Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956_
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @07:53AM (95 children)
What exact law is broken here? Seems like they should be able to charge whatever they want, people won't buy it if it costs too much.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @07:55AM
Colluding to do so.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Monday May 13 2019, @08:29AM (75 children)
Price fixing [wikipedia.org] in oligopoly [wikipedia.org] conditions.
United States antitrust law [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:36AM (41 children)
Thanks, looks like problems caused by government meddling justifying the need for further government meddling. These laws look awful, it is the government picking and choosing what is allowed based on their opinion of what is "best".
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:44AM (5 children)
Looks more like you are an idiot with anti-government complex.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @09:07AM (4 children)
How many medications do you take regularly?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @11:06AM (3 children)
The idiot avoidance pill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @11:40AM (1 child)
2000mg of vitamin KCN ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @12:25PM
That would make me an idiot, right? Rather look in the other direction ;)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday May 13 2019, @02:04PM
Evidently it's working in reverse.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 13 2019, @09:06AM (20 children)
Have you ever heard of the word "deregulation"? It has been applied to a number of industries, since the late '70's beginning with the trucking industry. It comes with it's pros and cons. Banking was largely deregulated, and we had a huge bank collapse. The airlines have been somewhat deregulated, and we are seeing things like the 737 Max. The drug industry has had it's own deregulation, and we are seeing an opiate crisis, as well as the subject of this article.
The problem with government regulation of any given industry is NOT the regulation, in and of itself. The real question in regards to regulation, is, "Who has the money to buy off the regulators?"
Each and every proposed regulation has it's own lobbyists. When the Telcos want something pushed through, they line up, and line pockets. When a special interest group wants something, they shop around, to see which pockets to line. Deregulation leads to the kind of nonsense we see Ajit Pai defending - so-called "self-regulation" or "voluntary regulation".
So, let's say that you have a zillion dollars invested in poultry. Do you want to hire foxes to guard your chicken houses? No? But, you're willing to allow the cutthroat industrial giants to guard you from cutthroat industrial giants?
Think about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @09:14AM (10 children)
The federal reserve was still running things during the deregulated banks time weren't they? And the people running the banks were protected from legal repercussions via their corporate shield they bought from the government. Ditto for the rest of the examples. One act of meddling creates a problem that requires the next.
So, it sounds like deregulation is just code for misregulation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 13 2019, @09:23AM (9 children)
Part A, no, the Fed doesn't exactly run the banking industry. In an indirect manner, they influence all banks, but they don't write banking regulations. The Fed didn't approve of, or disapprove of, all those worthless derivatives that caused the banking industry to crash, nor did they approve or disapprove of all the worthless loans made during the housing bubble. The Fed has no direct authority over the student loans bubble, either.
Part B, yes, various office holders in the US have been bought off, by the banks, and other interests. But, I'm repeating myself now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @01:52PM (8 children)
Sounds like the banks were misregulated then, not deregulated... Just like I said. Removing one or two regulations (and/or other routes or influence) doesn't change that banking remained a very regulated industry.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 13 2019, @02:13PM (7 children)
Let me explain this with pictures and crayons, child. Bankers control money. Huge quantities of money, in fact. You, the consumer, are pretty much powerless against people who control many millions or billions of dollars. With no regulation, you, the consumer, ask your banker for a small loan - maybe $1000. There is nothing to stop him demanding that you repay $2000 for that $1000, or repay $5000, or even $100,000.
You say, "But, COMPETITION!" I say, "BULLSHIT!" In today's climate, with buyouts, forced takeovers, mergers, etc ad nauseum, how many banks can you actually choose among? When I moved to Arkansas, there were many small banks around. There really was competition. Today? All but one of the small banks have been bought up by bigger banks. Right here, in SW Arkansas, with local branches, I have a choice among three banks. If I wish to cross the state line, into Texas or Oklahoma, my choices increase to about 12, I think.
