Antibiotics show free market failure

[Seth]

Why can't the free market do everything? What kind of religion is this?!?

Well, it's like this: Free enterprise is about making making money. If there is no profit in doing something, it's not going to happen, no matter how socially desirable it is. That's just how lolbertardianism works. Or doesn't.

Wrong. Free markets don't respond positively to unprofitable ventures because they are not supposed to. Funding socially desirable things is not the job of the free market and you shouldn't expect it to be.

To the contrary: funding socially desirable things is exactly the job of the free market. The things desired by society are the things society is willing to pay for; if there's something no one is willing to pay for, then it's not socially desirable, irrespective of how people jabber about it.

You are correct. What I meant was "socially desirable things that do not have popular support enough to be self-funded." In other words, some politician's idea of a social good intended mainly to endear him to some particular voting bloc.

[Seth]

If it weren't for government seed money and low interest loans, the REA, the WPA, and the TVA, most of "The American Heartland" would vote on paper ballots, because there would still be no electricity available outside cities.

And that would be a bad thing because....???

The rural electification program was just another Progressive attempt to garner votes. When rural people need and want electricity, they will drive the demand that will result in someone serving the market. If it weren't for Progressive central planning and a desire to build giant power plants as public works projects (TVA) solar, wind and micro-hydro power might be much, much more advanced than it is because demand for cheap power in the hinterlands drove innovation and invention to provide power at an affordable price.

My guess is that most rural areas would run on low-power DC generated and stored on site and there wouldn't be this massive power grid that's prone to failure. Power would be produced where it's needed, not shipped hundreds or thousands of miles through billions of tons of valuable copper wire just to make country bumpkins more comfortable at the expense of everyone else.

If you don't like living without electricity, then either create your own or move to the city, in which case urban sprawl would likely be much less impactful and people would live where they work instead of commuting hundreds of miles every day spewing pollution all the while.

Rural electrification was not necessary, it was a public-works project intended to garner votes for Progressives and to employ the unemployed that the Progressives unemployed by meddling with the free market economy.

If it was necessary, it would have happened anyway.

[Seth]

If it weren't for government seed money and low interest loans, the REA, the WPA, and the TVA, most of "The American Heartland" would vote on paper ballots, because there would still be no electricity available outside cities.

They likely drive to cities or towns to vote anyway.

Maybe, but only after they hand pumped fuel into whatever vehicle they might use...The point is that the free market did not deem it profitable to electrify vast areas of the US, so it fell on citizens to do it another way. Welcome to Las Vegas, a booming metropolis of Free Enterprise, sponsored by Socialist electricity from Hoover Dam.

Exactly. Hoover Dam was built to power Los Angeles, and Las Vegas grew up in the middle of the desert because that particular Progressive public-works project created cheap electricity and water supplies that allow it to exist where it shouldn't exist.

No Hoover Dam and Las Vegas would still be a one-burro town filled with sleepy Indians and Mexicans baking in the sun.

[Seth]

Those poor, poor corporations, bullied, abused and over-taxed by nasty Marxist governments...

Hey, if government functionaries are too fucking stupid to write a cogent royalty agreement, how is that Pharma's fault? Don't blame corporations for using the law to their advantage, blame the politicians who pander to special interests to get money and votes, it's their fault after all. The corporations are just obeying the laws...of man and of economics. That's what they are supposed to do.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

Just because you think some public project is a good idea doesn't mean you're right or that everyone (or anyone) else should be obliged to pay for it.

Luckily, the vast majority of people think that most public projects are a bloody good idea, so we can ignore a minority of selfish lunatics who think otherwise...

[JimC]

Those poor, poor corporations, bullied, abused and over-taxed by nasty Marxist governments...

Hey, if government functionaries are too fucking stupid to write a cogent royalty agreement, how is that Pharma's fault? Don't blame corporations for using the law to their advantage, blame the politicians who pander to special interests to get money and votes, it's their fault after all. The corporations are just obeying the laws...of man and of economics. That's what they are supposed to do.

Quite right. I want governments to become absolutely fucking ruthless in their treatment of greedy corporations...

[Seth]

Those poor, poor corporations, bullied, abused and over-taxed by nasty Marxist governments...

Hey, if government functionaries are too fucking stupid to write a cogent royalty agreement, how is that Pharma's fault? Don't blame corporations for using the law to their advantage, blame the politicians who pander to special interests to get money and votes, it's their fault after all. The corporations are just obeying the laws...of man and of economics. That's what they are supposed to do.

Quite right. I want governments to become absolutely fucking ruthless in their treatment of greedy corporations...

Well, certainly when they are doling out publicly owned property to them. Their negotiations should be no different than those of another corporation entering into a mutually beneficial financial agreement.

In fact, I'd say the government should have to hire non-governmental commercial experts to negotiate such deals, and politicians should be explicitly forbidden, on pain of imprisonment, from so much as opening their yaps about the negotiations, and they should be barred from the proceedings.

The negotiators should be paid a percentage of the profits they negotiate for the government as an incentive to bargain hard.

[pErvinalia]

If you don't like living without electricity, then either create your own or move to the city, in which case urban sprawl would likely be much less impactful and people would live where they work instead of commuting hundreds of miles every day spewing pollution all the while.

And where would your food come from under this fantastical model?

[rainbow]

Just because you think some public project is a good idea doesn't mean you're right or that everyone (or anyone) else should be obliged to pay for it.

...so if your neighbour were to just leave their trash in front of their house, and poo in their back garden, they shouldn't be coerced into paying for it to be removed?

