The law vs the greater good

[Matt1970]

All I am asking is what's wrong being a bit more fair? The business is making more and execs get a piece of that, why not give the hard-working hourly people a little more too? Are we not contributing? If the business is losing, we can be understanding when we are showed valid reasons why a pay freeze/cut/layoff has to be done to keep the place from closing and everyone's out of work.

I am not asking for a businesses to run on compassion, but not operating on compassion doesn't mean being completely cold-hearted, either.

There are already a lot of companies that have profit sharing and stock options.

 

[Retro Rob]

There are already a lot of companies that have profit sharing and stock options.

True, very true.

 

[PrinceofWands]

The irony is that your statements are completely anti-American in my mind. Perhaps that's because I don't believe in an America that owns its people and all of the rewards for its citizens' hard work. I believe in an America where people are free to make or lose their own fortunes. The making of a fortune occurs in parallel with an improvement of the life of the customer (at least from the customer's perspective). Nowhere is this more true than in the case of pharmaceutical companies, where the customer could actually die if the drug company had failed. You are anti-American because you want to penalize the drug company for saving your life. My parents and grandparents fought wars against your evil concept of what a nation should be and I know plenty of eastern Europeans who would be happy to fight you to the death to prevent your version of America from taking hold.

And I joined the military during a war to fight against yours. Now where are we?

You're such an ignorant, worthless pile of shit it's unbelievable. I sincerely hope to meet you in person some day, just so I can fucking spit on you.

 

[werepossum]

The irony is that your statements are completely anti-American in my mind. Perhaps that's because I don't believe in an America that owns its people and all of the rewards for its citizens' hard work. I believe in an America where people are free to make or lose their own fortunes. The making of a fortune occurs in parallel with an improvement of the life of the customer (at least from the customer's perspective). Nowhere is this more true than in the case of pharmaceutical companies, where the customer could actually die if the drug company had failed. You are anti-American because you want to penalize the drug company for saving your life. My parents and grandparents fought wars against your evil concept of what a nation should be and I know plenty of eastern Europeans who would be happy to fight you to the death to prevent your version of America from taking hold.

This comes back to my original point: it's none of my business what a company does with its money because it's not my money. Try looking at the perceived problem from that perspective. This whole collectivism thing going on in the US right now where Obama is telling everyone that all of the money in circulation really belongs to the people (and by people, he means government) is pervasive in the public mindset. It's poisoning this nation's people against business. The notion of private property is almost gone. The American Dream is tied to its fate.

Good posts, and I largely agree with your concept of what America should be and what she will be if this war on success continues apace. However, Pr0d1gy makes some good points too. We've largely intertwined government with big business, sometimes to the point of "our risk, MY profit". I'm all for protecting patents and IP, but sometimes some very wrong concepts creep in, such as being allowed to patent genes, claiming G-d's work as your own. And buying the rights to a promising medical treatment in order to kill it to protect one's very expensive and very lucrative existing medical treatment, which is not exactly uncommon, is enough against humanity's interests as to dampen my own pro-market, pro-freedom, pro-IP feelings.

 

[werepossum]

And I joined the military during a war to fight against yours. Now where are we?

You're such an ignorant, worthless pile of shit it's unbelievable. I sincerely hope to meet you in person some day, just so I can fucking spit on you.

Wait, you joined the Red Chinese military? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's the only one fighting against freedom and liberty and individual property rights these days.

 

[CycloWizard]

And I joined the military during a war to fight against yours. Now where are we?

You're such an ignorant, worthless pile of shit it's unbelievable. I sincerely hope to meet you in person some day, just so I can fucking spit on you.

Stop by any time. I live in Texas, so you can make my day.

 

[CycloWizard]

Good posts, and I largely agree with your concept of what America should be and what she will be if this war on success continues apace. However, Pr0d1gy makes some good points too. We've largely intertwined government with big business, sometimes to the point of "our risk, MY profit". I'm all for protecting patents and IP, but sometimes some very wrong concepts creep in, such as being allowed to patent genes, claiming G-d's work as your own. And buying the rights to a promising medical treatment in order to kill it to protect one's very expensive and very lucrative existing medical treatment, which is not exactly uncommon, is enough against humanity's interests as to dampen my own pro-market, pro-freedom, pro-IP feelings.

