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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (174690)	8/28/2003 2:27:04 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Respond to of 1576970

Tim, the underlying liberal philosophy is that drug companies cannot be trusted to invest their profits into R&D. Only government, which has accountability to the people instead of to rich execs and shareholders, can be trusted with managing prescription drugs. Of course, the control merely shifts from greedy execs to corrupt politicians in this case. Kind of tough to figure out who you can trust more. Tenchusatsu

To: TimF who wrote (174690)	8/28/2003 4:16:43 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1576970

If drugs research is expensive, and if we spend a lot on drugs while drug prices are limited in other countries we in effect subsidize those countries. This concept is what led to the thread in the first place. While I fully agree with your statement, it even goes a bit deeper. If one looks at the actual cost accounting that underlies the US drug companies' actions, it is clear that the USA is funding the R&D while other countries benefit. These drugs are priced for the US market. When they are later priced for foreign markets, the drug manufacturer need only recover all variable costs of producing the drug. Anything beyond that is pure profit, as US sales are counted on to recover the development costs. I don't object to the practice, but I think it is a clear case of the US with its highly capitalistic society subsidizing the more liberal, less capitalistic countries in the Nordic region that Al held out as examples of liberal success. I also think they ARE good examples of how liberalism can succeed so long as there are less liberal (i.e., more capitalistic) governments which can support them.