, more broadly, their ability to access basic necessities. Those are pretty basic tenets of a social safety net, something you seemingly advocate.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You've defended introducing a subjective, prejudiced, biased yardstick to what prices are/should be and in so doing, have created perceived relief to one segment at the expense of another.

No, I argued that all measures relevant to the matter at hand are biased, and that what we should be concerned about is how they're biased.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

When I pressed you on this early on, with regards to your belief that the SF real estate is unfair and needs addressing, i.e. government regulation and how that would then relieve one perceived unfair situation(perceived unaffordability) with the creation of another(governmental price control which would punish land owners), you incredulously said that well, the land owners could probably handle it.

They likely could and, if not, they could sell the building to someone with the ability to deal with the costs associated with owning a rental property. At any rate they would almost certainly be more able than the people that are renting from them.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

You're in education, right? How about we slash your salary because kids in the projects have a hard time trying to afford higher education?

I was a TA for awhile, but currently I'm a partner in a non-partisan political consultancy who moonlights as a personal trainer and NPO consultant. When I was a TA I was making ~30k USD (though technically I was also a lecturer) plus insurance benefits, free tuition, free board, and school (read: government) subsidized rent. I was doing pretty good, a lot better than any of the undergrads I was teaching who were relying on a mixture Federal loans and school (again, read: government) grants. If the government had back on any of my benefits, because ultimately that's who was paying me, in order to give better benefits to some of those kids I likely would have been fine with it.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

We'll just get the government to underwrite a big check to get everyone access to online programs that don't require all those "expensive" tenured professors and the overhead associated with a full blown campus.

It already does that by way of student loans and school grants. There are plenty of State funded schools where you can get your entire degree without ever setting foot on campus. Hell, I got my MA at Eastern Illinois while living in Chicago (that's a ~3 hour one way drive); I set foot on campus less than 10 times.

But, really, that's an entirely separate thread.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
...but the need to strive towards it and adhere to it's essence is absolutely necessary and should not be compromised for political convenience.

Right, it's "essence". Another thing objectivists are fond of saying. It's like a religious mantra.

"I was a TA for awhile, but currently I'm a partner in a non-partisan political consultancy who moonlights as a personal trainer and NPO consultant. When I was a TA I was making ~30k USD (though technically I was also a lecturer) plus insurance benefits, free tuition, free board, and school (read: government) subsidized rent. I was doing pretty good, a lot better than any of the undergrads I was teaching who were relying on a mixture Federal loans and school (again, read: government) grants. If the government had back on any of my benefits, because ultimately that's who was paying me, in order to give better benefits to some of those kids I likely would have been fine with it."

There we have it! I knew it had to be there j-u-s-t beneath the surface of the debate. Let's replay my favorite part of that gem. "If the government had back on any of my benefits, because ultimately that's who was paying me, in order to give better benefits to some of those kids I likely would have been fine with it."

But of course you would have been "fine with it"! It wasn't your money paying for it now, was it! Free insurance, free tuition, free board, subsidized rent...you had no skin in the game! You're attempting to debate the merits of a free market when you're the product of an environment that is the antithesis of it! Where, btw, do you suppose the money for all that "free" came from? Hmmm, had to be generated somehow. Oh, yeah, someone else's pocket. No wonder you're so comfortable about government raiding those pockets when there's a subjectively perceived imbalance.

Sorry, man, but methinks too much dining at the subsidized trough has left you without much objectivity or practical experience for this debate. This has been a lot of fun and I've meant absolutely no offense, if I've come off that way my apologies, but this bit seals it for me.

Reply by: LordofHats - click to view full reply 

21720

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 04:14:41

Post by: LordofHats

 BigWaaagh wrote:
The video was of a discussion on Price System, I thought it went without saying that PS operates most effectively in a free market environment.

I don't think anyone has debated the nature of the price system thus far. They've debated that a free market can exist devoid of outside influence, and your video doesn't remotely address the subject.

