No obstacles fell in his way that seemed to him insurmountable.
He might be defeated, as he sometimes was,
but he shrank from no hardship through impatience,
he fled from no danger through cowardice.
J. P. Morgan writing about Napoleon Bonaparte
Forbes on Politics 2016
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(Independent Institute). "Few economic policies are more offensive to basic morality. To tell a dealer in goods or services what he can charge is presumptuous and extremely invasive, reeking of pretensions of the state’s prior ownership of all of society’s fruits, to be distributed only upon the good graces of the central-planning elite. All who love freedom should hate all price controls with a deep passion. All who understand economic cause and effect in even the simplest terms should recognize that, all else being equal, price ceilings cause shortages and price floors result in gluts."
The issue I have with Gregory's piece has to do with the drug reimportation kerfuffle, which Gregory makes passing reference to approvingly. If we take the obvious example of Canada, Canada is hardly a deregulated market; it de facto maintains price controls and controls supplies. How can you argue that we should import Canada's price controls? That's as contrary to free market principles as one can get. Not to mention many of these corrupt States threaten to ignore intellectual property rights and allow generic drug companies to sell copies, which is in its essence a declaration of a trade war.
I have no problem with robust free trade, and I understand why many of us see reimportation as a free trade issue, even if it's only temporary and one-sided. But let's be clear here: the problem has more to do with the FDA's chokehold on drug innovation. We need to privatize drug approvals.
Canada's rigid price controls are subsidized by high prices in the U.S. Thus, the drug companies made a reasonable calculation that they could expand revenue/profits across both markets despite the Canadian price controls as long as U.S. prices remained static. The contribution margin would be much lower for Canadian product distribution, but the revenue it would also absorb cost allocations.The model doesn't work if the U.S. tried to follow suit. If the U.S. did impose Canadian style price controls the revenue to investment (profit) would radically change and the drug companies would need to rethink their investment in new drugs in light of this market change. The obvious affect would be to curtail new nvestment.
The point I'm making is that the Canadian market is not a free market, but if the "progressives" did import the drugs at cheaper prices they would, as you point out, result in cannibalization of existing domestic sales. The Canadian price would quickly become the going rate, which is what I meant about importing Canada's price controls. Yes, the companies would respond, e.g., by withdrawing from the Canadian market or by limiting production. This is why I referred to importation as a short-term solution at best.
Overpricing is what you are talking about . Unrealistic prices is what the the market is doing .Price controls are successful . Commodities for one needs to be taken out of the trading market, speculators are not free market . They are price manipulators . price controls help the economy giving the ability back to the people, to have money to spread into the economy not just survive
Fascist whore expressing fascist claptrap. No, if you can't recoup your costs, you go out of business, pure and simple. What we need is to free the market. Econ 101 says that price caps result in shortages and price floors create gluts (I think the author pointed that out). What you need is more competition, which necessarily means less government.
You obviously don't realize that what needs to happen is the insurance industry needs to get out of the medical business. ..then we would all benefit. Some of those CEOS are making $3,000,000 per WEEK in total compensation. ...for the privilege of denying people medical care AND OVERRULING the Physicians who are SUPPOSED to be the decision makers.
Retard "progressives" all over this thread. How many times are fascists going to bash executive compensation for insurers? For example, WellPoint's net income exceeds $2.6B a year and its CEO (including bonuses) has made roughly $13M a year. WellPoint's margins have been something like 4%. 4% is not a huge profit margin; consider the S&P average is near 10%. So you are talking about a CEO making about 0.5% of a relatively speaking small profit based on revenues. The real story (and the fascist obviously didn't read the article) has to do with the federal government interventions exacerbating sector costs, tax incentives to shift ordinary health expenses, etc.
Now let's deal with the idiocy of the government "negotiating" drug prices. Government doesn't negotiate; it sets price schedules. How it's worked in Medicaid is an offset of private-sector cost--which means if the Medicaid market share is big enough, the manufacturer has an incentive to increase prices in the private-sector to maximize its Medicaid revenues.
(IPI). Mitsubishi USA announced it will shut down facilities in Normal, Illinois, jeopardizing the jobs of 918 workers.This announcement comes after a string of 4 major manufacturing losses over the span of 10 days.
The new Normal in Illinois business until Illinois decides to get serious about public sector reform and pares back spending, taxation, and regulation. You also have to do something about the corrupt Illinois judicial system.
So the justices of the state supreme court which are from both parties are Whores? So because they read the constitution as it was written that makes them corrupt? Sorry, but if something just doesn't go your way that doesn't mean that its wrong. The writers of the 1970 IL Constitution knew someday something like this would happen because it was happening back then. The funds have been underfunded for decades and that causes lost investment income. There are three legs to a fund 1) employee contributions at 9-10% of their gross income 2) employer contributions (which weren't made or were grossly underfunded 3) investment income that averages 6-9% depending on the year. Number one hasn't missed a payment and number 3 took a huge hit when Wall Street and the Bank pushed our economy over the cliff due to their greed. That leaves number 2 and when you don't properly fund something you also hurt number 3 because the money isn't there to invest.
Don't be a retard. The issue has ZERO to do with past payments; it has to do with funding at excessive benefit levels for increased lifetime payouts and larger retiree populations, RETARD. It has to do with an ILLEGAL transfer of liabilities to future generations, RETARD. I don't give a damn what political party a judicial whore belongs to; vetoing modest reforms is self-serving corruption. And. by the way, RETARD, I seem to recall that the state has been sued--unsuccessfully--to make pension contributions--blessed by the Illinois Supreme Court. I do know more recently the unions in NJ unsuccessfully sued Gov. Christie over cutting similar contributions.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall |
Kenny Rogers (with Kim Carnes), "Don't Fall in Love With a Dreamer".
