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Leading drug companies including Teva, Pfizer, Novartis and Mylan conspired to inflate the prices of generic drugs by as much as 1,000 percent, according to a far-reaching lawsuit filed on Friday by 44 states.
The industrywide scheme affected the prices of more than 100 generic drugs, according to the complaint, including lamivudine-zidovudine, which treats H.I.V.; budesonide, an asthma medication; fenofibrate, which treats high cholesterol; amphetamine-dextroamphetamine for A.D.H.D.; oral antibiotics; blood thinners; cancer drugs; contraceptives; and antidepressants.
"We all know that prescription drugs can be expensive," Gurbir S. Grewal, the New Jersey attorney general, said in a statement. "Now we know that high drug prices have been driven in part by an illegal conspiracy among generic drug companies to inflate their prices."
In court documents, the state prosecutors lay out a brazen price-fixing scheme involving more than a dozen generic drug companies and just as many executives responsible for sales, marketing and pricing. The complaint alleges that the conspirators knew their efforts to thwart competition were illegal and that they therefore avoided written records by coordinating instead at industry meals, parties, golf outings and other networking events.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @11:39PM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday May 14 2019, @01:42PM (2 children)
It doesn't work the other way - money is the ultimate fungible asset, it has no inherent value of its own, instead its value is set by all the many things it can be exchanged for.
The function of a competitive market is not to maximize anything in the exchange, instead it's to minimize inefficiencies. Take the money out of it and things become less convenient, but you still trade a loaf of bread for the number of pills that take the same value in labor and resources to produce and exchange. No inefficiencies caused by price gouging, and everyone has incentive to reduce inefficiencies in production to minimize the labor and resources needed to produce their widgets - which actually serves to reduce the cost of a widget, but increase the social wealth produced from of the resources and labor.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 15 2019, @06:38AM (1 child)
You seem to accept that a bread/pill trade is just about meaningful (let's ignore what the taxman thinks, but I reckon I can get 8 bottles of polish mead for 12 bottles of estonian craft beer, so this certainly makes sense to me), and I'm sure you accept that you can buy currency 1 with currency 2, so why are you pretending that somehow currency is unique as an asset and has a special place in a currency-asset trade.
Aside - do you view cryptocurrencies in exactly the same way as you do other currencies?
What about Venezuelans Bolivars? ( https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-venezuela-cafe-con-leche-index/ )
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday May 15 2019, @01:40PM
The entire point of currency is to facilitate trade - so that if I make bread and want beer, I don't need to find someone who makes beer and wants bread, or go through some contrived adventure-game series of trades to get it. And yeah - the tax man takes his cut when you use money - but you're generally supposed to give him a cut when you trade goods or services directly as well (paid on the currency-equivalent value of the trade), though almost no-one does. And yes, I consider crypto-currency the same as any other - be it printed paper, carved shells, stone wheels, or transactions on a bank ledger - it's all a social construct to facilitate trade with zero inherent value. And that's easily observed - if I offered to buy something expensive from you in wampum, stone wheels (I forget the name), etc. at their traditional value you'd be crazy to accept, because those currencies no longer have any social support behind them. (if it were something cheap maybe the novelty would be worth something to you, but a dump-truck full of it?)
My real point was the second paragraph though - The argument for social support of capitalism and free markets has nothing to do with maximizing anything for the participants - it's for minimizing inefficiency. The only thing maximized is the amount of goods and services produced from a given amount of labor resources, which probably correlates pretty well with maximizing the total amount of real wealth generated by society, but *minimizes* the profits of all the participants, because profits (as distinct from fair pay for your labor) can only exist by harnessing inefficiencies that interfere with free trade - a.k.a. someone is getting cheated by an unfair trade.