Reply by: BigWaaagh - click to view full reply 

78313

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 04:16:40

Post by: BigWaaagh

 LordofHats wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
The video was of a discussion on Price System, I thought it went without saying that PS operates most effectively in a free market environment.

I don't think anyone has debated the nature of the price system thus far. They've debated that a free market can exist devoid of outside influence, and your video doesn't remotely address the subject.

Then you're looking at a different video.

Reply by: sebster - click to view full reply 

5470

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 04:57:23

Post by: sebster

 LordofHats wrote:
And that still doesn't address the base point that nothing really prevents a command economy from feeding people.

Poverty and starvation existed in the Soviet Union long after Stalin. Seriously, by the collapse of the Soviet Union the poverty rate was still north of 20%.

It wasn't down simply to decisions to starve people, but due to the basic inefficiencies of the command economy. Think of it this way - here in the West today we still do a pretty crappy job of spreading around the welfare bucket to make sure everyone gets enough. But because of the wealth created by the much healthier economy there is simply a much bigger bucket to throw around - so even when the money isn't allocated ideally, the sheer size of the money being thrown around means most of the inefficiencies are overwhelmed by the size of the bucket.

But a planned economy has all the same political imperfections, but because the economy itself operates so much more poorly there is a much smaller bucket to allocate.

To put it another way, the current Russian economy is worth $1.1 trillion. The total welfare budget in the US, govt healthcare, social security, all that stuff, is $2.1 trillion. The socialist part of the US economy is about twice the size of the total Russian economy.

I know that the current Russian economy isn't a control economy anymore, it's more a kleptocracy, but it is what it is today because of seven decades of socialist control.

Reply by: LordofHats - click to view full reply 

21720

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 05:09:50

Post by: LordofHats

 sebster wrote:
I can shoot 1,000 three pointers in a row, but because I'm not particularly talented and have never played basketball, I won't.

Surely you are able to distinguish between the limitations of a specific basketball player, and the constraints of the game of basketball.

I would consider it important to consider the distinction between what a system allows (both as probability and possibility), and what a specific iteration outputs. I'm not proposing that command economy might work. I'm proposing the distinction between the failings of command economy as a conception and the specific ones that came into being. Especially in the murkey case of starvation in Communist/Marxist states, almost all of which were suffering starvation anyway, and for whom the issue of starvation has a number of exigent circumstances. Was it that they were command economies, or that they were developing economies? Starvation and famine are so common place in developing economies as to be a norm.

Poverty and starvation existed in the Soviet Union long after Stalin.

It's not like things were fine, then communism, then starvation. Between 1900 and 1922 Russia endured 5 separate famines within its borders. China endured 3 between 1922 and 1942. Going further back into the 19th century there were even more famines. So was it Command Economy that ushered in the problem, worsened the problem, prevented solutions, or would it have happened anyway regardless because economic considerations are not the sole cause of famine? I think arguments can be put forward for all four (with multiple choice variations). Even were we to concluded that communism was the foremost cause, was it because of the economic limitations of command economy as suggest in thread, or because political considerations prioritized saving face, killing people the ruling elite didn't like or care about, or because someone was making a lot of money off grain exports?

My argument is nothing more than "it's not that simple," and we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking it is for the sake of our own ideological convenience.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Then you're looking at a different video.

Then link to the right one?

Or will you just presume that anyone who disagrees with you must be living off the government dime and declare them incapable of meeting your objective standard? Maybe say you mean no offense while proceeding to be offensive? That is a classic move. Very high brow, and quite novel.

Reply by: sebster - click to view full reply 

5470

Martin Shkreli Style Tactics are on the Rise with Drug Companies @ 2016/08/29 05:13:47

Post by: sebster

 Manchu wrote:
@LoH - Not quite; the debate is more like, does history matter or not? No doubt the barrel of a command economy can be aimed at whatever target and as long as [ahistorical assumptions] it will work out fine. The part in brackets is what spurs me to ask, so what? It strikes me that you leave out the "and where are they now" part of your description of the USSR and why, supposedly, avoidance of mass starvation was in fact perfectly possible.