Remove the last of the regulations, how long do you think it would take for these remaining banks to be snapped up by the largest players? And, what will happen to the credit unions then? You may or may not be old enough to remember the Savings and Loan companies. Those are all gone, now.
You really, really don't want to see the banking industry deregulated entirely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @02:38PM (5 children)
... of heavy regulation.
I hardly think you are really considering a scenario where you removing all the regulations (you'd need to get rid of the fed, and get rid of the entire concept of corporations too). You keep missing my point. I most definitely am not in favor of repealing random regulations and leaving others.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 13 2019, @03:02PM (4 children)
So, anarchy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @03:13PM (2 children)
Nope. If there was actually "deregulation" that is what you would get though. Deregulation is a misnomer for what you are describing. That is my entire point with your post.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 13 2019, @03:17PM (1 child)
Sorry, I didn't coin the word, or the phrases associated with it. The "deregulation of the trucking industry" meant a lot of changes, but ultimately, it resulted in just about as many regulations, enforced by the feds instead of the states, and favoring big corporations like JB Hunt, rather than the independents.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 14 2019, @08:01AM
Runaway: Stolen Valor, never served in the Navy, they have no record of a "Runaway1956" ever serving. And I doubt he was ever an actual trucker. CDL number and CB handle, or you are a fake, you funching Republican Hillbilly Redneck piece of shite!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:00PM
oh noes! non self rule! any thing but freedom! fucking slave.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 13 2019, @07:04PM
SKY HIGH interest on your Credit Card? You can thank Sleepy Joe Biden -- often referred to as the Senator from MBNA -- for that one!!!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @09:39AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @10:20AM (1 child)
And then you get into a No True Scotsman fallacy, because Europe is largely socialist (at least by US standards) and has been doing fine.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @01:49PM
Europe hasn't needed to pay for its own military for a long time, once that happens look for taxes to go up another 20% over there. We are already seeing riots begin in France. And look how much power voters have over leaving the EU...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 13 2019, @01:39PM (4 children)
We've had a number of bank collapses, yet we still have banks. There are other fixes to bad banks than regulation. Bankruptcy is one such fix.
Well, regulation itself is often a big part of the problem, such as when regulation is sufficiently onerous that one has to break it in order to function (naturally leading to the above corruption) or when regulation is so complex that one can't understand the regulation that one's activities are subject to. Ignorance is no excuse, right?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 13 2019, @01:52PM
I think that problem goes right back to, who has the money to buy politicians. Multiple special interests can each buy their own politicians, to ram this or that through legislation. No surprise then, that you can have mutually contradictory regulations governing the same business. Politics - where everyone compromises everything, if there's a dollar to be had. Funny that we never seem to investigate congress for corruption, isn't it?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 13 2019, @02:31PM (2 children)
Sports must have rules and officiating. The officiating must not be corrupt. Take those away and the sport, no matter what it is, breaks down.
If there weren't rules and laws against it, why shouldn't players simply try to murder or sabotage the competition? You know, like Tonya Harding did Nancy Kerrigan?
Civil society needs rules and enforcement too. How'd it be if WalMart and KMart employees started shooting each other? And tried to intimidate the other's customers, shoot them too? You're just minding your own business, walking into a WalMart store, when a KMart sniper murders you as an example to your fellow WalMart shoppers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @04:46PM (1 child)
That's both a valid point and a counter example.
It's a counter example because when kids are playing for fun, then they officials are a hindrance, and the rules are informal. As they get more serious about winning, the conditions change. Generally team sports are played so seriously by the time that one is in junior high school that both rules and officials are necessary. But often adults can play without need for officials, and with agreed variants of rules. In my family we agreed that one can look up words before playing them in Scrabble, even though that's explicitly against the official rules. And note that no official was involved. At my college dorm we had two variations of hearts, in one of which the first card played was always the two of clubs, and in the other it was whatever was lead by the player to the left of the dealer, but couldn't be a heart. Don't try this at a Casino game.
