I just popped into this thread - what a riot! Still, I gotta question a couple of things. One, to iscariot: You say Charlton Heston can’t act? Check out Wayne’s World Two (I think it’s the second one) where he has a bit part as a gas station attendant. It’s an amazing, hilarious bit, and if after seeing it you still think he can’t act, well, tell me why. Also, to colin: Monopolies are not created just through government intervention - what about Standard Oil (the archetypical monopoly), which was eventually dismantled by the government?
irony… you dont say…
what is the end of your post all about? it looks like you just cut and pasted the end of my post…
A Monopoly is a producer who maximizes profits by reducing supply. In 1869 the price of oil was .30/gallon, 1874 it was .10/gallon in 1897 it was .059/gallon. In 1911 when the government broke up Standard Oil, there were many competitors, including Associated Oil and Gas, Texaco, and Gulf. Standard’s market share fell from 88% in 1890 to 11% in 1911. This great drop in prices was a result of fierce competition, which is a result of a profit opportunity and a free market. Standard Oil DID NOT reduce their supply, nor did they raise their price. If they did, they would have lost market share even more rapidly. The main groups supporting anti-trust laws are the competitors of the winners (AOL, Sun, and a bunch of other losers wanted Microsoft’s head for a long time), and these laws in no way benefit consumers. Compare that with the post office, where UPS, Fedex and Purolator must increase their prices by law in order to preserve the governments monopoly. Drug companies get a nice free ride with patents as well, meaning protection from the government.
Colin, what incentive would a drug company have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man hours researching, testing, and getting FDA approval for a drug if it doesn’t have exclusive rights to produce and market that drug for a certain number of years? Why are the patent rights of a drug company any less valuable and any less worthy of protection than the copyright and trademark protections offered to artists, writers, film makers, or musicians?
Weapon X (I can’t beleive I am addressing someone as that while discussing intellectual property rights), the real question is not whether or not progress will occur without patent protection, but is patent protection necessary to recoop costs as they exits today? The answer is yes, but the costs that must be recouped are almost completly administrative and legal and are only created because it is necessary to deal with levithan government agencies. Without the regulatory bodies, all that is needed is the research and manufacturing. Research, for the most part, is done by grad students and Profs who get paid very little. A bunch of projects are run “on the cheap” by drug companies, that one might come through and pay the bills as well as return a large profit. The inflated monopoly profits from patents are needed to recupe the artificial costs produced by government intervention. Without the patents, there would still be large opportunities for profits, there are no patents on most steriods, yet Brock and his crew have favorite brands they recommend, these companies have an opprotunity for profits and there is competition. And steriods are a shit market, it’s small, fractured and they illegal for the most part. It’s like Coke and Pepsi, we buy it for the brand and not the exclusivity, profits can exist nicely without profits. Without Patents and government regulation the gang at T-mag could become a steriod company, all it take is know how and balls, not massive gangs of lawyers and so forth. Copyrights are no different than this patent situation, but fraud is still wrong (meaning mis-representation, like me saying me ripoff is actually Coke).
iscariot yer uh commie arnt chuh?
Downt chuh now if yer merkin yuh need tuh drink burr an beet yer wief and bee prad tuh be merikin an luv jeezuz cuz he’ll get peyissed if ya dont, oh an don bee a fayg, oh an U can get drunk cuz thats whu mayks men men lon as it aint some kina wussy drink, but don smowk that wakytubacky cuz U’'ll trn untu one them commee faygs an jeezuz won like it, oh an yuh got tuh liek cuntry music and woopass on towlheds tuh be 'Merkin!
Just Kidding, I’m pro freedom and pro responsibility, if I scr*w-up its my problem, but I’ll do what I want thankyouverymuch, don’t tell me what to think and don’t tell me what to do, especialy what substances I wish to use, unless It causes a harm to you, that goes for all of you rightist and lefties, I’m not a Christian by a large margin because I feel religion is for sheeple altho I’l defend someone right to belive whatever they need to cope with this world, just dont get any on me, as socialism is for sheeple, and I only pay taxes because “they” have more guns than I.
Splitting the argument right and left is a congame to keep us from looking at up and down, individualist or statist, don’t be a sucker.
WWDHD-What would Dirty harry do
I’m not sure where you got your info but drug studies are not “cheap.” I’ve done legal work on behalf of a major pharmaceutical company; work that involved reviewing both the studies conducted and the FDA approval of a drug. I’ve seen the costs first hand and “cheap” is not a word that springs to mind.
As far as your argument, I’m interested in how you think drug companies could recoup profits without patents. Taking into account the costs associated with failed drugs that must be recouped, costs which are not borne by generic producers; 2) the fact that generic drugs are now routinely “pushed” by insurance companies/HMOs because they are cheaper; 3) the cost of advertising that would ensure that a drug became as well known as Coke or Pepsi; and 4) the legal costs associated with defending the multiple class action suits that arise the minute a new drug is placed into the market.