It's definitely true that a command economy can pick any issue and just hammer that thing until it goes away. That is a sense is the problem - you end up with an economy focused around a series of nation building projects. The Soviets made great strides in rocketry and space exploration because that's where they believed the future was. So did the American government for that matter.

While everyone was staring at space however, the real revolution was happening in computing tech. There was government support, but it was mostly driven by the private sector.

That's why command economies fall behind and capitalist economies grow. Because innovation by its very nature comes from unexpected places.

The final twist in the tail is that now that all our attention is focused back on Earth, a bunch of entrepreneurs have started making great new strides in reducing the cost of space travel.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rosebuddy wrote:
Capitalism doesn't create wealth, labour does. Capitalism merely concentrates it into the hands of the ruling class.

200,000 years of humans providing labour. 300 years of capitalism organising that labour, which just happen to be the 300 years with the greatest growth in the size of capital. Coincidence!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
I posted a link to a speech given by Economics Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman earlier, please take a look.

If you want to talk about history as the final judge, you should be aware that history has not been kind to Mr Friedman. I mean, if you want to go through his big ideas...

Permanent Income Hypothesis - was always a contrivance, was accepted for political reasons, and is now utterly discredited by behavioural economic research.
Money growth targeting - was attempted and proven to utterly disastrous in the control of inflation. It is a less famous disaster than the Phillips curve only because it was more obviously disastrous and therefore abandoned much sooner.
Quantity theory of Money - is pretty solid, as long as we look long term enough. One theory has held up.
Friedman Rule - A total failure, it is incredible that anyone would have ever taken our current low interest, low inflation, low growth world and talk about it as a desired position. Incredibly stupid. As a sidenote could there be any field but economics where one of its most famous thinkers has two famous rules that are in direct contradiction with each other?
Adaptive Expectations - Not so much rejected as simply abandoned. Even the Freidmanites don't bother including it in their models anymore.
Utility Function - Is actually really solid, works as both a micro-foundation and as an observational piece of economics.
Rejection of Fiscal Stabilisation - I left this until last because it is the biggest, wrongest of them all. I get there was a time when people might have ideologically fallen for a dream that government could have no part in fixing an economy, but even if we look at this with a case of trying to make it true it was always extremely weak. The subsequent example of Japan trying to fix its protracted slump with monetary policy alone clearly proved how wrong the theory was, but did it ever even need that?

So that's 2/7, with one big idea and one very small idea holding up. For the record, that's worse than Marx.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
And Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said "he slipped all too easily into claiming both that markets always work and that only markets work." Given that Friedman didn't win a Nobel for his work in "Free Markets" but rather for his work on consumption and monetary history

Sort of but not really. Friedman's work is primarily in consumption and monetary policy... but the point was to use his observations in those fields to argue against government involvement. As an example, his big idea in consumption was that people averaged out their expected income over their lives, so if a person got a windfall of $1,000 today he is going to spread that out and spend it over time. The argument here was entirely political - he was arguing against the benefit of 'helicopter money' to boost an economy in an acute recession. He was making this argument because he was a fierce advocate for the free market.

His idea above was wrong, of course. Its obviously wrong, just by observation, that people's spending tends to be short to medium term consistent, even as incomes and savings fluctuate. And that people burn through windfalls like lottery winnings and inheritances and don't actually balance those incomes over their lives. Behavioural economics has done the work in the last decade to establish that Friedman was totally wrong... but they shouldn't have had to. It remains a testament to the dishonesty of the freshwater school that such a silly idea was ever argued for.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
Surely you are able to distinguish between the limitations of a specific basketball player, and the constraints of the game of basketball.

Of course, but it's utterly irrelevant to the analogy. Just because something can happen, it doesn't mean we should treat it with anything but the remotest chance of actually happening. That's true both of individuals shooting baskets, and institutions managing economies.

I would consider it important to consider the distinction between what a system allows (both as probability and possibility), and what a specific iteration outputs. I'm not proposing that command economy might work. I'm proposing the distinction between the failings of command economy as a conception and the specific ones that came into being.