Now in business the desire to win is so strong that even with firm rules and officials and the existence of formal penalties, players frequently break the rules. Many of them don't seem to feel either guilty or ashamed of doing so, only of getting caught.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday May 14 2019, @12:55AM
It depends on the stakes. For low stakes games, sure, informality works.
But when the stakes are high and there are enough participants that not everyone knows everyone else, the money grubbers come out of the woodwork. They're going to work every angle they can think of to win those big bucks. Psych out the opposition, and mangle the rules and trample the spirit without quite breaking the letter. I played in a big money chess tournament just once. Before the game started, my first opponent let me know he was actually a much stronger player than his rating would suggest, because he purposely threw his last 20 games to get his rating under the limit. Sounded proud of his cleverness in working the system in that way. He was probably trying to scare me too. While such sandbagging is not technically cheating, it certainly is unethical. Of course some will outright cheat if they can figure a way to do it with good odds of going undetected. My next opponent provided an inaccurate clock, giving me the side that ran faster so I would have less time. Now that one is cheating, but this was the days of mechanical clocks, and some inaccuracy had to be allowed. Couldn't do anything about that one either, as I had no clock of my own. I've seen the same kind of crap in other games whenever there was significant prize money.
Cheating also happens when it is very easy to do. Play chess online, and it won't be long before you run into an opponent who is using a strong computer chess engine to make their moves for them.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 14 2019, @03:14AM
So in other words, regulations don't kill businesses, people do? :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 13 2019, @09:07AM (12 children)
Now that you are aware, I dare you to refuse to buy the generic medicines you need because their price is corrupted by the government meddling: either pay for the non-generic or don't buy at all. Make this a principle you follow your entire life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @09:10AM (11 children)
Sure, I choose don't buy at all. What medicines do you think I "need"?
(Score: 4, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 13 2019, @09:27AM (4 children)
If you're a man. The worst thing a man can do is go bald. Never let yourself go bald. Ask your Dr. about Propecia. Sometimes referred to as Proscar or, Finasteride. It's also tremendous for prostate. No shots, it comes in a pill. Highly recommend!!!
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday May 13 2019, @01:56PM (2 children)
Be very careful of side effects. Too much makes your voice high, hands small, hair weird, and skin turns orange.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @04:49PM
Forget the meds, just wear a MAGA hat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @05:03PM
If you take Propecia and Viagra it will make your hair stand up.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday May 21 2019, @06:00PM
Going bald is a sign of virility,
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 13 2019, @09:53AM (5 children)
Keep it that way, you promised youself. Don't ever forget to be a man of your word, don't let yourself down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday May 13 2019, @10:35AM (2 children)
AC would prefer that EVERYTHING was owned by just ONE company, so it could jack up the price of everything BIGGLY without having to break any nasty government collusion laws.
One cuppa: $400,000. Yeah!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @01:55PM (1 child)
Yep, and that one company is the US government. Single payer healthcare would be cheaper I thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @07:06PM
Reality is too much for you, go back to school the first round didn't seem to take.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @02:12PM (1 child)
You think I am kidding, but I really am terrified of the healthcare industry and will avoid any interaction unless it is for some age old treatment like a broken bone, etc. I do not look upon them the same way as you at all.
They have zero accountability for harming people, deaths from medical errors isn't even kept as an official stat. They told people to eat a low fat diet (code for high carb) and caused an obesity crisis. They told people to wear UVB-only blocking sunscreen and caused a skin cancer crisis. No one gets in the least bit of trouble when they give bad advice/treatment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:04PM
different ac here. the truth is not a troll, you dumb bitch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @11:37AM
Grow up. And keep off the keyboard until you do.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Monday May 13 2019, @09:29AM (32 children)
Price-fixing is illegal, because it gives the producers the effect of a monopoly, with the appearance of competition.
