Lurch & Ferris Buehler

[RobBob]

Go ahead and vote for them. Let's watch the final chapter in American production of any competitive hard goods whatsoever. If Edwards has any input, the nation's already out-of-control liability claims and court system in general will be so glutted with cases that the only "safe" businesses left to run will be service businesses, and businesses that function as sales agents and distributors for overseas producers of food and hard goods.

 

Bush is an idiot...and I'm voting for him. It's official as of this morning.

[dberdinka]

Bush is an idiot...and I'm voting for him.

 

Birds of a feather.....

[Off_White]

Well, you know what the incumbent VP would say...

 

"Go fuck yourself."

[RobBob]

Birds of a feather.....

 

This coming from the worldview of a cube monkey...

 

OW: I'm freely admitting that our incumbents suck. The problem is that Kerry + trial-lawyer fratbot would suck worse. First, they will sell out to big corporate interests just like nearly every other candidate would. Second, go read about John Edwards' funding sources and what he's been up to.

Edited July 6, 2004 by RobBob

[slothrop]

Um, isn't Bush selling out to corporate interests like no other? After-tax corporate profits are at their highest point as a percentage of GDP since 1929 while unemployment is steady, benefits are being cut (like health care), and non-managerial wages aren't keeping up with inflation. At least Kerry has a plan for health care reform that doesn't force old people to pay more and use a more confusing system to get drugs they could get cheaper and easier on the open world market.

 

Being a [loaded word]trial lawyer[\loaded word] doesn't mean you are the Devil Himself.

[Skeezix]

"Lurch" and "Ferris Buehler" is pretty funny. Kerry does look a little bit like Lurch. Bush, however, not only looks like a chimp, but is also the intellectual inferior of most chimps.

[glacier]

So they could be Chimp and Tin Man?

 

and (e.g. lopsided, creaky, mechanical, needs heart)

Edited July 7, 2004 by glacier

[cj001f]

benefits are being cut (like health care), and non-managerial wages aren't keeping up with inflation. At least Kerry has a plan for health care reform that doesn't force old people to pay more and use a more confusing system to get drugs they could get cheaper and easier on the open world market.

And if your interested in the competiveness of American Business on a global scale, look no further than Health Care costs. 15% of GDP currently in the US(the Japanese spend proportionately 1/2 of what we do and live longer). Rising at twice the rate of inflation. The fastest growing employee cost for most employers.

 

So what about a Health Care plan? You say you don't want to pay for Universal Healt Care? You already ARE! Everytime an uninsured, or underinsured person goes to the ER, you foot the bill. Not directly, but in the increased rates you pay for insurance. So either eliminate the service requirement for hospitals - and allow then to turn away people who can't pay (how very French!), or provide health care for all, at least on a catastrophic basis.

[SunnyGreen]

http://Snaffle.com

 

Drink Responsibly you all..

It is a Golden Moment

Don't waste any time...

[wally]

If you don't like Kerry's side on an issue give him time and he will take what ever side you want.

[RobBob]

At least Kerry has a plan for health care reform that doesn't force old people to pay more and use a more confusing system to get drugs they could get cheaper and easier on the open world market.

 

cj001f already partially answered the healthcare claim---he's right that working Americans are paying more than their fair share to subsidize the elderly, uninsured, etc. We do already have a defacto universal healthcare plan (and we have healthcare that costs much more than in nations where people live longer on average than we do). Since even Hillary got de-nutted in trying to solve this issue, I doubt that the combo of Kerry and a personal-injury lawyer are the ones to fix it.

 

People, the most important thing to remember out of all the bullshit and hubris flung around in this thread is that old people in the US receive a lot more than they ever paid in to social programs. Don't ever let an oldster get away with a sermon that he/she is only getting getting back what he paid in, or something less. The AARP is the strongest lobby in the US, and we and our children will be paying the bill in order to finance the system that currently pays out much more to old people than they ever paid in.

[catbirdseat]

You got that right. The US is a gerontocracy.

[cj001f]

You got that right. The US is a gerontocracy.

Isn't it wonderful that the people withdrawing on the credit card will be dead before the bill comes do. They won't even have their estates taxed!

[willstrickland]

RobBob makes a good point and the healthcare burden of the aging boomers is, IMO, going to be THE biggest issue in this country in the next 30 years.