I find it problematic to find some kind of hypothetical, possible kind of command economy that is different from every single command economy ever put in to place.

It's not like things were fine, then communism, then starvation. Between 1900 and 1922 Russia endured 5 separate famines within its borders. China endured 3 between 1922 and 1942. Going further back into the 19th century there were even more famines. So was it Command Economy that ushered in the problem, worsened the problem, prevented solutions, or would it have happened anyway regardless because economic considerations are not the sole cause of famine?

I think it's more that human history has had famine, starvation and suffering. The feudal economies of Russia and China weren't unique in that regard. And in failing to stop famine and starvation the Soviet Union and PRC weren't unique either. In that sense communism wasn't so much a cause, as it was a failed solution to an existing problem,

Where communism gets judged more harshly is that it happened to be applied at the same time that an actual working solution was in place. The poverty that had existed for all of European history has reduced to a fraction of its former size, and this has come through the wealth creation of capitalism.

[quote[I think arguments can be put forward for all four (with multiple choice variations). Even were we to concluded that communism was the foremost cause, was it because of the economic limitations of command economy as suggest in thread, or because political considerations prioritized saving face, killing people the ruling elite didn't like or care about, or because someone was making a lot of money off grain exports?

My argument is nothing more than "it's not that simple," and we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking it is for the sake of our own ideological convenience.

 Ouze wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Evidently there is no competitive market as the Fed government won't permit other entities to sell a similar product. If you have a government monopoly you can set the price. Thanks Obama.

There isn't a government sanctioned monopoly on Epipens, just a nearly de facto one.

The FDA settled with Mylan to allow generics nearly 2 years ago. Every very similar competitor so far has dropped the ball somehow - one didn't do enough research before release and was rejected by the FDA, and another got recalled. Even despite that, you can right now get Adrenaclick for about $70 a dose, or if you want to do a little more work, you can get a prescription for epinephrine and just fill a syringe with it for a few bucks per dose.

However, if you want to shift the argument over to Obama dropping the public option - I'd be right there with you.

 LordofHats wrote:

 sebster wrote:
I can shoot 1,000 three pointers in a row, but because I'm not particularly talented and have never played basketball, I won't.

Surely you are able to distinguish between the limitations of a specific basketball player, and the constraints of the game of basketball.

I would consider it important to consider the distinction between what a system allows (both as probability and possibility), and what a specific iteration outputs. I'm not proposing that command economy might work. I'm proposing the distinction between the failings of command economy as a conception and the specific ones that came into being. Especially in the murkey case of starvation in Communist/Marxist states, almost all of which were suffering starvation anyway, and for whom the issue of starvation has a number of exigent circumstances. Was it that they were command economies, or that they were developing economies? Starvation and famine are so common place in developing economies as to be a norm.

Poverty and starvation existed in the Soviet Union long after Stalin.

It's not like things were fine, then communism, then starvation. Between 1900 and 1922 Russia endured 5 separate famines within its borders. China endured 3 between 1922 and 1942. Going further back into the 19th century there were even more famines. So was it Command Economy that ushered in the problem, worsened the problem, prevented solutions, or would it have happened anyway regardless because economic considerations are not the sole cause of famine? I think arguments can be put forward for all four (with multiple choice variations). Even were we to concluded that communism was the foremost cause, was it because of the economic limitations of command economy as suggest in thread, or because political considerations prioritized saving face, killing people the ruling elite didn't like or care about, or because someone was making a lot of money off grain exports?

My argument is nothing more than "it's not that simple," and we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking it is for the sake of our own ideological convenience.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Then you're looking at a different video.

Then link to the right one?

Or will you just presume that anyone who disagrees with you must be living off the government dime and declare them incapable of meeting your objective standard? Maybe say you mean no offense while proceeding to be offensive? That is a classic move. Very high brow, and quite novel.

sebster wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
@LoH - Not quite; the debate is more like, does history matter or not? No doubt the barrel of a command economy can be aimed at whatever target and as long as [ahistorical assumptions] it will work out fine. The part in brackets is what spurs me to ask, so what? It strikes me that you leave out the "and where are they now" part of your description of the USSR and why, supposedly, avoidance of mass starvation was in fact perfectly possible.