I think most people dislike drug patents for a very simple reason, an overblown sense of entitlement that comes from being an American. I want it now, and I want it for what I’m willing to pay for it, which is very little.
Actually, the sense of entitlement is with the drug companies. Business is not for the weak of heart, and if a loss occurs from poor research management, sobeit. The actual cost of a good researcher doing research is very very small (ie cheap) as compared to the cost of bringing a drug to market. Most of the legal costs for bringing a drug to market is to cover the ass of the producer through FDA approval. These laws don’t actually protect well (witness the huge number of deaths related to perscription drugs) and they crowd out marginal producers. If a researcher could just commission a factory to produce thier baby, all of the legal costs would be ommited. This would still not remove large companies from the market, they could just improve and “guarantee” thier product as they claim to now. Drug companies have the highest return on equity of any sector, they are the definition of a monopoly. Monopolies have a negative effect on the economy, and these companies do not occur due to (pure) market activities, so the government should but out. Where there is demand, there will be supply, consider the narcotics industry, it is efficient and a drug consumer will not go without finding the drugs available. This is inspite of the fact that any trade in this industry brings stiff penalties. Do you really think that without patents there would be no drugs produced? If we romove the legal expense (which a complete drain) the price will fall and the supply will increase as more companies are able to compete (as the fixed legal expenses remove marginal competitors from the market) for what once were monopoly profits.
colin the conservatives are nothing like the founding fathers of this country. liberals are much closer-freethinkers and rationalists. conservatives want to bring back the dark ages. witness the ravings of
tom delay and the rest of the conservative jackoffs.
Yeh, it looks like it’s cut and pasted onto the end, because that’s what I do when I want to answer a person point x point, I delete as I go. The problem this time was that my bloody PC crashed in the middle of the message and it got sent and accepted somehow. I did send a please delete message to the moderator, who deleted the apology but not the original message. shrug
DEAR PRAHD - um eye a comma? wheel I doan lyk redd and I ain’t sharing ma lika with no man-bastard or there mothr.
DA MAN - considering all your talk about guns on that other thread, I think i’ll just leave you alone…tell me, does the right to bear arms necessarily constitute enough arms to outfit a small militia? Just what constitutes protection? Are liberals any less entitled to free speech cos they don’t agree with you…and your guns…
And to whomever said Charlie can act… you’re having me on right??? But then again I loathed WW1 and WW2…
ok, i see what happened. it just kind of confused me that it went from your post to the end of mine…
As far as the second am.- I have every right, and in my eyes, responsibility to be as well armed as the possible foe I am arming to combat. In the case of the 2nd- it would be the government. The 2nd was written by the founding fathers to ensure that the populous of this new found country could protect themselves from a government gone bad. And they knew that such things could happen, because they had just finished a war with such a government. The 2nd is not there to ensure that I can hunt, or that I can protect against burglars- while I consider those very valid reasons to own a firearm, they are not the reason for the 2nd. the 2nd was written to ensure that future generations could not be disarmed and dominated by a tyrannical government. That was one of Hitlers first acts, disarming the populous ‘for their own safety.’ Then the Third Reich(SP?) walked in and took the place over. That is an example of a government turning on its people in this era, not way back when the country was founded over 200 years ago.
Do you see my point? I have the right to ensure protection from a possibility that the government may turn against its citizens, and this happening is not unheard of. And in doing so, have the right to arm myself as well as the government arms theirs- which means as many and as powerful as I can get.
Do I think it would happen in my lifetime? no. Do I think it would happen within a 100 years? no. But as the saying goes- better safe than sorry.
Concerning my man Charlie- SOILENT GREEN IS MADE OUT OF PEOPLE!!! PEOPLE I TELL YOU!!!
Iscariot, just see the movie I recommended. Then tell me he can’t act. I don’t particularly care for Heston’s politics either - but he can act. 'Nuff said. To colin: A monopoly is a company that monopolizes, i.e. has something like 90% market share. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with restricting supply, although some monopolies, like De Beers, do engage in that practice. If a company’s only being wildly successful and nothing else, the gov’t probably won’t do anything. However, if it’s using it’s monopolization to enforce unfair business practices (a la Microsoft), then there’s nothing for it except to have Big Brother step in and regulate things a bit. So governments, while perhaps creating monopolies at times, also take them out. The reason the price of oil went down during the late 1800’s wasn’t due to increased competition, it was due to the fact that the main by-product of oil at that time, kerosene, came to be in less and less demand, mainly due to inventions like electric lights. When cars came into existence and became widespread, there was a new demand for oil and the price went up again. Just supply & demand, nothing else. While there were other oil companies here and there in America at the time, none of them were in any serious sense Standard’s “competitor”. Calling a regional producer that’s struggling to carve a niche for itself in one area a “competitor” to a world-wide empire that generated the world’s richest man is sort of like saying a rowboat is a competitor to an aircraft carrier. They’re both in the same ocean…but that’s about it.
