Just sat in a lecture that made me rethink capitalism

[Phokus]

Also, for retards (aka republicans/libertarians) who don't think public money is important in medicine (and private companies don't piggy back off it):

Economic impact

In 2000, a report from a Joint Economic Committee of Congress outlined the benefits of NIH research. It noted that some econometric studies had given its research, which was funded at $16 billion a year in 2000, a rate of return of 25 to 40 percent per year. It also found that of the 21 drugs with the highest therapeutic impact on society introduced between 1965 and 1992, public funding was "instrumental" for 15.[15]

 

[QuantumPion]

Whenever there is a criticism capitalism/corporations/freedom, in almost all cases the root cause can be traced back to government interference. In this case, it is the FDA. Getting new drugs approved is so expensive and time consuming, because the FDA is subject to the perverse incentive typical of government bureaucracies (i.e. they would be blamed for any dangerous drug let on the market, but never blamed for good drugs not getting on to the market, therefore they force extreme standards for new drugs to be tested).

 

[LegendKiller]

Whenever there is a criticism capitalism/corporations/freedom, in almost all cases the root cause can be traced back to government interference. In this case, it is the FDA. Getting new drugs approved is so expensive and time consuming, because the FDA is subject to the perverse incentive typical of government bureaucracies (i.e. they would be blamed for any dangerous drug let on the market, but never blamed for good drugs not getting on to the market, therefore they force extreme standards for new drugs to be tested).

yes, because the "free market" would only put "good" drugs out on the market. Obviously they would never release bad drugs that would harm people.

 

[Scotteq]

Capitalism the worst form of government besides all the others tried.

Incorrect:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 11, 1947

 

[1prophet]

OpenTable is a non-government sponsored monopoly. Every Restaurant owner i know hates their ass because they have a monopoly on the online reservation system and they extract way more surplus value from them via economic rents than they deserve and they can't NOT use them. Open Table's monopoly is due to the network effect.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/eajrd/the_open_table_service_a_simple_example/

Has any restaurant gone out of business because they refused to use OpenTable?

 

[Phokus]

Has any restaurant gone out of business because they refused to use OpenTable?

I personally don't know, but how many customers a restaurant would lose by dropping opentable would probably be determined by a) The type of restaurant they are, b) Their location and c) Their already established popularity and d) Their competition.

For example, i live fairly close to NYC and i occasionally dine there. The clientele in NYC is typically more technologically literate than someone in bumbfuck nowhere. At the same time, a mom and pop pizza delivery place probably wouldn't need to use OpenTable.

OpenTable has a fairly pernicious effect on the restaurant industry. If you think about the extremely low profit margins that restaurants already have and the fact that OpenTable can charge as much as $10 (!!!) per reservation, that wipes out your profit, so you're stuck in a very bad situation on deciding whether to go with OpenTable and wiping out your profit or risk losing too many customers (and wiping out your profit). OpenTable's effect is similar to what the credit card oligopoly does if you think about it. Credit cards offer you ease of use and also gives you rewards for using them. OpenTable gives you ease of use and you can build up points for free meals, the benefits are obvious to the consumer and the rewards are great, but to the proprieter it hurts a lot. I personally stopped using OpenTable because of this, but for the average consumer, they wouldn't give a damn even if they did know about it.

 

[glenn1]

The person wasn't making a negative point, it was an MBA course explaining how to commercialize technology; She was simply pointing out that everyone has a 'limit' at which they are willing to commercialize.

No one in the room was against the free market.

Rethinking the system and intentionally designing it to lead to the best possible outcomes for the whole of society.

You're in an MBA program and are just now discovering the concept of a hurdle rate? Holy sh!t, remind me not to hire you should you manage to graduate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_acceptable_rate_of_return

 

[CycloWizard]

Problem is the company probably patented it.

So the real problem is that government won't let any other company develop the product. Glad we got that out of the way.

 

[Phokus]

So the real problem is that government won't let any other company develop the product. Glad we got that out of the way.

Of course, without patents, you can forget about incentive to do massive investments to do the research in the first place.

Conservatives are morons, shocking news at 11.

