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Coronavirus?!
- Thread starter Hamlet
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You've got that backward. Price caps lock everyone out of the supply. I need not go back as far as the 70s (gas rationing) to prove this. Just look at the great covid toilet paper famine of 2020.
You've got that wrong, considering only part of the story.
All you have to do is instantiate quantity limits which only some stores did and when they did it was effective.
I like the way you called it "the great toilet paper famine" though that's funny
It also shows how unprepared we were for this kind of thing even though several experts believed it could happen some years ago.It's impossible to be prepared for every contingency. That'd require "experts" who know everything, all the time. The magic of the free market is that, while no one or no group has even a marginal amount of knowledge of everything, everyone has just enough information to govern themselves to utilize their own resources in the most efficient and effective way possible. A large part of this information is: what do I need and how much am I willing to pay for it? The flip side is: what do I have, and what do I want for it? This is the "Economizing Problem", and only free markets can derive the optimal solution all of the time.You've got that wrong, considering only part of the story.
All you have to do is instantiate quantity limits which only some stores did and when they did it was effective.
I like the way you called it "the great toilet paper famine" though that's funny
"If there is a shortage of something, the price is too low. "
I like this 5Es tutorial:
http://www2.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/eco212i/lectures/5es/5es.htm
Where you are mistaken is that it is government intervention (i.e. insurance regulations, FDA, etc.) in free markets that make people like Shkreli possible.
I would've thought it was patents that make people like Mr Shkreli possible. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the protection of intellectual property and all. I just think that there are weaknesses inherent to the system that can't be easily fixed.
Patents?
The "theory" of patents is that an inventor gets a limited-time monopoly on the exercise of his idea in exchange for adding to the human knowledge base (i.e. disclosure of the idea to the public). The idea is his property, and (theoretically) he should be able to dispose of it at his pleasure. This includes: a) charging as much as he wants for it, b) licensing/selling it to whomever he desires, c) not exercising it at all.
I won't discuss the "reality" of patents.
Remember: there is an alternative to inventing life-saving products. Not inventing them.
When you ask your government to deprive one of the benefits of his own ideas (i.e. depriving him of his own property), don't expect such great ideas in the future.
Unintended consequences are always more numerous, and more deadly, than intended consequences.
Ok, let's go back to your argument about government intervention (regarding patents, as I said, I'm all for them, I just don't think them perfect, the discussion would be too long).
Why do you say that it's regulations that make people like Shkreli possible?
Why do you say that it's regulations that make people like Shkreli possible?
Huh?
So then tell us what you would do then. Remove all regulations of everything
everywhere?
Wow. This thread is about Wuhan.
Anti-gouging laws are tangentially related.
Shkreli is not.
I'd happily argue how price caps and gov't intervention made the consequences of Wuhan far worse than they had to be.
But you guys would rather discuss off-off-topic straw men (or, in this case, straw man)?
Would you be willing to participate if I were to open another thread about the economics of crises such as this one? No politics allowed, of course.
Impossible.
This really boils down to freedom vs. statism. There's no way to separate it from politics.
I'll always err on the side of freedom. Others, not so much.
Right... you can be accused of many things, Joey. But not of being dishonest.
Let's skip this then and carry on with the topic of this thread.
The cost for introducing a new drug today in the US is $2.6 billion (https://www.policymed.com/2014/12/a...tion medicine,the Journal of Health Economics).
Only 12% of new drugs end up actually being approved for market, and post market expenses are not trivial either:
A good part of those costs is to satisfy regulations. Of course, once a drug is approved, it gets copied and sold in markets that do not recognize international patents.
Finally, no one can predict the market life of a drug once it is approved. Schering-Plough spent a lot to get netilmicin approved (an improved form of gentamicin). Approval was delayed several years by the FDA for reasons that are unclear. Once that drug was cleared for release, the market had moved on. That was a huge loss for the drug company.
Let's consider the current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Can anyone say with certainty they will still be needed in 5 years or maybe even 3 years?
Recent case increases: https://www.foxnews.com/media/dr-at...to-protests-and-proximity-to-us-mexico-border
Yeah it is interesting how this spreads. It is like a huge set of domino's that have not only the tendency to be knocked down by those close to it but also there is a unique timing for when each one gets knocked down due to it's proximity to others that get knocked down and their timing. So there is always a head count but there is also a timing factor. Mexico lagged the US by some time so we can see their infections now instead of before this. Once that is over maybe we will see the infection rate fall abruptly with some persistence.
On the other side of the world, India seems to be having a big surge in cases.
Accusations are a dime a dozen.
Those other "many things" don't concern me or those I deal with in the real world.
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