Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 234: Epsteins;Gate

(+) Yeah! (+)

So you're worried that hiking the minimum wage will put some businesses out of business?
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More terrible shit from Trump, this time targeting the Endangered Species Act:

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1160931874245623809

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LordoftheMorons posted...

More terrible shit from Trump, this time targeting the Endangered Species Act:

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1160931874245623809

Ah yes, just another step out of the classic Republican environmental strategy of "shits fucked anyways, might as well fuck it up harder".
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Also, if we're talking about businesses failing, I think we need to distinguish between companies failing because of problems with the core business and businesses failing because management/shareholders decide to set the company up for failure by loading it up with debt.

Caesars Entertainment is a great example of this - the biggest US casino operator by volume of gaming revenue, and.....just got out of bankruptcy court! Trump isn't the only casino operator that went bankrupt, Caesars management essentially used Trump's strategy with the same results. Load up the corporation with massive amounts of high interest debt, take the money to do something else, then watch as the corporation struggles mightily to pay off the debt.

If you have this kind of management strategy, it doesn't really matter how well the business does. The company will always be struggling, just barely able to make ends meet. If the business does better management will just take out more loans against the company. If the business doesn't do great, it won't generate enough revenue to pay off the interest on the debt and it's time to declare bankruptcy.
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And of course, in a publicly traded company, the shareholders won't stand for this because it hurts them. Which is why a couple private equity firms took Caesars private back in 2007 so they could implement these policies. When they extracted all the value they could and ran the company into the ground, they put the (now nearly worthless) shares back on the market.
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red sox 777 posted...

So you're worried that hiking the minimum wage will put some businesses out of business?

It will definitely lead to job cuts.
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Corrik7 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

So you're worried that hiking the minimum wage will put some businesses out of business?

It will definitely lead to job cuts.

But right now is the strongest the job market has been for 50 years. Maybe ever, because in 1969 I'm sure a much higher percentage of women were not in the workforce and not seeking to be. If there's ever a time to try to raise wages, it's now....
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red sox 777 posted...

Corrik7 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

So you're worried that hiking the minimum wage will put some businesses out of business?

It will definitely lead to job cuts.

But right now is the strongest the job market has been for 50 years. Maybe ever, because in 1969 I'm sure a much higher percentage of women were not in the workforce and not seeking to be. If there's ever a time to try to raise wages, it's now....

Gotta up our unemployment numbers, eh?
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https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1160620461446840321

Incredible.

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Do these people not understand the concept of rough estimates? Or exaggeration?

We need a new class in schools on understanding non-literal statements. People will have to watch Trump videos and read Trump tweets until they can understand that they are not literal. If they can't they don't graduate!
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1160620461446840321

Incredible.

I mean, Bernie Sanders is clearly wrong then.
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Good article about drug pricing:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/craiggarthwaite/2019/07/25/drug-pricing-policy-means-deciding-when-to-say-no/

One thing that has always bothered me about Sanders et als rhetoric against pharmaceutical companies, insurers, businesses, etc is the implicit claim that theyre evil for seeking to profit from medicine or whatever, and therefore we have to stop them. But the entire goal of a capitalist system is to make society benefit (on average) from people doing whats in their own self interest (and then you can add on regulations to disincentivize stuff that hurts the rest of society). In the case of drug pricing, theres an important tradeoff in play: we can substantially limit the profit pharmaceutical companies are allowed to make off of drugs, but if we go overboard in doing so that heavily disincentivizes research which will hurt future patients.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

But the entire goal of a capitalist system is to make society benefit (on average) from people doing whats in their own self interest

lmao
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Good article about drug pricing:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/craiggarthwaite/2019/07/25/drug-pricing-policy-means-deciding-when-to-say-no/

One thing that has always bothered me about Sanders et als rhetoric against pharmaceutical companies, insurers, businesses, etc is the implicit claim that theyre evil for seeking to profit from medicine or whatever, and therefore we have to stop them. But the entire goal of a capitalist system is to make society benefit (on average) from people doing whats in their own self interest (and then you can add on regulations to disincentivize stuff that hurts the rest of society). In the case of drug pricing, theres an important tradeoff in play: we can substantially limit the profit pharmaceutical companies are allowed to make off of drugs, but if we go overboard in doing so that heavily disincentivizes research which will hurt future patients.

You're missing the entire point.

A system where life-saving medicine is only developed when profiteers get an extra zero after their millions in profit is inherently immoral and shouldn't be supported.

The scientists and researchers looking for cures just want to improve the world, kowtowing to investors is a distraction they shouldn't have to deal with.


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LordoftheMorons posted...

(and then you can add on regulations to disincentivize stuff that hurts the rest of society).

i mean, if they have to be regulated because otherwise they "do stuff that hurts the rest of society," doesn't that support bernie's theory that they're evil?
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I mean I just listened to the Joe Rogan (lol) podcast on Bernie and he brings up this exact issue so I think you're grossly mischaracterizing his stance. The gist of his answer is that there is a lot of wasteful incremental research in the industry that has a low payoff, and also he brings up that a lot of drug research is funded by the government, and therefore public tax money, and so the public should be able to more easily benefit from the results.
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

he brings up that a lot of drug research is funded by the government, and therefore public tax money, and so the public should be able to more easily benefit from the results.