I'm not in the US any more, but something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong when generic medications cost a fortune. Consider the insulim caravan heading to Canada - there is no possible justification for insulin costing 10x as much in the US as in Canada. In a capitalist (i.e., competitive) market, the price would settle at a level that allows a marginal profit. If that's not happening, it means (a) the competitors have agreed not to compete (price fixing), and (b) the market is blocked to new entrants (corporate cronyism).
Both of these problems are almost certain due to the responsible government agencies being effectively owned by the pharma industry. They fail to regulate in a way that would prevent price-fixing (for example, by throwing CxOs in jail), but they do regulate to prevent imports of the same drugs from other countries and to erect barriers to the entry into the market of new competitors. In a word: corruption.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 13 2019, @09:56AM
(You didn't have to explain it to me, the AC seemed to be lost for this bit)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @10:06AM (30 children)
That this settling is *downwards* is a fallacious belief that is extremely frequently held. Let's try forcing a single direction into that settling, as some people seem to believe:
Hypothesis: A perfect competitive market will maximise the amount of resource or service P you can get per unit Q.
This exchange is currency for pills.
Conclusion1: A perfect competitive market will maximise the amount of pills you can get per unit currency.
Agree?
You shouldn't do, because P was currency, and Q was pills.
Conclusion2: A perfect competitive market will maximise the amount of money you can get per pill.
Which seems to be how the market has behaved. The big-pharma customers for our money are being really stingy with the quantity of pills they want to spend for it.
Ooops, P was only currency because I said "currency for pills" and I took the order too literally, obviously the trade is pills for currency, and Conclusion1's truth is restored. A contradiction not only to facts, but mostly to the conclusion from a symmetric change of variables. Therefore the oft held hypothesis must be false.
In reality (which practically doesn't exist, there are almost no perfect markets) it settles to a compromise, which is up from one person's viewpoint, and down from the other's.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by isostatic on Monday May 13 2019, @11:25AM (10 children)
If the price goes below the cost of making it, manufacturers won't make it.
If the price goes above the value of the good, consumers won't buy it.
The number consumers are willing to buy for a given price caries due to the elasticity of demand.
This works for eggs, or flights, or rope, where the cost of not buying them is managable.
It doesn't work when the cost is "everything". Drugs to keep you alive have zero elasticity. Doesn't matter what the price is, you need to buy it.
However the industry can't increase demand for the drug by reducing prices, you either need it or you don't.
Therefore the only way the price will not be everything is
1) Competition with other manufacturers
2) Government regulation
In the U.S. (2) is a dirty word, so we're left with (1). A given manufacturer may make a short term profit by undercutting the other manufacturers, however that will soon vanish as everyone else reduces their prices, and everyone ends up with less profit.
On the flip side though, a given manufacturer can increase their prices, and take a short term hit, until everyone else sees they can also increase their prices. Everyone makes a profit by moving the costs up.
The normal ceiling on the price (people won't buy it if it's too expensive) doesn't work, because people have to buy it to live. If a company can sell 900 at $1k rather than 1000 at $100, they will. The 100 people who can't afford $1k? Well they'll just die.
Meanwhile the 900 that spend $1k are suddenly cutting back on eggs, flights, and rope, because they can no longer afford these things, and the farmers, pilots and rope makers all suffer
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday May 13 2019, @12:30PM (2 children)
I like your argument. The counter is:
Say there are two manufacturers who sell some product.
1. In the universe where only two manufacturers exist, your argument is correct.
2. In the universe where a third manufacturer will come into existence if it is possible to make the product more cheaply and still make a profit, then the price will tend to the minimum required to make a profit.
"Price fixing" means using unfair or coercive practices to stop the third manufacturer coming into existence (e.g. block distribution).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Monday May 13 2019, @12:48PM
It costs real capital to become that third manufacturer, and the established companies can push them out of business using various means (selling at a loss, poaching the knowlegable staff, sending the mafia round, etc)
Even if that third manufacturer has the capital and knowlege to come in to the market, they will simply settle for charging the full amount and taking 33% of the high price market rather than 100% of the low price market (or more likely 33% of the low price market)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @02:51PM
In this particular case, "price fixing" means *coordination* between the existing vendors of generic drugs to avoid competition. It's not just the first two, it's *all* of them. And the result isn't just that more vendors rush in to take advantage of the arbitrage, the result is that people who may die slowly and painfully need to pony up or else.
