Pharmaceuticals only have your best interests at heart

[Thunder]

Everything I said is directly related to pharma and and I was not making my argument a semantic one, and I don't know why you think it is. Every industry is regulated because history shows us they cannot regulate themselves. I'm sorry you feel otherwise but you are dead wrong, and I have history on my side for this.

Implying I advocated for the government to get out of the business of upholding property rights seemed a really unfair way to discuss what I was saying. And no, not every industry has shown it needs strict regulation... it's really hard to even admit to a point made when people are going to be the smuggest of assholes about things - as if this is the first time in the day you're able to have your way

Sorry, you're right, it's not zero quality control, it's quality control for the bottom line. This is what will happen: a few good companies will produce high quality drugs, and taking advantage of Economies of Scale, will steal all the drugs worth making and produce them at at a cost that doesn't make it worth it for a small startup. Once the competition has been eliminated them then the "quality" companies will slowly raise prices to the point just below where another companies can come in and compete. The few big drug companies will all collude together not to step on each others toes. Next, we will see counterfeit drugs become commonplace because there is no quality control, thus you will only be able to assure quality by buying directly from the company or from somebody endorsed by the company and that means they can further raise their price. We already see this in other countries that do not have quality government regulations (ie 3rd world countries) where the price of many drugs is prohibitively expensive to the majority of the population and the market is rampant with counterfeit drugs of questionable/non-existent efficacy.

you're exaggerating a bit here, aren't you? Produce them all at a cost that doesn't make it worth it for a small startup? The barrier of entry to start ups is as low as its ever been in history. The cost of production of things definitely goes down if you're able to produce big amounts, but that's the cost of starting a start up in any industry and that gets done all the time. In industries that aren't regulated, too (except for property rights, fraud, etc)

And your next point is about as incentivized against without regulation as it is with regulation. If a company is found to be colluding now they pay some petty fine and experience public backlash. With what I proposed they would only experience public backlash. The liabilities BP paid for the spill was over what they were, by law, required, and that still pales in comparison to how much they lost in stock prices. The same could be said of volkswagon today for the fraud they committed, lost 20% day1 and another 20% day2. The fees paid in punishment to collusion/fraud/etc are small compared to the price of the market's reaction. I'd imagine that reaction would be larger if there were no fees, but I could genuinely be wrong. So, there's the same (if not more) incentive to be honest imo to this point of collusion

And counterfeit drugs... this isn't the 3rd world country though, so our "non big corp" would be small(er) business who want to protect their name, brand, image, etc.

Is this a ridiculous stance to take to your points?

It comes from transparency within the government. A lot of this is allowed to happen because power has consolidated because of bad regulation enforcement/deregulation. The solution is to take money out of politics altogether; not turn it into a capitalistic free-for-all.

how do you take money out of politics - through transparency? These people want to be elected in the next cycle, they want backers. If we were able to see the place where they get their money that would help? What do you mean? I feel like these are just buzz words, I don't understand what exactly you're saying

When an action is legal and profit maximizing, you can rest assured that it will happen regardless of the people it harms. This is a failure of governmental regulation, which is no surprise given how much more leverage pharmaceuticals have in the U.S. compared to other first world countries.

Total free market capitalism doesn't favor a patent system for drugs, but that's not the system anyone is arguing for here. Maybe drugs should be handled differently from the current patent system. But tossing the entirety of IP law cause of this is the equivalent of taking down Planned Parenthood over baby parts if those videos were actually real.

What do you think about the incentive for the company to not do terrible things because of the markets reaction to them thereafter? Like, stock prices plummeting after someone does something bad. Even if it was legal, and profit maximizing.

So then do you believe in profit maximizing over the long term being able to curb legal & profit maximizing practices that hurt people/environment?

Because that's really the crux of anything of the sort that I'm talking about. Long term profit maximizing would always be best for people/environment, no?

[kuronosan]

No.

[6souls]

PhRMA back peddled and will lower the price thanks to the backlash. Price was not revealed. They've also decided to distance themselves from Martin Shkreli.

[Tyrath]

Considering what a loudmouth idiot he was online, I'm not surprised. The real question is what they are lowering it by. 5000% increase and then not nearly enough of a decrease will still be shitty.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Long term profit maximizing would always be best for people/environment, no?

I try to distance myself, but I feel like I need to elaborate on Kuro's "no" - holy shit, if you think people are going to play the long game for money you really haven't been paying attention. To anything, including FFXI. Seriously, this is basic human behavior. Guy wants relic. Guy makes Dynamis Linkshell. Guy gets relic. Dynamis linkshell suddenly leaderless, disbands. Long-game, guy would have stuck around and gotten a bunch of other people their relics and then used that connection to dominate other content. But he doesn't, because fuck everyone else he got his.

We have had a period of free-market capitalism. It did not go well for most people.

[Byrthnoth]

70 years wasn't long enough to develop an alternative to this drug, guys. We need all your money and another few years.