Abso-fucking-lutely

Researching new drugs is extremely expensive. A chemist cant just decide to do so out of the goodness of her heart (or even because she just finds it fun); she needs money to actually perform that research. There are generally two sources of that money: the government, and corporations looking to make a profit. If you remove one of those income streams, youre going to reduce R&D.

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meanwhile in canada yesterweek: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-pharmaceuticals-idUSKCN1UZ0XH
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

i mean, if they have to be regulated because otherwise they "do stuff that hurts the rest of society," doesn't that support bernie's theory that they're evil?

Corporations developing drugs because they want to profit in the future helps society. There are other things (like, e.g., dumping waste) that just hurts society, which is what you want to regulate.

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When people die because they can't afford life-saving drugs, we should just tell them "Well, companies have to profit! You have to die, so in the future these companies can create cures for rich people who have other diseases and can afford the medication! That's just how it goes."
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Google tells me that private corporations pay for about 2/3 of pharmaceutical R&D in the US, whereas the federal government pays for a little over 20%.

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Like I said above, the idea that medicine can only be researched if private investors can make an extra zero on their profit is immoral. If you don't see that, I don't know how to even discuss this.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to profit at all, but there's a limit when people literally die because they're priced out of drugs.

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Ashethan posted...

When people die because they can't afford life-saving drugs, we should just tell them "Well, companies have to profit! You have to die, so in the future these companies can create cures for rich people who have other diseases and can afford the medication! That's just how it goes."

Do rich people get different diseases than poor people?

The point Im trying to make is that theres a tradeoff, and that dictating outcomes without considering the incentives at play is dangerous. Another place where this same dynamic would occur in a US single payer system is with doctor pay. You can demand that doctors be paid comparably to Canadian doctors, but then youre going to have fewer of them because theyre people and respond to incentives.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

The scientists and researchers looking for cures just want to improve the world, kowtowing to investors is a distraction they shouldn't have to deal with.

Also yeah this X 100. Researchers are generally very underpaid compared to the people in charge.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Google tells me that private corporations pay for about 2/3 of pharmaceutical R&D in the US, whereas the federal government pays for a little over 20%.

I've found a lot of different sources making all sorts of claims. Nowhere have I seen the 20% number though. I've seen 33% and I've seen "44% recently, with it being 60% as recent as 2004"

Source:https://www.thebalance.com/who-funds-biomedical-research-2663193

The government contributes to about a third of the costs, with foundations, advocacy organizations and individual donors responsible for the remaining investments.

Source: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-government-share-basic-research-funding-falls-below-50

Data from ongoing surveys by the National Science Foundation (NSF) show that federal agencies provided only 44% of the $86 billion spent on basic research in 2015. The federal share, which topped 70% throughout the 1960s and 70s, stood at 61% as recently as 2004 before falling below 50% in 2013.

The second source also goes with the 1/3rd number. Which certainly isn't as low as 20%.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Do rich people get different diseases than poor people?

So people who can't afford medicine should just die?
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Like I said above, the idea that medicine can only be researched if private investors can make an extra zero on their profit is immoral. If you don't see that, I don't know how to even discuss this.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to profit at all, but there's a limit when people literally die because they're priced out of drugs.

The reason they need to make a ton of profit is basically because the success rate of finding useful drugs is very low. If I have a 1% success rate of a drug panning out, I need to make back more than 100 times my costs of a single drug to make funding the research worth it. That means the company that gets lucky and discovered a diabetes treatment on their third try is going to make a massive profit, sure, but what matters are the incentives (which determine how much R&D gets done) and the costs to patients. And one very well might decide that the current level of R&D isnt worth that cost! But the main point is that there is a tradeoff, and how unfair it feels that some companies make a ton of money off of healthcare is much less relevant than the actual outcomes.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Like I said above, the idea that medicine can only be researched if private investors can make an extra zero on their profit is immoral. If you don't see that, I don't know how to even discuss this.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to profit at all, but there's a limit when people literally die because they're priced out of drugs.

The question is, would you rather have some people dying because they are priced out of drugs or everyone dying because the drug doesn't exist in the first place. At least in that case, they wouldn't die in resentment knowing that a cure was possible - they would assume no cure existed. But they would still die.
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How nice of America to subsidize medical research with the lives of its citizens.

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You know, I balked at Cyclo's "LotM just doesn't like poor people" rhetoric

But, uh
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HashtagSEP posted...

You know, I balked at Cyclo's "LotM just doesn't like poor people" rhetoric

But, uh

when someone is raving about how great of a system capitalism is (and ranting about how much socialism sucks), that's usually a red flag
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You guys (well, some of you) are missing LotM's point, which is that research into new drugs won't happen at all unless companies are able to make a profit off of it by charging high prices at the end of the day, because the initial cost of the research itself is so high. No one is going to attempt to develop new medicine out of the goodness of their heart if in doing so they're going to run themselves and all their employees out of a job. (and no one should do that, because those good intentions are misplaced)

You could argue that the federal government should pay for it because it's in society's best interest to do so, but that's a different thing than what LotM is saying.
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It's not a choice between "people dying" and "nobody dying." It's a choice between people dying now or people dying later, and if you disincentivize research too much it could be a lot more people dying later (also it's really more like "people paying more now" vs "people dying later").