There's nothing wrong with such activities. All that matters is the money.
Let's do the same for food, housing, clothes, education and everything else.
This bill should do the trick:
Proposed regulatory bill (S19111):
All vendors, regardless of product, service or other good will regularly communicate with other vendors in their industry to ensure that profit is maximized over all other concerns. All vendors *must* seek to maximize both production and prices. Not ensuring that such actions are taken will be punishable by the seizure of all assets and the revocation of work eligibility of all involved (including their families). All residents will be required to beat, rape, berate, spit upon and otherwise degrade/denigrate such folks until such time as they are publicly put to death.
Any entity that is found to prioritize anything other than profit (regardless of whether that entity is publicly traded or privately owned) will have its assets seized and all individuals (as well as their families) involved publicly put to death.
Non-profit organizations, public-benefit corporations and other organizations not predicated on profit will immediately have any charters revoked. Any individuals attempting to operate such organizations shall have their assets seized and be publicly put to death.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @12:50PM (4 children)
You're gonna have to define "the value" in order for me to know the truthiness of that assertion.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @01:05PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday May 13 2019, @01:22PM (2 children)
The value to a given consumer is the amount that a given consumer is willing to pay for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @07:11PM (1 child)
That falls apart for non-luxury goods like food, medicine, shelter. Hell even some luxury goods are basically required these days. Internet? Required for so many people. Smart phones? Almost a requirement these days. Vehicles are required for the vast majority of families, etc.
Your simplistic statement holds intrinsic value, but as usual such ideas fall to pieces in the face of a more complicated reality.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @02:25AM
Why does it fall apart? Are we no longer willing to pay for food, medicine, and shelter because we need those things to some degree? The statement remains accurate.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @04:54PM
It's worse than that. You're dealing with a prescription medicine, so you can only (at any one time) buy a version that your doctor has prescribed. That can vary a bit, but if the corporation selling it raises their prices, and the others don't, you've got to continue to buy it from the same source until you've got the paperwork straightened out to buy it from someone else, and if it turns out that the new source is unsuitable for some reason (allergies, wild variations in dosage, etc.) you are stuck with them anyway until you can get the paperwork changed again. So there's a strong inclination to not change when you have something that's working. The name is not the thing.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @02:13AM
So how many of your friends and family are you willing to sacrifice to live ten minutes longer? The elasticity is still there. There are prices you would be unwilling to pay just to live a little longer. There are also plenty of examples of people deliberately making choices that shorten their lifespan for money or other things. So it's quite clear that keeping oneself alive is not an infinite value thing.
What about that doesn't work?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Monday May 13 2019, @01:57PM (5 children)
Not remotely.
If you have one pill company, then they will obviously be able to exchange their life-saving pills for the maximum amount of currency possible.
If you have two pill companies though, the second company can price their pills slightly cheaper, still make a huge amount of profit, and everyone will buy pills from them instead of you. Unless you price your pills slightly cheaper to win back customers, but then they'll lower their prices again, and back and forth until you're both selling pills so cheaply you can't cut prices any more without losing money. That's how things work in a competitive market - any profit margins evaporate in price wars, because with 10,000 different pill makers all making identical pills, one of them will always be willing to cut prices to the point that revenue just covers expenses, wages, etc., and there's just barely enough profit to attract investors from other, even less profitable businesses, and everybody else has to do the same or go out of business because nobody will buy their obviously overpriced pills.
If that's *not* happening, then it means the pill makers are all colluding to keep prices artificially high, which means you no longer actually have a competitive market and the efficiencies it creates.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 14 2019, @12:21AM
And that's why the dollar stores still sell aspirin, BNP creams, tolnaftate, clotrimazole, and quite a few more handy chemicals for a buck...