[Waraji]

That shit was like EVE 2 years Corporation infiltration to gank the $3K ship.

[Andalusian girls]

I try to distance myself, but I feel like I need to elaborate on Kuro's "no" - holy shit, if you think people are going to play the long game for money you really haven't been paying attention. To anything, including FFXI. Seriously, this is basic human behavior. Guy wants relic. Guy makes Dynamis Linkshell. Guy gets relic. Dynamis linkshell suddenly leaderless, disbands. Long-game, guy would have stuck around and gotten a bunch of other people their relics and then used that connection to dominate other content. But he doesn't, because fuck everyone else he got his.

We have had a period of free-market capitalism. It did not go well for most people.

what period do you believe constituted free-market capitalism?

[6souls]

PhRMA back peddled and will lower the price thanks to the backlash. Price was not revealed. They've also decided to distance themselves from Martin Shkreli.

Source:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/company...ry?id=33955820
https://twitter.com/PhRMA/status/646365063226519552

[Pirian]

Implying I advocated for the government to get out of the business of upholding property rights seemed a really unfair way to discuss what I was saying. And no, not every industry has shown it needs strict regulation... it's really hard to even admit to a point made when people are going to be the smuggest of assholes about things - as if this is the first time in the day you're able to have your way

I didn't say strict regulation, I simply said regulation. In this particular case, the pharma industry requires strict regulation and unless you're changing your mind here then you've been advocating for the disbandment of all pharma regulation. There is nothing smug about saying that history is on my side because it is. If it wasn't then if you didn't call me out somebody else would have. Government regulations only exist because corporations have consistently shown themselves to be unable to self-regulate. The degree to which we deem it necessary to regulate an industry varies upon how badly the industry has transgressed in the past, and to what degree of impact a possible transgression will have on people.

you're exaggerating a bit here, aren't you? Produce them all at a cost that doesn't make it worth it for a small startup? The barrier of entry to start ups is as low as its ever been in history. The cost of production of things definitely goes down if you're able to produce big amounts, but that's the cost of starting a start up in any industry and that gets done all the time. In industries that aren't regulated, too (except for property rights, fraud, etc)

No, I am not exaggerating. For whatever it's worth (not much), I have a degree in economics, so I am at least aware of many of the technical aspects here. This is my one and only appeal to authority and I'll try and refrain from it in the future.

And your next point is about as incentivized against without regulation as it is with regulation. If a company is found to be colluding now they pay some petty fine and experience public backlash. With what I proposed they would only experience public backlash. The liabilities BP paid for the spill was over what they were, by law, required, and that still pales in comparison to how much they lost in stock prices. The same could be said of volkswagon today for the fraud they committed, lost 20% day1 and another 20% day2. The fees paid in punishment to collusion/fraud/etc are small compared to the price of the market's reaction. I'd imagine that reaction would be larger if there were no fees, but I could genuinely be wrong. So, there's the same (if not more) incentive to be honest imo to this point of collusion

BP's stock has mostly recovered from the drop it saw due to the oil spill, and the same will probably be said about Volkswagon unless it is bought out while it is cheap. The declines you see in BP stock besides the initial reaction were 50% recovered in a year to their pre-spill price, and much of the slowdown in stock price gain observed today is due to the industry lagging, not BP. These companies are not Enron; they are actual businesses with actual profits that are going to keep going.

Now that we've gotten this strawman out of the way, I'm glad we agree that the fees paid in punishment to collusion/fraud/etc are small. They should be higher - much higher. The fees should be so high that if they get caught then it forces the company out of business, otherwise many in the company could just see this as the cost of doing business, and many do. I'm not necessarily advocating for this, but I am of the opinion that if a company has a major ethical transgression

Yes, the market reaction is usually large, but the correction in price almost always happens because the core underlying business is seldom hurt and investors see and know this and that's all they care about. There are literal fortunes made on falling stock prices.

And counterfeit drugs... this isn't the 3rd world country though, so our "non big corp" would be small(er) business who want to protect their name, brand, image, etc.

Is this a ridiculous stance to take to your points?

You don't quite understand. Yes, there are some businesses that want to protect their name, brand, image, etc., but if the barriers to entry are zero then there is a huge incentive to start a business, sell your dirty medications through it and once the public finds out about this then they simply close that business and open a new one under a different name. There is a market advantage to a brand, but there is also a market advantage to no brand, and if all you care about is making a quick buck then why build a brand?

how do you take money out of politics - through transparency? These people want to be elected in the next cycle, they want backers. If we were able to see the place where they get their money that would help? What do you mean? I feel like these are just buzz words, I don't understand what exactly you're saying

I apologize, I didn't think it was a buzz word. By transparency, I mean we need a system where it is clear public knowledge where all the money in politics is flowing; clear rules that are unambiguous and strictly enforced regarding the kind of relationships that politicians can court; remove the revolving door between government and big business - this sort of stuff.

