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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (263247)	5/1/2008 9:00:14 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

No, as I've said repeatedly, the big get bigger. It is just a reality of life on this planet. I'm pretty sure we don't need all the cheap garbage Walmart carries and I'm sure we don't need their ugly stores creating more suburban blight. I'm sure they couldn't care less. If you don't like the IRS then you can get a better tax attorney, don't earn any income (live off your savings or the land), set yourself up as a corporation with a PO box in a tropical country or emigrate to a tax haven. You can even run for office on a zero tax platform. That should be interesting. I will send you $50 for your campaign kitty. ====== Here you go again, narrowing your original point so you don't have to admit that your original point was simply wrong: "That was for an existing business not for something totally new, and even here the government was lucky." ======= I don't know how tax law applies to drug samples but I don't think a drug company can claim more than it actually spent as a deduction. Are you saying that they can claim, for example, the full retail price of a drug even though it cost them a fraction of that out of pocket? ======== Pretty simplistic assumptions regarding drug company investments. Let's add in a few points. Drug companies work hard to extend their patents which is not a net positive for the consumer. They are not spending on R&D but trying to get increased government protection for their existing products. That is the profit motive in action. They are also spending lots of money plying doctors and hospitals with all kinds of perks for prescribing their drugs. They even negotiate with hospitals to change doctor's prescriptions to favor their drugs in exchange for discounts. They are also spending money developing drugs for chronic conditions rather than on things like antibiotics which cure the problem. They want, as the profit motive dictates, life time customers who are required to take their expensive, patented drugs on a regular basis. These are also results of the profit motive which are not good for their customers and which lead to a plethora of Viagras but no super bug killers.