It's definitely true that a command economy can pick any issue and just hammer that thing until it goes away. That is a sense is the problem - you end up with an economy focused around a series of nation building projects. The Soviets made great strides in rocketry and space exploration because that's where they believed the future was. So did the American government for that matter.

While everyone was staring at space however, the real revolution was happening in computing tech. There was government support, but it was mostly driven by the private sector.

That's why command economies fall behind and capitalist economies grow. Because innovation by its very nature comes from unexpected places.

The final twist in the tail is that now that all our attention is focused back on Earth, a bunch of entrepreneurs have started making great new strides in reducing the cost of space travel.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rosebuddy wrote:
Capitalism doesn't create wealth, labour does. Capitalism merely concentrates it into the hands of the ruling class.

200,000 years of humans providing labour. 300 years of capitalism organising that labour, which just happen to be the 300 years with the greatest growth in the size of capital. Coincidence!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
I posted a link to a speech given by Economics Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman earlier, please take a look.

If you want to talk about history as the final judge, you should be aware that history has not been kind to Mr Friedman. I mean, if you want to go through his big ideas...

Permanent Income Hypothesis - was always a contrivance, was accepted for political reasons, and is now utterly discredited by behavioural economic research.
Money growth targeting - was attempted and proven to utterly disastrous in the control of inflation. It is a less famous disaster than the Phillips curve only because it was more obviously disastrous and therefore abandoned much sooner.
Quantity theory of Money - is pretty solid, as long as we look long term enough. One theory has held up.
Friedman Rule - A total failure, it is incredible that anyone would have ever taken our current low interest, low inflation, low growth world and talk about it as a desired position. Incredibly stupid. As a sidenote could there be any field but economics where one of its most famous thinkers has two famous rules that are in direct contradiction with each other?
Adaptive Expectations - Not so much rejected as simply abandoned. Even the Freidmanites don't bother including it in their models anymore.
Utility Function - Is actually really solid, works as both a micro-foundation and as an observational piece of economics.
Rejection of Fiscal Stabilisation - I left this until last because it is the biggest, wrongest of them all. I get there was a time when people might have ideologically fallen for a dream that government could have no part in fixing an economy, but even if we look at this with a case of trying to make it true it was always extremely weak. The subsequent example of Japan trying to fix its protracted slump with monetary policy alone clearly proved how wrong the theory was, but did it ever even need that?

So that's 2/7, with one big idea and one very small idea holding up. For the record, that's worse than Marx.


.

 skyth wrote:
As soon as you have a safety net or the government preventing 'abuse' it is no longer a pure Free Market system.

Any safety net shifts the demand curve and lets the government pick winners and losers.

Same with the government preventing 'abuse'. What is defined as 'abuse' is the very example of picking winners and losers.

Don't call it a Free Market system when it isn't one.

 sebster wrote:

To put it another way, the current Russian economy is worth $1.1 trillion. The total welfare budget in the US, govt healthcare, social security, all that stuff, is $2.1 trillion. The socialist part of the US economy is about twice the size of the total Russian economy.

 whembly wrote:
Also, to swing this thread back to the topic a bit, Mylan to offer GENERIC Epipen at Half Price.

Public outcry, for once, actually fething worked.

 Ahtman wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Also, to swing this thread back to the topic a bit, Mylan to offer GENERIC Epipen at Half Price.

Public outcry, for once, actually fething worked.

That was listed earlier actually. Cutting the price in half after raising the price several hundred percent isn't much of a victory. If something was $10 and you raised the price to $600 and people got upset (and more importantly you lost the company three billion in investments) so you cut the price to $300 you still aren't near $10.

 whembly wrote:
It's MUUUUUUUUCH easier to get a GENERIC medication on your prescription coverage's formulary (meaning, it'd just be your co-pay).