What do you think about the incentive for the company to not do terrible things because of the markets reaction to them thereafter? Like, stock prices plummeting after someone does something bad. Even if it was legal, and profit maximizing.

I already addressed this, but I will reiterate to be thorough. Companies recover almost 100% of the time, given their core business is not part of the problem, and given time and favorable overall market conditions. The overall market conditions really matter the most here. The only time a company doesn't recover is when it is their core business that was impacted/involved. Sure, BP fell to their low around $27 a share June 25th, but I bet everyone that invested there was very happy with their near 100% return a mere year later when it was closing on $50 a share. (I'm aware that it is down now, but that has everything to do with the position of oil companies in general).

So then do you believe in profit maximizing over the long term being able to curb legal & profit maximizing practices that hurt people/environment?

Because that's really the crux of anything of the sort that I'm talking about. Long term profit maximizing would always be best for people/environment, no?

No, it's not, and no I don't believe that.

[Cantih]

what period do you believe constituted free-market capitalism?

The Gilded Age

[Thunder]

snip

Ok, I'm straight on everything now

My deregulated pharma industry was much more dreamy of a scenario in my head than your transparancy + larger fees one is for sure. I agree totally

I try to distance myself, but I feel like I need to elaborate on Kuro's "no" - holy shit, if you think people are going to play the long game for money you really haven't been paying attention. To anything, including FFXI. Seriously, this is basic human behavior. Guy wants relic. Guy makes Dynamis Linkshell. Guy gets relic. Dynamis linkshell suddenly leaderless, disbands. Long-game, guy would have stuck around and gotten a bunch of other people their relics and then used that connection to dominate other content. But he doesn't, because fuck everyone else he got his.

We have had a period of free-market capitalism. It did not go well for most people.

Coulda just stayed distanced from the subject and nothing would have ended differently lol

FFXI was literally 95% ponzi scheme linkshells. That's not really a free market economy. But that's just the nature of how drops work in a video game (compared to wages in real life). Put in the work for us leaders and you'll get yours after unless we leaders walk away and nobody wants to salvage the shitshow that's left.

I paid attention. And I feel bad for what I did, if I believed in god I'd ask for forgiveness.

[Ragnus]

Probably not surprising, but...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/w...e-ceo-he-isnt/

[Rooney]

There's also a pretty good series currently running on Huff Post about J&J and risperdal. Pretty clearly lays out how these companies will do anything for the next $.

[kuronosan]

Don't get me fucking started on Risperdal.

[Byrthnoth]

Does anyone have stats on what percentage of pharmaceutical company revenue is reinvested in research vs. paying administrative costs, manufacturing, sales, etc.?

Edit: Google tells me it's between 10 and 20% varying by company. In the 70s, it was apparently ~10%. That's actually not nearly as bad as I thought.

[Salodin]

Does anyone have stats on what percentage of pharmaceutical company revenue is reinvested in research vs. paying administrative costs, manufacturing, sales, etc.?

Edit: Google tells me it's between 10 and 20% varying by company. In the 70s, it was apparently ~10%. That's actually not nearly as bad as I thought.

To be fair, 10% back then probably went a lot farther than it does now with where research has to go.

[Enkidu]

Does anyone have stats on what percentage of pharmaceutical company revenue is reinvested in research vs. paying administrative costs, manufacturing, sales, etc.?

Edit: Google tells me it's between 10 and 20% varying by company. In the 70s, it was apparently ~10%. That's actually not nearly as bad as I thought.

Probably important to note that the obscene profits allow these companies to then invest in diseases that otherwise would never be researched due to low profitability. I know first-hand of drugs that are sidelined simply due to problems with patentability/profitability that would otherwise save lives (if they made it through clinical trials).

I'll agree hand over fist that the business people in big pharma are snakes to their core, but sometimes it's a necessary evil to get the real science done.

[Rooney]

Probably important to note that the obscene profits allow these companies to then invest in diseases that otherwise would never be researched due to low profitability. I know first-hand of drugs that are sidelined simply due to problems with patentability/profitability that would otherwise save lives (if they made it through clinical trials).

I'll agree hand over fist that the business people in big pharma are snakes to their core, but sometimes it's a necessary evil to get the real science done.

J&J was fined billions over Risperdal, and still came out with profits in the billions. Just from one drug. These companies can easily afford to be ethical and still do research into obscure diseases while still making ridiculous profits.

Edit: Should note they made that much after factoring in marketing, fines, settlements, etc just from off-label sales. On-label sales increase that number even more.

[kuronosan]

Probably important to note that the obscene profits allow these companies to then invest in diseases that otherwise would never be researched due to low profitability. I know first-hand of drugs that are sidelined simply due to problems with patentability/profitability that would otherwise save lives (if they made it through clinical trials).

I'll agree hand over fist that the business people in big pharma are snakes to their core, but sometimes it's a necessary evil to get the real science done.

Wat lol most funding comes from the NIH.