 

[HendrixFan]

A "Free market" is one that is not regulated by the government, capitalism occurs whether there is a free market or not. "Free markets" have nothing to do with your ability to be able to purchase from competitors, monopolies are still "free markets" if it's a natural monoply. Your last sentence almost gets you there but you're still confusing the situation.

A free market has no government involvement, so corporate charters would be out the window. Capitalism has no strict definition that can be agreed upon.

That being said, a free market, or the closest we can get to it, would have the balances of capitalist theory. Curves meet at a market equilibrium and things flow smoothly. When you have a corporation with a billions of dollars in a war chest and national exposure, an individual consumer has no ability to counter balance that corporation. There is no way to take their business elsewhere (in the case of Blockbuster) or to even open up their own shop after seeing a market deficiency (again as in the case of Blockbuster).

The only hope for opening up competition in those scenarios are when the corporations get lazy and big headed, allowing something like Netflix to grow and chop their head off. If Blockbuster had kept any kind of savvy they would have swallowed up Netflix 10-15 years ago.

Of course, during that time the consumers suffered as the market wasn't able to supply a demand for movies properly (selection and price). There was a market for selection, where Mom and Pop stores thrived. It wasn't in a financial interest of Blockbuster to provide selection, so after killing off competition there was a hole in the marketplace.

Without competition you don't have true capitalism, and probably nothing that can even be loosely seen as capitalism. These super-merged corporations essentially have no competition.

 

[Kadarin]

If it isn't something people would buy (IE make money) I doubt the discoveries were that amazing.

When Xerox PARC invented ethernet in the mid 70s, it sure as hell didn't seem like it would make a quick return for Xerox. However, it changed the world.

 

[CitizenKain]

Whenever there is a criticism capitalism/corporations/freedom, in almost all cases the root cause can be traced back to government interference. In this case, it is the FDA. Getting new drugs approved is so expensive and time consuming, because the FDA is subject to the perverse incentive typical of government bureaucracies (i.e. they would be blamed for any dangerous drug let on the market, but never blamed for good drugs not getting on to the market, therefore they force extreme standards for new drugs to be tested).

Until the FDA was established, companies used to put radium into products. If you somehow think that corporations wouldn't cut corners and accidently poison people simply to have a good quarter, then you are really naive and I'm not sure how you go about live unsupervised.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

It's not making money because people wouldn't pay for it, thus can't be that amazing. Maybe it is amazing from a technology nerd perspective, but people don't need or want it, in which case it serves no useful purpose to a society comprised of those people.

The true capitalist method is to find a way to apply that amazing technology to something people can and will want, need, and use, and retire a billionaire; you wouldn't be allowed to do this without capitalism.

You are assuming too much. Few of the discoveries of the late 18th/early 19th centuries were "amazing" except from a nerd perspective. That non-amazing computer you are using or non amazing cell phone come directly from those times. It took a hundred years, but here we are. By the criteria you use we should be using the really amazing horse and buggy.

 

[soulcougher73]

If it isn't something people would buy (IE make money) I doubt the discoveries were that amazing.

Would suck if it was the 100% cure for cancer but since it would only be a one time treatment and youd be 100% cured. Their is some money in it, but not as much as keeping people sick and making them consume more meds.

So yes it can be an amazing discovery but wont net a ton of money vs. keeping people sick. Their isnt much money in healthy people.

 

[soulcougher73]

Capitalism is an Economic System, not a form of Government.

It is in the USA where special interest groups and lobbyist get...err buy what they want from the actual government

 

[werepossum]

You are assuming too much. Few of the discoveries of the late 18th/early 19th centuries were "amazing" except from a nerd perspective. That non-amazing computer you are using or non amazing cell phone come directly from those times. It took a hundred years, but here we are. By the criteria you use we should be using the really amazing horse and buggy.

Often the guy who makes a billion isn't the guy who invented something, but rather the guy who figured out how to market it or manufacture it more cheaply or just happened to offer a good or service at just the right time. But either way, basic research is always good if conducted honestly and competently, as it's building the knowledge base that allows the gee whiz breakthrough.