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 whembly wrote:
It's MUUUUUUUUCH easier to get a GENERIC medication on your prescription coverage's formulary (meaning, it'd just be your co-pay).

Well, let's see how easier it will really be to get these generics. I would not be surprised if they produced the generic in much more limited numbers.

Something that still boggles my mind. Are these things completely mechanical, as on, no electronic components? If so, there's no way they can cost as much to make as a smartphone or video game console (and those things have massive r&d and marketing costs, too). Charging such a high price really is nothing but monopolistic greed.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

There we have it! I knew it had to be there j-u-s-t beneath the surface of the debate. Let's replay my favorite part of that gem. "If the government had back on any of my benefits, because ultimately that's who was paying me, in order to give better benefits to some of those kids I likely would have been fine with it."

But of course you would have been "fine with it"! It wasn't your money paying for it now, was it! Free insurance, free tuition, free board, subsidized rent...you had no skin in the game! You're attempting to debate the merits of a free market when you're the product of an environment that is the antithesis of it! Where, btw, do you suppose the money for all that "free" came from? Hmmm, had to be generated somehow. Oh, yeah, someone else's pocket. No wonder you're so comfortable about government raiding those pockets when there's a subjectively perceived imbalance.

 feeder wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

There we have it! I knew it had to be there j-u-s-t beneath the surface of the debate. Let's replay my favorite part of that gem. "If the government had back on any of my benefits, because ultimately that's who was paying me, in order to give better benefits to some of those kids I likely would have been fine with it."

But of course you would have been "fine with it"! It wasn't your money paying for it now, was it! Free insurance, free tuition, free board, subsidized rent...you had no skin in the game! You're attempting to debate the merits of a free market when you're the product of an environment that is the antithesis of it! Where, btw, do you suppose the money for all that "free" came from? Hmmm, had to be generated somehow. Oh, yeah, someone else's pocket. No wonder you're so comfortable about government raiding those pockets when there's a subjectively perceived imbalance.

How is job-related benefits "out of someone else's pocket" ? Schools often offer a food and board incentives package to staff as they already have these programs in place for students so it's trivial to offer them to staff as well.

When I worked at a hotel in my younger days two additional perks were staff could eat free (as the hotel was already producing massive quantities of food anyway) and half price stays in properties across the country.

What is the functional difference between 30k plus benefits and 40k a year?

 feeder wrote:
My point is those items are not "free". They are a payment, other than cash, for services rendered to the Uni.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 feeder wrote:
My point is those items are not "free". They are a payment, other than cash, for services rendered to the Uni.

How is job-related benefits "out of someone else's pocket" ? -asked and answered.

 feeder wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 feeder wrote:
My point is those items are not "free". They are a payment, other than cash, for services rendered to the Uni.

How is job-related benefits "out of someone else's pocket" ? -asked and answered.

What is it about job-related benefits that you find objectionable?

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 feeder wrote:
My point is those items are not "free". They are a payment, other than cash, for services rendered to the Uni.

How is job-related benefits "out of someone else's pocket" ? -asked and answered.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 feeder wrote:
My point is those items are not "free". They are a payment, other than cash, for services rendered to the Uni.

How is job-related benefits "out of someone else's pocket" ? -asked and answered.

What is it about job-related benefits that you find objectionable?

Where in any of that quoted response to Dogma am I saying I object to job-related benefits? Seriously, find the words. Stating they're coming "out of someone else's pocket" is a statement of fact, not an objection.

And with regards to that, your initial question, it's been asked and answered.

 sebster wrote:

This doesn't mean unfettered capitalism is answer to all our problems, of course, but there is a reason that the reality based community has chosen capitalism tempered by government as their starting point.

 sebster wrote:

200,000 years of humans providing labour. 300 years of capitalism organising that labour, which just happen to be the 300 years with the greatest growth in the size of capital. Coincidence!