HashtagSEP posted...

You know, I balked at Cyclo's "LotM just doesn't like poor people" rhetoric

But, uh

I don't believe I said anything that indicated that I don't like poor people...?

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pyresword posted...

You could argue that the federal government should pay for it

ding ding ding
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You can't really say the role of the government is to protect the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" of its people then, you know, drop the ball on the life part.
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Imagine thinking saving lives being about the profit one can make out of it.

This is precisely why I proudly support Bernie Sanders tbh, people thinking like this. These companies make billions and billions and billions of profit every year. Cut that by 75% and they still are wildly successful but people find ways to justify it.

It is absurd.

So many countries have systems like this, but apparently Americans have to die for research purposes. It is so twisted.
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What incentive do companies have to develop a cure for cancer, when they can charge $100k/year for cancer drugs now?
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LordoftheMorons posted...

I don't believe I said anything that indicated that I don't like poor people...?

Capitalisms goal is to improve society incidentally in the pursuit of profit, and if the profit isnt obscene it wont happen. There is nothing wrong with this system.

Im not trying to be mean, but how the fuck do you believe this?

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Ashethan posted...

I've found a lot of different sources making all sorts of claims. Nowhere have I seen the 20% number though. I've seen 33% and I've seen "44% recently, with it being 60% as recent as 2004"

Source:https://www.thebalance.com/who-funds-biomedical-research-2663193

Source: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-government-share-basic-research-funding-falls-below-50

The second source also goes with the 1/3rd number. Which certainly isn't as low as 20%.

This is where I got those numbers:
https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/81544/research-and-development/

It does sound like private pharmaceutical R&D has been rapidly increasing over the past few years. Ive been looking for a better source with the actual numbers but I cant seem to find one (like the Science article only mentions the fraction of total research spending, not drug research specifically)

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Indeed. I would say there should be a hard cap in terms of a percentage that can be set on medication.

In lieu of that the Pharm companies get to say "how much are you willing to pay to not dieand charge accordingly".

You could cap the profits as a percentage and they would still be fabulously lucrative. No one is saying drugs should be sold for less than they cost to make.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Capitalisms goal is to improve society incidentally in the pursuit of profit, and if the profit isnt obscene it wont happen. There is nothing wrong with this system.

Im not trying to be mean, but how the fuck do you believe this?

You're focusing on profit conditional on success. What matters as far as incentives are concerned are expected profits (also all else being equal I would prefer to have less risk, so I'll probably take a guaranteed 10% profit over like an average 11% profit where I get nothing 90% of the time). If we again assume that I have a 1% success chance of getting a safe, effective drug, but I only expect to make back 50 times my investment if I succeed, why would I do the research? I'd expect to, on average, lose half of my money.

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Dancedreamer posted...

What incentive do companies have to develop a cure for cancer, when they can charge $100k/year for cancer drugs now?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/09/cuba-has-lung-cancer-vaccine-many-u-s-patients-cant-get-without-breaking-law/1019093001/

People vastly overestimate the necessity of a profit motive. The Soviet Union went from an almost entirely rural farm based economy to an industrialized world super power in an extremely short time. Their space program, something we now see as a money sink, was phenomenal and produced numerous breakthroughs. Obviously the Soviet Union, like Cuba, had many problems, but lacking a profit motive is not a death sentence for research or development within an economy.

You're outright in favor of a system that supports "Why should I do this research to help save lives if I can't make obscene amounts of money off of these poor fucks?" and see nothing wrong with that whatsoever
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hey lotm bernie is live on twitch talking about this stuff now. you should turn it on!
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The scientists and researchers looking for cures just want to improve the world, kowtowing to investors is a distraction they shouldn't have to deal with.

Your opinion of scientists is much too high. Many of them can't wait to commercialize their product and scientists are no more moral or virtuous than your average citizen.
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Fun fact: Jeffrey Epstein said he has two hobbies: science and pussy. I know this so now you have to.

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HashtagSEP posted...

You're outright in favor of a system that supports "Why should I do this research to help save lives if I can't make obscene amounts of money off of these poor fucks?" and see nothing wrong with that whatsoever

Not what I'm saying. Do you think that a pharmaceutical company should be obligated to do research if the expected profit is negative? You have to average in all of the times when they waste money developing a useless drug to decide if the profits are "obscene."

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HashtagSEP posted...

You're outright in favor of a system that supports "Why should I do this research to help save lives if I can't make obscene amounts of money off of these poor fucks?" and see nothing wrong with that whatsoever

Why do you think that most of the major medical breakthroughs for new drugs and treatments occur in the US?

Like, scientists aren't good moral people. They just aren't. I'm a scientist. I work with scientists. There is something wrong with that, sure, but I also don't see any sort of way to improve it.
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