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Monday May 13 2019, @01:58PM (12 children)
Counterexample, the oil market in Iran which at times has been subsidized enough that oil could be obtained for less than it cost to provide. A perfectly competitive market wouldn't do that for extended periods of time, but subsidies can. A similar thing goes on with mass transit throughout the world with access routinely provided below cost.
But we already know "the market" is far from being a perfectly competitive market. It's not just the cartel behavior. It's also the regulatory dynamics which enforce barrier to entry, a necessary elements to cartel formation.
In reality, viewpoints are viewpoints. Competitivity is an objective quality of a market rather than a subjective quality of a viewpoint.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @11:34PM (11 children)
>
>> Hypothesis: A perfect competitive market will maximise the amount of resource or service P you can get per unit Q.
>
> Counterexample ...
Fucksticks, you've hit max retard.
Have you ever heard of /reductio ad absurdum/? A statement that is known to be false and desired to be disproved is proposed, and deductions are made from it until a contradiction is reached, thus disproving it.
The rest of your post contains even more idiocy, but the above is the biggest case of fucknutitude.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday May 14 2019, @03:18AM (5 children)
The amateur logic exercise doesn't add anything to the discussion, such as bringing up near trivial straw man hypotheses that can easily be falsified with a little thought (reductio ad absurdum? yea right). Come on, up your game.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 14 2019, @07:47AM (4 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 14 2019, @12:30PM (3 children)
Another useless reply. You want to have a rational discussion? I'm up for that. You want to say "bullshit" when you run out of things to say? Your choice.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 15 2019, @05:42AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @10:42AM (1 child)
Sorry, that wasn't simple logical deduction nor appropriate to the thread.
Nor has anyone, including you, bothered to work out this alleged error either.
Funny, how my problems involve you stepping up your game. It's almost like it's not me that is the problem here.
What I find particularly bizarre about the whole episode is the high level of condescension you bring to a "simple logical deduction". First, you repeatedly expound on the logic side as if that were important ("mathematical fact", "Have you ever heard of /reductio ad absurdum/?"). It's like the drunk looking for car keys at night. It's too much work to look in the dark where they dropped the keys, and the lighting is better over here so...
The big problem as I noted before is that the argument, logical as it may be, is irrelevant to the discussion. That's what a straw man argument is, after all. Your condescension doesn't change that your argument isn't adding anything to this discussion.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 15 2019, @09:52PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @02:05AM (4 children)
Note several important things about the context of that statement: a) you're not addressing the replier's concerns at all ("settle at a level that allows a marginal profit" is nothing like "maximise the amount of resource or service P you can get per unit Q" of the replier), b) if such a statement truly is already known to be false (probably even by the person you replied to - their emphasis on "allows a marginal profit" indicates that they're already allow for higher pricing of the good in question beyond what can be achieved via non-market methods), then it doesn't need to be disproved, and c) you don't even start to consider the lack of competition in the supply side versus the relatively high competition on the demand side. Increase in competition of a market where the supply side has weak competition and a large pricing advantage is likely to lower prices (unless you have some crazy non-market mechanisms at play).
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 15 2019, @06:00AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @10:43AM (2 children)
And I was highlighting the irrelevance of your highlighting (plus the silliness of building some baroque logic argument when one can easily find real world counterexamples that illustrate the weakness of the straw man better). Sure, I too could choose to interpret your words in the worst possible light I can find or make up, then beat up the resulting straw man, Internet Tough Guy-style, but it wouldn't contribute anything more to the discussion than your original post did.
And I showed there are already real world subsidy systems that can price things well below the above minimization of the price. The initial assumptions rule out significant price minimization strategies, as already discussed.