 BigWaaagh wrote:
The link was not a blanket endorsement or detraction of Milton Friedman's cataglogue of work, but was posted because the video was just an extraordinarily simple, yet concise presentation of the free market dynamics inherent superiority. It's nothing more.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Where in any of that quoted response to Dogma am I saying I object to job-related benefits? Seriously, find the words. Stating they're coming "out of someone else's pocket" is a statement of fact, not an objection.

Rosebuddy wrote:
The reason being that they kill anyone who poses a serious threat to capitalism. There is a long and successful history of crushing unions, workers' movements and anti-colonial movements. By "reality-based community" you mean smug liberals who believe their reign will be eternal.

Of course capital can't grow when it doesn't exist.

You've figured out that capitalism has conquered the world and use this stunning insight to argue that capitalism is therefore a good thing.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Evidently there is no competitive market as the Fed government won't permit other entities to sell a similar product. If you have a government monopoly you can set the price. Thanks Obama.

There isn't a government sanctioned monopoly on Epipens, just a nearly de facto one.

The FDA settled with Mylan to allow generics nearly 2 years ago. Every very similar competitor so far has dropped the ball somehow - one didn't do enough research before release and was rejected by the FDA, and another got recalled. Even despite that, you can right now get Adrenaclick for about $70 a dose, or if you want to do a little more work, you can get a prescription for epinephrine and just fill a syringe with it for a few bucks per dose.

However, if you want to shift the argument over to Obama dropping the public option - I'd be right there with you.

The FDA sets the conditions of the testing. Its a defacto monopoly. You have to love government monopolies and crony capitalism.
yes the price increases suck and are unconscionable. Thats what happens when there are no competitors.

 Ouze wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Evidently there is no competitive market as the Fed government won't permit other entities to sell a similar product. If you have a government monopoly you can set the price. Thanks Obama.

There isn't a government sanctioned monopoly on Epipens, just a nearly de facto one.

The FDA settled with Mylan to allow generics nearly 2 years ago. Every very similar competitor so far has dropped the ball somehow - one didn't do enough research before release and was rejected by the FDA, and another got recalled. Even despite that, you can right now get Adrenaclick for about $70 a dose, or if you want to do a little more work, you can get a prescription for epinephrine and just fill a syringe with it for a few bucks per dose.

However, if you want to shift the argument over to Obama dropping the public option - I'd be right there with you.

The FDA sets the conditions of the testing. Its a defacto monopoly. You have to love government monopolies and crony capitalism.
yes the price increases suck and are unconscionable. Thats what happens when there are no competitors.

You'd have to show me that the FDA stacked the testing in order to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, rather than to have testing prove the generics are safe, effective, and equivalent. Maybe that's happened, but I haven't seen that.

Sometimes there are some medications that simply don't get competitors by dint of various manufacturing peculiarities - like the flu vaccine, which is difficult and time consuming to manufacture, which means there are only a few companies who can afford to chase the profit left at the margins of a large R&D and production outlay. Yet do you see flu vaccines spiking in price? Not really. I think the invisible hand is invisible because it doesn't exist.

Anyway, no point in arguing it because if we follow this train long enough, we both agree anyway - we both want fully socialized healthcare iirc your previous posts.

 whembly wrote:
Getting some new drug on the market to be one of the first to treat a disease... man, it's fething onerous.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Getting some new drug on the market to be one of the first to treat a disease... man, it's fething onerous.

It doesn't have to be as expensive as it is to bring drugs on to the market. Federal regulations aren't as effective as they should be, but that is only one part of the problem.
http://www.nature.com/news/busting-the-billion-dollar-myth-how-to-slash-the-cost-of-drug-development-1.20469

The not-for-profit in the article have put 6 new treatments on to the market, for $290 million. Normal process costs around a billion for a single drug. The company's results include combination treatments of existing drugs, but its also managed to get new drugs tested and put on the market for around $60 million from start to finish. The company thinks it could average $110m to $170m per new drug, even including the cost of failed drugs.