 

The problem is by no means limited to social medical programs. And it's an unfortunate circumstance of the "sound byte" campaign style of the current day that no candidate can address the health care issue comprehensively. Everyone tries to spin it so that it's one issue their voters can get behind...expensive medication, HMO inadequacy, universal care, universal insurance. We don't even attempt to look at the big picture. A couple of the problems:

 

1. Lifestyle - Our supersize-it, high stress, couch-potato, no time to exercise society. Diet changes alone would significantly impact the % GDP spent on healthcare. How do you begin to change this? No politician is going to stand up and say "hey you fat fucks, put down the Big Mac, put down that 48oz coke, and go eat something sensible". They would lose those precious $$ from the fast food lobby. I mean, c'mon a govt that labels ketchup as a vegetable?

 

2. Drug costs - Look, everyone wants to make this out as the evil pharma companies robbing us blind, after all "in Canada you can get the same drugs for cheap...we should be allowed to buy them in Canada"

 

Let me tell ya something sparky, the US consumer is footing the R&D costs on those drugs because the Canadian and other govts with socialistic healthcare policies negotiate the price and won't accept paying more than a certain % over the production cost. Well guess what? It costs hundreds of millions to bring a new drug to market before it ever goes into production. You, the US consumer, are paying for that.

 

What would happen if we all bought drugs from Canada? Big pharma would say "OK Canada, you have xx million citizens, prevalence of yy medical condition is 10% of the population, so we are only going to sell you enough to treat your population." You would very quickly see Canada put the kibosh on allowing us to go buy "their" medicine. All these retarded politicians supporting legalizing re-importation don't have a clue about the issue.

 

You want cheaper drugs, put the pressure on Canada, France, Italy to pay their fair share of the R&D. You think they are robbing you blind...profit margin for big pharma averages in the high teens. Pfizer is only running around 3%, Wyeth around 9%; Merck, Sanofi, Glaxo upwards of 20%. Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, in the teens. Is this unreasonable? As an investor in a few of these companies, I say hell no that's not unreasonable.

[cj001f]

2. Drug costs - Look, everyone wants to make this out as the evil pharma companies robbing us blind, after all "in Canada you can get the same drugs for cheap...we should be allowed to buy them in Canada"

 

Let me tell ya something sparky, the US consumer is footing the R&D costs on those drugs because the Canadian and other govts with socialistic healthcare policies negotiate the price and won't accept paying more than a certain % over the production cost. Well guess what? It costs hundreds of millions to bring a new drug to market before it ever goes into production. You, the US consumer, are paying for that.

Will-

You forgot a couple key points there

1) Much of the drug development costs are in regulatory compliance aka the FDA. That's US market specific - and something that could be reformed. Fears of another Thalidomide hamper reform on this front.

2)Novartis and Eli Lilly have operating margins of ~25% That's damn good. The Drug industry has become to depend on blockbuster drugs backed by $Billion in advertising to push their growth.

[Jim]

R&D costs are high for drugs, but the money makers are the fad-of-the-week drugs for social anxiety, hearburn, an erections. How much do you think the drug companies spend on advertising, sponsoring medical junkets, and giving out samples and perks to docs to get them to push their wares.

 

The recent medicare bill shows what influence the drug companies wield. Great clause in the bill NOT allowing medicare to negoiate rates based on their bulk buying power. Wonderful.

[willstrickland]

True cj, the FDA hurdles are market specific, but I believe Europe has similar 3 phase toxicity/efficacy testing requirements that are often waived or rubber stamped if they already have FDA approval. Point being, those drugs will not come to market anywhere without FDA approval because the US market makes up most of the demand and without that market, it wouldn't be profitable to develop and market the drug.

 

If you're speaking strictly operating margins, look at Merck...40%. The blockbuster problem you mention is the catch. This year it may be 40%, two years from now they lose patent protection on a couple of big earners and that margin drops to a Pfizer like 6.5%

 

Extending patent protection may be a solution, but has it's own problems. Maybe a R&D/licensing fee paid to the developer by the generics after patent protection ends? The repercussions of something like that are bound to be big, but I don't pretend to know how it would shake out.