Let us also note that you still have not considered the context which neuters your argument. There is limited competition for drug manufacturers, but far less limited competition for the consumers of those drugs (while there are big consumers like Medicare and insurance companies, there's also millions of small consumers too). Flipping point of view still doesn't change that there's a disparity in competitiveness of the two sides. Thus that the discussion of increasing competitiveness of the supply side is invariant of such viewpoint swaps.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 15 2019, @09:54PM (1 child)
That context was introduced into the thread by the post I was replying to.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @11:40PM
Indeed. So why ignore it?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday May 13 2019, @08:57AM (16 children)
> people won't buy it if it costs too much.
How much is your life worth?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @09:04AM (15 children)
I probably wouldn't take any of these drugs anyway (except maybe adderall under exceptional circumstances), so I'm not a good example. But in general, drugs != life. That's another of those religious mantras the healthcare industry has you repeating. They want you to think:
Health insurance = health care = health
Both equalities are wrong.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @09:54AM (7 children)
> drugs != life
Easy thing to say when you are young and healthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @02:05PM (5 children)
How did people live so long before the 1950s? Just look at distribution of lifespans of historical figures who didn't die due to violence or in childhood, it was about the same as today. The only thing that has changed is energy has become much cheaper, so it is not just the rich and powerful (who are overrepresented in history) who are living so long. The average person in the US/Europe lives like a king from 400 years ago.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday May 13 2019, @03:18PM (4 children)
The diabetics died. For them, one specific drug was life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @04:16PM
Yes, and type I diabetes makes up like .0001% of what we are talking about (same with heroin addicts, etc). Also the treatment was developed before medical research got taken over by people who had no idea what they are doing (approximately WWII).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @04:42PM (2 children)
Eg, far more people die just due to "medical errors" than diabetes:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/03/476636183/death-certificates-undercount-toll-of-medical-errors [npr.org]
Medical errors doesn't count all the deaths from poorly thought out standard practice.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @05:01PM (1 child)
That's almost certainly correct. Diabetes is much more likely to cause blindness, loss of a finger or toe, or leg or arm, neuropathy, etc. than death. So if you don't care about being blind and crippled, it's not much of a problem, because you'll actually die of something else.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @05:24PM
No, without insulin type I diabetics will not live to adulthood. Type II diabetes is the result of bad health advice (low fat diet).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:11PM
you're a fucking idiot. the drugs are ridiculous hacks that usually kill people faster.
(Score: 5, Touché) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @11:04AM (6 children)
Using the example of an insulin-dependent diabetic, please expand on your thaeces (that's half way between 'thesis' and 'faeces').
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @02:00PM (5 children)
I don't think you understand how qualities of sets work. One subset being correct does not make the whole thing correct. For example a heroin addict needs heroin or faces a severe health threats too.
And insulin is fine for what it is, odd that progress on diabetes treatment hasn't improved much since the 1930s though isn't it? Somehow they just keep finding ways to make insulin more expensive.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @05:08PM (4 children)
But insulin *is* the specific treatment. If you want to claim there's been regulatory capture, I'll 100% agree with you, but if you want the claim it should be deregulated, I'll 97% disagree with you. What is really needed is strong action to prevent and remove regulatory capture, and not only in the drug market.
I believe that nobody who has ever worked as a manager or supervisor in a field should be allowed on the regulatory commission, and that anyone who has ever served on a regulatory commission should be legally forbidden in strongest terms from ever in accepting ANY emolument in ANY form from an industry that they have regulated. This includes stocks, though I would exclude index funds that they are not involved in the management of. And I don't care whether they held the stock before getting on the regulatory commission, they should still be forbidden from accepting payments from it...including by selling it. They should sell it *before* they sit on the commission.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @02:33AM (3 children)
Deregulation is an effective way to get that.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday May 15 2019, @04:02AM (2 children)
Unfortunately, the bad effects of deregulation are often worse than the bad effects of regulatory capture.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @10:18AM (1 child)
And they often aren't. How successful deregulation is depends in large part on what isn't deregulated. Point is though that that if you aren't regulating in a particular way, then you can't have regulatory capture of that particular way.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday May 15 2019, @05:03PM
It's always tricky drawing conclusions from history, as more than one thing has always changed, but it is my impression that regulations tend to inhibit new competitors, even if unbiased. OTOH, they often also act to prevent the worst abuses. And large companies also act to inhibit new competitors in the absence of regulations, often quite a lot more abusively. There are also other trade-offs, but to me it seems that if you remove regulatory capture the balance would swing strongly in favor of industries being regulated sufficiently strongly to prevent socially damaging abuses.
