Trump orders FBI to target blacks and environmentalists

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28 Aug 2019, 7:57 am

I've had other issues other than ASD. I had depression, which combined with that, put me on disability a few years ago. Right now, I am working on getting off of disability by substitute teaching, and also by planning to try to drive for Uber.

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kraftiekortie
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28 Aug 2019, 8:02 am

Uber wouldn’t be bad.

I’d do it if I wasn’t such a “scared” driver lol

auntblabby
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28 Aug 2019, 8:06 am

picking up just one psycho would be enough to ruin it for me, permanently.

EzraS
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28 Aug 2019, 8:06 am

I am on disability because I am a total neurological basket case. I can not even find my way around my own neighborhood.

EzraS
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28 Aug 2019, 11:16 am

Kraichgauer wrote:

EzraS wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

Are you seriously trying to tell me conservatives aren't ever heartless?

Are you seriously trying to tell me liberals or anyone else aren't ever heartless?

Kraichgauer wrote:

Or that the GOP hadn't opened it's arms to racists in the Nixon and Reagan years in order to counterbalance the black vote for the Democrats?

Sounds like propaganda.

I'm sure there have been heartless liberals. But considering that conservatives are all about blaming the poor for being poor, believing that racism doesn't exist anymore, and that providing public assistance only spoils people while it's somehow nicer to tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, I'd say it's much more likely for conservatives to be cruel and heartless.
Not propaganda, but historic fact.

I think what it comes down to with those people is there are others getting welfare and disability, for things they themselves would not seek it for. And I mean working class conservatives.

Last edited by EzraS on 28 Aug 2019, 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

EzraS
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28 Aug 2019, 11:20 am

cyberdad wrote:

LoveNotHate wrote:

Conservatives believe they're the good guys.

They teach people to GET A JOB, rather than mooch off others.
They advocate DON'T KILL BABIES, rather than support abortion.
They ask others, OBEY THE LAW, rather than welcome illegal aliens.
They HONOR police, military, and the flag, rather show disrespect.
They follow what a GOD tells them, rather than leading an immoral life.

They also tell the poor and jobless to "eat cake"

Keep in mind the millions of poor uneducated redneck trailer dwelling conservatives you and Bill talk about, who have a 'get a job instead of mooching off me' attitude.

Antrax
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28 Aug 2019, 9:03 pm

The old saying goes that liberals believe conservatives have no heart, while conservatives believe liberals have no brains. Lately it seems to have become that liberals think conservatives have no heart or brains.

I think Elizabeth Warren nailed the progressive mentality during the last debate when she said "I don't see why anyone goes to all the trouble to run for president, just to say what we can't do." It got her a lot of applause and it sounds great. Change we can believe in. We can do anything, if we just get everybody on the same page.

Problem is we can't. There are real limitations to society, and failing to acknowledge those is dangerous, just as failing to acknowledge personal limitations is hazardous to one's health. I know better than most the dangers of pushing oneself past their limits. It cost me the better part of a year of my life and I'm still dealing with the fallout.

By and large conservatives believe in limits. What a liberal sees as "heartless" a conservative sees as "tough love." Now don't get me wrong there are real hateful people who wrap themselves in the conservative flag, but that is not inherent to the ideology, and I would argue does not represent the majority of conservatives.

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beneficii
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28 Aug 2019, 11:16 pm

Antrax wrote:

Oh yes, universal health care is such a pie in the sky idea. It has never been implemented anywhere else in the whole wide world. :roll:

What you got here is a bunch of cliches. It fails to actually engage with the ideas it's implicitly attacking (like universal health care), and just spouts out a few words that seem rational and that are meant to shut down the discussion (like "tough love").

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Antrax
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28 Aug 2019, 11:43 pm

beneficii wrote:

Antrax wrote:

Oh yes, universal health care is such a pie in the sky idea. It has never been implemented anywhere else in the whole wide world. :roll:

If you read my healthcare thread (I know you did), you know it's not that simple. U.S. premiums subsidize healthcare around the world. U.S. companies develop more medical treatments than the rest of the world.

Look, I'll never claim to be 100% right on everything, but chances are if I hold a position it is backed by reasoning. I don't go for blindly taking a position.

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beneficii
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29 Aug 2019, 12:02 am

Antrax wrote:

That's a myth:

https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.137 ... 0376/full/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-tru ... companies/

As AOC noted in a committee hearing, the US government actually subsidizes a substantial portion of drug research, particularly early on in the research, but the government doesn't see a cent of return on its investment. The drug companies get to jack up prices and keep all of the profit:

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Antrax
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29 Aug 2019, 12:09 am

beneficii wrote:

Antrax wrote:

It's not a myth if you understood a lick of economics. Pharmaceutical companies have to make a profit in order to attract talent and investment from other industries. Any extra profit they make from the US is profit they don't have to make elsewhere.