Char, a monopoly is a firm that can achieve monopoly profits. Profits are a function of quantity, price, and costs. A firm can only price through a control of supply (because they cannot just ask a price and sell without someone buying), not through market share. There were no barriers to entry in the oil industry (just the cost of starting up) and oil demand has (over time) run up and up and up. The invention of the automobile and proliferation of the rails created a demand for oil kerosine could never match. What unfair business practices is Microsoft guilty of?
Two things. First of all the question phrased in this context is unanswerable. iscariot take a logic course or read a book on logic. The answer to your question is “Yes it is just you”. The question is phrased like “have you stopped beating your wife” If you answer at all the converstion is closed. Maybe you should try to think. Very few liberals do so that is why their debates typically reduce to he said she said crap and stray from logic of point counter point. Learn to think then do some research then re-address the question.
Well, first off - I don’t think I need the logic course as much as you need the course in semantics.
Yes, if you follow a purely A-B logical train then you can indeed say “yes it is just you”, However, in context, the question is not a closed chain. Examining, we see a structure:
opinion:question:context. Removing the latter element would indeed close the chain, otherwise it is open.
"The answer to your question is “Yes it is just you”. So much for your logic - any question, even a closed one, has a binary possibility of answer.
“If you answer at all the converstion is closed”. Only if you choose to be pedantic or are unable to read in context - I bet you just hate poetry, or anything other than an instruction manual.
“Maybe you should try to think” Why should I when I have such a wonderful example of what happens when you do…
Time to slow the short bus down and grab Iscariot’s helmut for him. It is interesting that you would simply parrot back what I have said. However since you have chosen that vain I will begrudgeonley follow to humor myself. I would ask you to go back and re-read my preveous post which is not A-B logic if you read it. As you pointed out context is very important. The funny thing is you left out a major part of my previous post which didn’t attack what you said but how you said it. If you are going to make a case of semantics or context it is very helpful if you first establish what they are to you. Ok I am humored.
So where’s the topic of “comparative morality” here?
Does this mean that you are a liberal and believe in comparitive morality Iscariot?
Also, thanks for the argument about logic and semantics knuckle and iscariot. It was a good laugh. Certainly conversational logic is not so pure merely because of the language we use.
I wonder why it is that everytime you respond to something you disagree with, you initiate your response with a series of personally based comments. Is it some sort of insecurity thing…oh, and just so you feel comfortable with the abuse thing…grin you can’t spell, but even though I disagree with you, I won’t hold that up as a sign of inferior intelligence like you would.
Now, to cases. Quoting, or citation, is hardly parroting - especially if it is used as a basis for refutation; tell me, did you just read the cited bits and go “he’s repeating me” or did you actually read the whole thing.
Of course what you wrote follows an A-B argument tenet, if as you state the question is phrased in such a manner that there can only be one response [which it doesn’t but that’s OK].
I am well aware that your were attacking construction - I disagreed with that statement and gave the reasons therof why I disagreed with that.
But moving along: the part in your first argument that I ignored [ I assume you’re referring to the bit about how liberals argue] is specious at best. Parents do it all the time i.e. “I said so” or “just because” and I guess some parents are conservative. Politicians of both spectrums do it, religious leaders do it too. I remember when I was younger and messing around with the occult and I was spoken to by one of my pastors who said, “Do not do it”. Me, “why”. Pastor “the bible says so”. Me, “what does the bible say”.
Pastor, “that your shouldn’t do it…” etc.
But this gets back to what I was oringinally referring to, the apparent presupposition on the list that liberals think a certain way and that they should be pilloried for it. Go figure.
Wow, that’s a lot of response. I guess I’d better cut-n-paste to deal with it… [A monopoly is a firm that can achieve monopoly profits.] No, it’s not. Where did you find that definition? The definition being used in the real world today (again, the Microsoft case) is: more or less 90% market share or better. [Profits are a function of quantity, price, and costs.] Okay. [A firm can only price through a control of supply (because they cannot just ask a price and sell without someone buying), not through market share.] Technically right, but real-world wrong. A firm that controls 90% of the market for a commodity like oil can pretty much set its own price, since there’s no where else most consumers will be able to go to get the commodity. For luxury items, sure, I’ll agree with you. But not the necessities. [There were no barriers to entry in the oil industry (just the cost of starting up)…] Wrong. Standard Oil, in fact, made it very difficult for start-ups for a long time. Their tactics included personal intimidation, sabotaging oil pipelines and buying up large parcels of land so that their competitors couldn’t run their pipes through them. […and oil demand has (over time) run up and up and up.] As a general trend, yes, okay. [The invention of the automobile and proliferation of the rails created a demand for oil kerosine could never match.] Okay. Your point being…? [What unfair business practices is Microsoft guilty of?] Gee, do you read the papers much? Polluting Java, intimidating buyers, lying to the public… A better question might be, what AREN’T they guilty of?