I'm not so sure about this Libertarian ideal of yours.

[piscator]

If it weren't for government seed money and low interest loans, the REA, the WPA, and the TVA, most of "The American Heartland" would vote on paper ballots, because there would still be no electricity available outside cities.

And that would be a bad thing because....???

The rural electification program was just another Progressive attempt to garner votes. When rural people need and want electricity, they will drive the demand that will result in someone serving the market. If it weren't for Progressive central planning and a desire to build giant power plants as public works projects (TVA) solar, wind and micro-hydro power might be much, much more advanced than it is because demand for cheap power in the hinterlands drove innovation and invention to provide power at an affordable price.

My guess is that most rural areas would run on low-power DC generated and stored on site and there wouldn't be this massive power grid that's prone to failure. Power would be produced where it's needed, not shipped hundreds or thousands of miles through billions of tons of valuable copper wire just to make country bumpkins more comfortable at the expense of everyone else.

If you don't like living without electricity, then either create your own or move to the city, in which case urban sprawl would likely be much less impactful and people would live where they work instead of commuting hundreds of miles every day spewing pollution all the while.

Rural electrification was not necessary, it was a public-works project intended to garner votes for Progressives and to employ the unemployed that the Progressives unemployed by meddling with the free market economy.

If it was necessary, it would have happened anyway.

It did.

[piscator]

Those poor, poor corporations, bullied, abused and over-taxed by nasty Marxist governments...

Hey, if government functionaries are too fucking stupid to write a cogent royalty agreement, how is that Pharma's fault? Don't blame corporations for using the law to their advantage, blame the politicians who pander to special interests to get money and votes, it's their fault after all. The corporations are just obeying the laws...of man and of economics. That's what they are supposed to do.

Quite right. I want governments to become absolutely fucking ruthless in their treatment of greedy corporations...

Well, certainly when they are doling out publicly owned property to them. Their negotiations should be no different than those of another corporation entering into a mutually beneficial financial agreement.

In fact, I'd say the government should have to hire non-governmental commercial experts to negotiate such deals, and politicians should be explicitly forbidden, on pain of imprisonment, from so much as opening their yaps about the negotiations, and they should be barred from the proceedings.

The negotiators should be paid a percentage of the profits they negotiate for the government as an incentive to bargain hard.

For-profit governments are teh suk.

[Warren Dew]

I read somewhere that it costs about a billion dollars per drug to develop, from initial idea, to reality, through all the testing, and to the marketplace. If the taxpayer supplied a subsidy of dollar for dollar to drug companies for new antibiotic development, it would cost the taxpayer $500 million per new antibiotic on average. One new antibiotic every couple of years would be enough to fend off antibiotic resistance. So that is less than $1 per year per person. Logically, the American taxpayer subsidises American drug companies. European taxpayers, the European drug companies etc. Such a subsidy is so low in cost, and so important, that it seems to be just government inertia that stops it.

Would you be willing to pay an extra $1 per year to make sure you do not die of a common infection, where the bug is antibiotic resistant?

The billion dollars is for each drug tested. Many of those drugs do not get to market. The cost is higher per successful drug.

I'm not at all sure I'd pay the few dollars, anyway. Bugs that are resistant to all existing antibiotics are extremely rare. What are the chances that I'd be infected by one? And then, what are the chances that I'd die of it? If the net chance is one in a million, a $5 annual tax is equivalent to paying $5,000,000 to avoid death from the omniresistant bug. I'd rather save the $5,000,000 for my family.

[pErvinalia]

They're not that rare. In fact most hospitals have them. But it is rare that you will die from them. But they can still make you permanently sick (might Aunt got one in hospital in Melbourne and is stuck with problems from it for life, or until they come up with a new antibiotic that works on it).

[piscator]

If it weren't for government seed money and low interest loans, the REA, the WPA, and the TVA, most of "The American Heartland" would vote on paper ballots, because there would still be no electricity available outside cities.

They likely drive to cities or towns to vote anyway.

Maybe, but only after they hand pumped fuel into whatever vehicle they might use...The point is that the free market did not deem it profitable to electrify vast areas of the US, so it fell on citizens to do it another way. Welcome to Las Vegas, a booming metropolis of Free Enterprise, sponsored by Socialist electricity from Hoover Dam.

Exactly. Hoover Dam was built to power Los Angeles, and Las Vegas grew up in the middle of the desert because that particular Progressive public-works project created cheap electricity and water supplies that allow it to exist where it shouldn't exist.

No Hoover Dam and Las Vegas would still be a one-burro town filled with sleepy Indians and Mexicans baking in the sun.

Same for Phoenix and Albuquerque and the Glenn Canyon Dam. Another Federally funded environmental disgrace, without which local free enterprise could not thrive. Kinda like Public Land propping up the cattle business everywhere west of Missouri...


No TVA and a few million hillbillies and other Republicans would have had to stick with sharecroppin', and would'a missed out on buying Fords and Dodges to till their cotton and run their moonshine, which would have made the cost of a car or a tractor even higher for everyone else. So yeah, Progressive is a real good term for those sorts of capital investments.

[Seth]

If you don't like living without electricity, then either create your own or move to the city, in which case urban sprawl would likely be much less impactful and people would live where they work instead of commuting hundreds of miles every day spewing pollution all the while.

And where would your food come from under this fantastical model?

The law of supply and demand would provide it, just as it has for all of human history. If you live in the country and want electricity and have crops to sell, you use the money from the crops you sell to get electricity. Pretty simple really.