A pharmaceutical company operating at 0% profit would not have the same resources as one operating at a 15% profit.

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beneficii
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29 Aug 2019, 12:13 am

Antrax wrote:

beneficii wrote:

Antrax wrote:

So you're not going to engage with any of the evidence. OK.

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29 Aug 2019, 12:28 am

beneficii wrote:

Antrax wrote:

beneficii wrote:

Antrax wrote:

So you're not going to engage with any of the evidence. OK.

You don't understand, I am engaging with your "evidence." The profits from the U.S. are greater than the research and development costs. The U.S. government helps subsidize research and development this is all true.

However, the companies still put 76 billion into R&D while maintaining competitive profit rates. If they didn't have their current profit rates they couldn't put 76 billion into R&D.

IF they didn't have the tax subsidies they couldn't do that either.

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beneficii
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29 Aug 2019, 12:56 am

Antrax wrote:

Well, first off, profit doesn't go into R&D. It goes to the shareholders. Second, the profit comes after R&D and other costs are paid.

Anyway, now that is settled. According to the Health Affairs article:

Quote:

Government and industry reports in Europe and Canada undercut the myth of foreign free riders. As Europeans and Canadians will tell you, the prices charged on new patented drugs are very high, about 30--50 times manufacturing costs.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.137 ... 0376/full/

In addition, if it was not profitable for those companies to sell to those countries, then they simply would not. They would not raise prices in the US to make up for it. They would simply stop selling to those countries they feel don't pay enough.

The reason why prices are so high in the US is specified in that same article:

Quote:

One reason why Americans pay even more is that our political leaders are richly rewarded by an army of more than 1,000 lobbyists to not set up an independent agency to determine fair prices that reflect the added clinical value for patients: Drug companies champion what they call a “free market,” but they want to disarm the purchasing side of the market before bargaining even starts. We have all witnessed the market pricing spirals that result in burdens for businesses and taxpayers.

In addition, as the article states, what you Antrax are referring to implicitly, is essentially economic blackmail:

Quote:

When pharmaceutical companies threaten that they will cut back on research if Americans pay European or Canadian prices, it’s a kind of economic blackmail: Pay our excess US prices, or your families will suffer from cutbacks on research for new cures. President Donald Trump and his team should call this bluff, because no research-based industry will cut back on the source of their own future revenues. The drug industry could much more easily cut back on marketing costs, which are two to three times greater than reported research costs before taxpayers’ subsidies.

The $76 billion in research and development that pharmaceutical companies claim overlooks the ways that US employers and taxpayers pay for at least 44 percent of total corporate research and development through tax subsidies and credits. If one adds the taxes not paid when companies park tens of billions in foreign tax havens, most of the high risk and cost of pharmaceutical research is actually borne by taxpayers, not the companies. And this does not take into account the billions in research conducted by the National Institutes of Health, other government agencies, foundations, and charities.

So I think that what you mention, Antrax, does not tell the whole story.

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29 Aug 2019, 1:33 am

beneficii wrote:

Antrax wrote:

Well, first off, profit doesn't go into R&D. It goes to the shareholders. Second, the profit comes after R&D and other costs are paid.

Anyway, now that is settled.

See this is where you're missing the point. How did shareholders become shareholders? By buying into the company. They loaned money to the company in order to get profit back at a later date. If pharmaceutical companies can't deliver those same shareholders instead invest in tech, oil, banking etc.

As for it being economic blackmail. It's just stone cold reality. If companies make less profit, they have less resources. If they have less resources they have to cut back on production.

As for it being profitable in other countries. Yes, the marginal cost of extra production makes it profitable to sell at those prices. This is due to economies of scale. The bottom line of the companies is still dependent on those U.S. sales.

As for the government being bad at negotiating prices. This is why we end up subsidizing the world's medical costs. Ideally I wouldn't want us to be doing that, but since the system is in place we have to evaluate where it is and what potential changes will do to it.

If you want me to explain any of the economics in greater detail I'm willing to do that. It's all standard fare that both Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes would agree on.

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auntblabby
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29 Aug 2019, 1:48 am

us subsidizing the rest of the world while pofolk here go bankrupt or are forced to do without medical care, is sickening to anybody with a heart not made of stone.

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