Currently we have a bad situation where the federal government funds the research via tax dollars, then the public university partner gets the patent and sells it to a private company. Government organizations truly suck at manufacturing a product, so there's little choice from their standpoint. That corporation can then buy it and produce it, or buy it and kill it. As someone here mentioned, it's the socialization of risk with the privatization of profit.

I agree with Kranky that the lady was talking out of her ass. There are literally no corporations that can afford to disregard a $250 million product. There is obviously a point at which the horrendously expensive process of drug approval makes a new idea not worth pursuing, but it's not nearly 250 million. We can streamline that process, but given that it's there to help prevent us from killing or injuring large numbers of people with a drug that "seemed" okay, we have to be very care. And of course Rudder is correct that the more influence government has over research, the more likely such research will be driven by politics rather than by good policy. I do like Sandorski's use it or lose it idea though. Maybe the patent holder could be entitled to half the profits but have no control over the patent.

 

[alphatarget1]

Company is dumb. Patent the ideas and sell them. You'll at least get some $$$ on the side.

Assuming it's worth the cost of the patent of course.

 

[God Mode]

Company is dumb. Patent the ideas and sell them. You'll at least get some $$$ on the side.

Assuming it's worth the cost of the patent of course.

More lucrative to wait until another company uses something similar to the patented idea and sue the hell out of them.

 

[PeshakJang]

Would suck if it was the 100% cure for cancer but since it would only be a one time treatment and youd be 100% cured. Their is some money in it, but not as much as keeping people sick and making them consume more meds.

So yes it can be an amazing discovery but wont net a ton of money vs. keeping people sick. Their isnt much money in healthy people.

If only they'd come up with a treatment for stupid.

If you think a company would discover a cure for cancer, and the board of directors would say... "Nah, let's shelve that and keep working on treatments", you're a goddamn moron.

 

[soulcougher73]

If only they'd come up with a treatment for stupid.

If you think a company would discover a cure for cancer, and the board of directors would say... "Nah, let's shelve that and keep working on treatments", you're a goddamn moron.

I sure wish they did have a stupid treatment. You could be the first in line. Everyone knows it is more profitable to treat something then to cure it outright. Its the same reason things are made so cheaply nowadays. They dont want the product to last forever. There is no money in that. They want a disposable product that has be rebought every few years.

When you grow up you will learn these truths about life.

 

[RedChief]

Until the FDA was established, companies used to put radium into products. If you somehow think that corporations wouldn't cut corners and accidently poison people simply to have a good quarter, then you are really naive and I'm not sure how you go about live unsupervised.

But now that the FDA is being controlled by politicians, we have them removing their approval on cancer drugs not because of risks or side effects but because of the cost (and under socialized medicine the people who control the FDA and the people who control the purchase of products approved by the FDA are one in the same).

 

[QuantumPion]

yes, because the "free market" would only put "good" drugs out on the market. Obviously they would never release bad drugs that would harm people.

Until the FDA was established, companies used to put radium into products. If you somehow think that corporations wouldn't cut corners and accidently poison people simply to have a good quarter, then you are really naive and I'm not sure how you go about live unsupervised.

Both posts true, and both points completely irrelevant to my original post.

Why is it that liberals immediately jump on the "ZOMG HE WNATS TO ABOLISH ALL GOVERNMENT AND HAVE ANARCHY OH NOES" wagon whenever a libertarian proposes free market solutions to government problems?

 

[CitizenKain]

Both posts true, and both points completely irrelevant to my original post.

Why is it that liberals immediately jump on the "ZOMG HE WNATS TO ABOLISH ALL GOVERNMENT AND HAVE ANARCHY OH NOES" wagon whenever a libertarian proposes free market solutions to government problems?

Because government intervention was required to reign in free market problems to begin with? Look at what Dupont did at Blophal for an exciting look at the Free Market in action.

 

[Atreus21]

yes, because the "free market" would only put "good" drugs out on the market. Obviously they would never release bad drugs that would harm people.

I suppose they would, if they wanted to go out of business.

 

[LegendKiller]

I suppose they would, if they wanted to go out of business.

lol. Obviously companies have such a bi-polar viewpoint on drugs and the damages they may cause.

What a fucking juvenile viewpoint of the world.