Now admittedly the company in question, DNDi, is using some methods that can't necessarily be scaled up to the industry as a whole. For instance they often form partnerships with drug labs who give them access to new chemicals that aren't economic for the labs because they only deal with diseases poor countries have. They get these chemicals on the cheap, while anything with commercial viability in the West is sold to major drug companies at a huge price. And because DNDi is small scale and not for profit it can generally negotiate much better terms with its partners, than those partners will charge to large, commercial operations.

But the work of DNDi has shown lots of places where existing drug companies can reform their practices to bring the cost per new drug way down. Dropping non-viable or un-needed drugs much earlier in the process. The other thing is to focus on drugs that have very clear needs rather than drugs that have slight benefits over existing medications. Having a clear need lowers the hurdles you need to jump to prove safety and efficacy, and it also results in drugs not being abandoned late in the process because they turned out to be no better than existing medications.

Anyhow, it's an interesting article, well worth a read.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that the right to equal access to healthcare, regardless of income or employment, will be the next constitutional amendment.

Might take years but I think it will come.

 whembly wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that the right to equal access to healthcare, regardless of income or employment, will be the next constitutional amendment.

Might take years but I think it will come.

That would be horrible.

I'd rather simply expand Medicare (single payer) for all age groups.

 whembly wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that the right to equal access to healthcare, regardless of income or employment, will be the next constitutional amendment.

Might take years but I think it will come.

That would be horrible.

I'd rather simply expand Medicare (single payer) for all age groups.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that the right to equal access to healthcare, regardless of income or employment, will be the next constitutional amendment.

Might take years but I think it will come.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that the right to equal access to healthcare, regardless of income or employment, will be the next constitutional amendment.

Might take years but I think it will come.

That would be horrible.

I'd rather simply expand Medicare (single payer) for all age groups.

It would be horrible for all citizens to have equal access to healthcare regardless of their personal situation? I'm sorry but you are going to have to explain why.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law that requires anyone coming to an emergency department to be stabilized and treated, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.

 whembly wrote:

By your statement, you are saying that anyone should walk into any clinic/hospital and get their care, because hypothetically it is a right.

Who's going to pay for it? Who pays the doc/pharmacists/nurses/technicians/janitors/electricity/IT infrastructure/building lease/property taxs/medications/equipment rental fees/administration/etc...

If theses entities won't get paid... what's to stop these people from leaving this industry if pay is reduced? Will the government step in and forbid people from leaving? (there's a term for this)

Also, if it's a right, then the government wouldn't be able to introduce end-of-life cost controls.

Also... I don't think you know... but, we sorta have something what I think you are trying to advocate... and that is for emergency treatments called [url=https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-

 Easy E wrote:

 whembly wrote:

By your statement, you are saying that anyone should walk into any clinic/hospital and get their care, because hypothetically it is a right.

Who's going to pay for it? Who pays the doc/pharmacists/nurses/technicians/janitors/electricity/IT infrastructure/building lease/property taxs/medications/equipment rental fees/administration/etc...

If theses entities won't get paid... what's to stop these people from leaving this industry if pay is reduced? Will the government step in and forbid people from leaving? (there's a term for this)

Also, if it's a right, then the government wouldn't be able to introduce end-of-life cost controls.

Also... I don't think you know... but, we sorta have something what I think you are trying to advocate... and that is for emergency treatments called [url=https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-

All of that would be decided by the Supreme Court, just like normal Constitutional issues. No need to panic about the amendment.

I find Fraz's rejection much more compelling.

 jmurph wrote:
A lot of the issues stem back to whether we as a society want to treat medical services and supplies as a commodity or an essential element. Historically, things like water, power, etc. have shown to be too important to treat as mere commodities and so require greater intervention and regulation. Medical care seems to be very similar- it is essential for survival and quality of life and doesn't allow the same options as non-essential commodities. You can shop around or choose not to buy an MP3 player, for example. Can't really do that with insulin if you are an insulin dependent diabetic- buy it or die. Likewise, there are severe societal costs for inadequate access.

 feeder wrote:
How would constitutionally guaranteed healthcare be horrible?