I agree that a free market isn't an ideal solution, but it's better than all of the alternative models I'm aware of. I'm unfortunately far too familiar with the terrible state of federal funding (especially NIH) to suggest that our government could possibly take over the funding in an effective manner. The only federal agency which currently manages its research programs in a timely, somewhat efficient manner is DOD. However, there is no way certain factions in this country would give them control over drug development. NIH is the natural choice, but that would be an epic disaster. I have several NIH proposals I submitted 11 months ago that I still don't even have a funding decision on, let alone the money. You simply can't perform state-of-the-art research using this kind of funding model since an idea I have now won't receive any money for close to two years at this rate. I'm all for proposals for a new model.

 

[CycloWizard]

Actually, we were talking about greed in that discussion YESTERDAY:

The discussion we have been having today is whether these CEO's making tens of millions of dollars while their companies are begging us for bailouts are worth the money they are making, which you asserted they WERE WORTH IT.

Look man, you're obviously here to troll and it's getting tiresome pointing out your inadequacies and lies. So, the floor is yours Conyesman.

If you randomly change subjects in your head without actually typing your new topic, no one will have any idea what the hell you're talking about. I never said CEOs were worth anything. You're either simply making it up or misattributing quotes. At this point, I have no idea which and I really don't care because your train of thought has obviously jumped the tracks on multiple occasions.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

If you randomly change subjects in your head without actually typing your new topic, no one will have any idea what the hell you're talking about. I never said CEOs were worth anything. You're either simply making it up or misattributing quotes. At this point, I have no idea which and I really don't care because your train of thought has obviously jumped the tracks on multiple occasions.

Bullshit, pure and simple. I suggest anyone interested in this current discussion go back and re-read the discussion yesterday and where the points it was discussing versus where the discussion was going today. Just keep saying I'm an idiot and can't stick to the topic while you keep going back to old discussion to change today's point of debate, that way you can feel better about yourself.

You're wasting my time.

 

[CycloWizard]

Bullshit, pure and simple. I suggest anyone interested in this current discussion go back and re-read the discussion yesterday and where the points it was discussing versus where the discussion was going today. Just keep saying I'm an idiot and can't stick to the topic while you keep going back to old discussion to change today's point of debate, that way you can feel better about yourself.

You're wasting my time.

Now you're encouraging people to "stalk" you? I didn't read the forum rules closely enough to know that all discussions reset at midnight EST.

 

[werepossum]

I agree that a free market isn't an ideal solution, but it's better than all of the alternative models I'm aware of. I'm unfortunately far too familiar with the terrible state of federal funding (especially NIH) to suggest that our government could possibly take over the funding in an effective manner. The only federal agency which currently manages its research programs in a timely, somewhat efficient manner is DOD. However, there is no way certain factions in this country would give them control over drug development. NIH is the natural choice, but that would be an epic disaster. I have several NIH proposals I submitted 11 months ago that I still don't even have a funding decision on, let alone the money. You simply can't perform state-of-the-art research using this kind of funding model since an idea I have now won't receive any money for close to two years at this rate. I'm all for proposals for a new model.

It's a quandary. The private sector has limited incentive to engage in basic level or long term research; any company who does so must be a very clear market leader or it will be out-competed by companies leveraging its own research. So it must be government. Government has very little turn-over and no mechanisms for discharge due to incompetence, so any cutting edge funding proposal is naturally going to be evaluated by people utterly incompetent to do so. Since government also has a responsibility to not waste taxpayers' hard-earned money, any such funding request is going to move extremely slowly with a LOT of people signing off, to provide each other cover.

I too simply don't see another viable model, although I certainly agree one is desperately needed.

 

[rayfieldclement]

Do you believe that individuals or companies should be allowed to patent their ideas? Do you understand why patents are important? How many drugs do you think would be developed in a world without patents? IMO the US should not honor patents from countries that do not respect US drug patents.

I agree...

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I have nothing against big $$$$$ being made over pharmaceuticals, but in this case I don't see too much of a problem. The average Indian simply cannot afford $5000 annual drugs, and no American company should expect to sell brand name versions at American prices. This is why Valve will sell Half-Life 2 in North America for $50 and for maybe a tenth the price in $5, because they want to maximize their sales even if it means some silly executive crying over $45 that was "lost". Of course, there is no computer game oligarchy to force other countries to purchase American products, and piracy of a video game is easy. Pharmaceutical companies aren't stupid, though; they won't try to sell product to a market that literally cannot pay for it. They'll just use their economic power in conjunction with the expansive and corrupt political power of India's government to force somebody to eat the cost.

 

[Incorruptible]

This is just another reason why I am disgusted by India, they are stealing Intellectual Property and this is wrong, I agree with the drug companies

 

[Pr0d1gy]

This is just another reason why I am disgusted by India, they are stealing Intellectual Property and this is wrong, I agree with the drug companies

How about you go bump a thread from last month while you're at it?