Unfortunately, there's another factor, which is that those holding power tend to act to increase the power they hold, and those most desirous of power will strive most strongly to attain it. This would also need to be ameliorated. I would suggest, in addition to the measures I proposed to avoid regulatory capture that there be a pool of qualified candidates, and that members of the regulatory body be selected from that by lot.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @05:27PM
This is why you should stayed in school and learn some history so you won't ask a dumbass question like the parent AC.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:12AM (10 children)
and water is discovered to be really wet.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @11:58AM (9 children)
"Re:In other news, Moon is found to orbit Earth"
Actually it doesn't. The Moon never goes retrograde with respect to the Sun. If you plot the orbit of the Moon and the Earth from the perspective of far above the plane of the ecliptic the Earth will be a slightly wavy line around the Sun. The Moon will be more wavy, and will cross the Earth track about 26 times per circuit. When farther out than Earth it goes slower, and when closer it goes faster, but it never goes backwards.
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Monday May 13 2019, @02:02PM
Wrong, Copernicus, you evil heretic! Off with your head! Next you'll be telling us the Earth is not flat!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday May 13 2019, @02:09PM (4 children)
That's simply a geometric coincidence of the relative orbital speeds of the Earth and moon though. It's orbit is well within the Earth's Hills Sphere, which means that the Earth's gravity strongly dominates all other gravitational influences. If we magically teleported the Earth-moon system to an orbit much further from the sun, the moon would continue to orbit the Earth in the same manner, but due to the lower speed around the sun it's path would trace a more typical looping "Spirograph" path.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 15 2019, @06:25AM (3 children)
At no point is the moon's acceleration vector pointing particularly far away from the sun. Which means at moon's perihelion, it's pointing directly away from the earth. (Easy to see, it's more than 1/400 AU away, so r^2 are in proportion <160000, and the Sun/Earth mass ratio is a >300000. Sun wins.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @10:51AM (2 children)
If we magically teleported the Earth-Moon system out of the light cone of the Sun so that the Earth is in no way orbiting the Sun, we'd still have the Moon orbiting Earth.
Which is irrelevant. No one has yet claimed that the Earth-Moon system isn't orbiting the Sun, nor, aside from one AC, that this acceleration vector is at all relevant to the question of whether the Moon orbits the Earth.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 15 2019, @09:59PM (1 child)
Someone posted something that countered a prior claim that the moon is actually orbitting the sun. I was uncountering that counter.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @11:49PM
Sounds like you were wasting your time. I'll note that the prior claim that the Moon was actually orbiting the Sun, was also that the Moon wasn't orbiting Earth, which is a nonsensical statement to make.
And if you were attempting to counter Immerman's claim "the moon would continue to orbit the Earth in the same manner, but due to the lower speed around the sun it's path would trace a more typical looping "Spirograph" path", you would be wrong. The shape of the Moon's trajectory around the Sun is due to the high speed of Earth's orbit around the Sun relative to the Moon's orbit around the Earth. Being further away from the Sun would result in that Spirograph trajectory and a higher variation in the acceleration history, including some acceleration away from the Sun.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @07:42PM (2 children)
The point is arguable. But one must admit that the center of revolution of the Earth-Moon system lies within the surface of the Earth, if only barely. I, personally, tend to consider the Earth-Moon system a double planet, but again, given the position of the center of mass this is disputable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @09:22PM (1 child)
The earth moon system stands still and space rotates around it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 14 2019, @12:31AM
Me!
The whole thing rotates around Me!
Ahh, for the power to specify arbitrary reference points.