 

For comparison, Microsoft has an operating margin over 20%, as does 3M, Intel, Coca Cola. Hell, look at the big financials...Citibank, MBNA, etc. Citi has a profit margin over 30% and MBNA has a profit margin over 60%!!

 

I think the advertising is an ethical quandary. Personally I think it is wrong, and contributes to our "give me a pill to make my life better, doc" attitudes. How many people are going to "ask your doctor about xxx" who don't really need it? Adult ADD....hmmm, let's create a niche diagnosis, that is likely a real condition, but easily attributed to almost anyone living in our hectic world.

 

I just get riled up every time I hear about the re-importation issue and hear politicians sucking up to the blue-hair set by endorsing it. It's just not as simple as they want it to be.

[Dru]

hey will think about this - the solution is not extending patent protection but cutting it to conform to the world standard.

 

if your patent lasts 20 years you have less incentive to innovate. you make something new, profit for it for 19 years while you develop something else.

 

if your patent lasts 5 years you have to innovate faster and keep coming up with new things, to continue profiting.

 

shorter patent times speed development of new drugs, and reduce the costs to the poor, who benefit when cheaper generic copies become available once patent expires.

[willstrickland]

I don't agree Dru, because the FDA testing and approval process can often take longer than 5 years.

 

Here's another side of it. Alot of the "new" drugs, particularly in antibiotics, have been refinements of the existing drugs. They tweak it a little, get another patent, and the docs prescribe the new-improved version.

 

Personally, I don't feel that the innovation process is slowed or hindered by the patents. I think there are only so many resources that pharma has available and that the testing costs and time are the limiting factor. Streamlining the process there would contribute more to innovation than the pressures of losing patent protection IMO.

 

The situation as I see it is that you CANT sit back and milk a patented drug without continued innovation because there are a dozen other pharma companies out there developing their own proprietary drugs for that same condition to try to take market share. Take Viagra for example...huge cash cow for Pfizer, how long before Cialis hit the market? Before patent expiration.

 

I don't have a solution in mind, but I strongly feel that the US consumer is subsidizing the rest of the world. I can deal with that for certain conditions in poor countries. I can't rationalize it when we are subsidizing other first-world nations.

[Dru]

The only reason you are subsidizing other countries is because your patents last 2 to 4 times as long as they do everywhere else in the world. If you cut your patent rights you would end the subsidy.

[cj001f]

The only reason you are subsidizing other countries is because your patents last 2 to 4 times as long as they do everywhere else in the world. If you cut your patent rights you would end the subsidy.

Sorry Dru, Canadian patents last....20 years.

[willstrickland]

The R&D and testing costs still have to be recovered. If you cut the patent length on the drug, the consumer cost in the US is going to have to go up to recover those costs before the generics hit the shelf and obliterate market share. How exactly do you see this ending the subsidy?

[Dru]

The only reason you are subsidizing other countries is because your patents last 2 to 4 times as long as they do everywhere else in the world. If you cut your patent rights you would end the subsidy.

Sorry Dru, Canadian patents last....20 years.

 

check your source there cj10101010f - patent rights for pharmaceuticals werre reduced specifically to encourage quick generic copying thus lowering prices.

[Dru]

The R&D and testing costs still have to be recovered. If you cut the patent length on the drug, the consumer cost in the US is going to have to go up to recover those costs before the generics hit the shelf and obliterate market share. How exactly do you see this ending the subsidy?

 

the r&d and testing costs are already taken account of in the company profit margin. certainly it will reduce the profitability. but because this will be across the board for all companies equally, it will end up encouraging innovation because if they can't make more money off one drug for a long time, they will have to shift to making a lower profit per drug off several drugs at once.

[Dru]

The only reason you are subsidizing other countries is because your patents last 2 to 4 times as long as they do everywhere else in the world. If you cut your patent rights you would end the subsidy.

Sorry Dru, Canadian patents last....20 years.

 

check your source there cj10101010f - patent rights for pharmaceuticals werre reduced specifically to encourage quick generic copying thus lowering prices.

 

OK I checked my own sources and found out technically you are right and I am wrong - patent does last 20 years. However the generics can get exemptions and generally do, average time between introduction of a new drug and availability of first generic compteitor on the domestic market is 7, not 20 years.