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Post by Retrograde on Dec 21, 2006 13:19:42 GMT -4
ÊßÑã Úíäß. ãä æíä ÈÊÚÑÝ ÊÍßí ÚÑÈí¿ Sorry, I do not know how this looks on your screen, but it does not display properly here. I do not know if I would understand it anyway, my Arabic is very limited
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Post by Retrograde on Dec 21, 2006 13:12:18 GMT -4
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Post by Retrograde on Dec 21, 2006 12:01:16 GMT -4
ßá ÓäÉ æÇäÊ ØíøÈÉ
Edit - bloody hell, unicode doesn't work here. I hope this is comprehensible:
kullu sina winti Tayyiba
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NORAD
Dec 22, 2006 22:30:14 GMT -4
Post by Retrograde on Dec 22, 2006 22:30:14 GMT -4
Hey, some people even think Moon Man is real.
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Post by Retrograde on Jan 3, 2007 22:37:58 GMT -4
Also, I have learned that if Saddam had not used chemical weapons against the Iranians, the Iranians would have overtaken Iraq. Iran would have won the war. Iran was using a tactic where they would swarm the battlefield with waves of endless Iranians. Iraq did not have any other way to stop the multitude. That might have been a good thing for him to think about before attacking Iran. . . If "our ally" means "ally of the Americans," then I think there was some other reason he was their ally during the 1980s. . . Iraq has a modest population, and huge natural resources. Under competent management, it should have become a fairly prosperous and pleasant place. In my opinion, Saddam was the biggest disaster to befall Iraq in recent decades, with the possible exception of the era of American management. . .
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WJWYT?
Sept 4, 2006 20:42:50 GMT -4
Post by Retrograde on Sept 4, 2006 20:42:50 GMT -4
Which one has the more interesting work?
Regarding real estate in California being a better investment, historically that's probably been true, but as the mutual fund people say, past performance is no guarantee of future results. . .
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Post by Retrograde on Sept 6, 2006 10:53:00 GMT -4
yesa, on this I can agree with you. There remains, jhowever, a possibility that the drug market is watched, and if you take 100 million dollars to produce that medicine, you shouldn't charge for it more than a certain price or so. Are you familiar with such scenarios. Well, first thing, even if the market is regulated, if they can't inflate the cost of the drug development, they're not trying. But leaving that to one side, it doesn't matter. Suppose the profits from the new treatment are indeed lower than the profits from the old treatment, due to regulation, or for some other reason. It doesn't make a difference, see my posts in this thread for some examples. For a conspiracy to work here, it needs to be in the interest of each individual firm to suppress the new treatment, not just in the aggregate. For a conspiracy like this to work, you need not only for the profits from the new treatment to be lower than the old treatment, but you also need monopolistic (or cartel) power on the part of the firms producing the old treatment. If a firm not currently profiting from the old treatment is able to develop a new treatment, why on earth would they say, "We can make a lot of money from this new treatment, but let's suppress it in order to protect the profits that other firms are making from the old treatment."? Even firms that are currently profiting from the old treatment will have an interest in developing the new treatment, despite the lower aggregate profitability of this newer treatment, if it helps them increase their market share. The only way I can see something like this happen is when the firm(s) producing the current treatment has(ve) monopoly power. In the plural case, they must form a cartel, and cartels are notoriously plagued by cheating, since individually, it's better for each cartel member to be out of the cartel than in it. If there is a competitive market, this sort of thing just won't happen. . .
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Post by Retrograde on Aug 31, 2006 17:49:21 GMT -4
It's my understanding that only one type of ape can get AIDS. In fact, that was one of the early holdups to any serious AIDS research by the CDC--they couldn't afford the apes. The early steps of disease research usually use far cheaper animals, but the only apes they could find that were susceptible were chimpanzees. Even marmosets aren't cheap (as much as $700,000 including restraints, facilities, etc.), Crikey! I had no idea apes cost this much. Couldn't they get humans? so figure chimps would be impossible to hide from stockholders on a budget. Personally, I think mischaracterization is the way to go. I've found 800 million USD assets on balance sheets labelled "Other" ;D
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Post by Retrograde on Aug 31, 2006 17:46:30 GMT -4
There's nothing particularly special about drugs here. Why is there any innovation at all? It may be in the interests of existing producers to prevent innovation, but they don't have the power to prevent it. A classic example here would be the way Kodak and Fuji both got into making digital cameras as soon as possible, despite being the world's major film producers. Most excellent point. Love the hat and glasses, by the way. . .
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Post by Retrograde on Aug 31, 2006 17:45:07 GMT -4
I would find it distressingly possible for one to not do so, institutions can have an unfortunate tendancy to get creative with asssiming tutors to a subject, particularly if they have a shortage of them for that subject. For example the person teaching my databases class this year's real job was degining aircraft and offten gave the impression of being about two chapters ahead of us in the textbook (though he managed to do a good job anyway). I should know better - I was that tutor once ;D Whether I did a good job or not, I won't judge, but I got out of that job in a hurry. . .
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Post by Retrograde on Aug 31, 2006 17:14:27 GMT -4
And of couse we know that economics teachers and the internet can never be wrong? I certainly hope an economics teacher would understand competitive, monopolistic, and oligopolistic markets, and how price determination and innovation occur in each of them. In particular, I hope an economics teacher would understand that while it is in the interests of an industry as a whole to form a cartel, it is not in the interests of each individual producer to join the cartel. As for seeing it on the internet I've seen that the world is flat and the sun goes round it, Venus has a pleasent climate with a thriving civilisation, and that the British royal family are all lizards from outerspace, All true ;D what makes drug companies hiding a cure for AIDS rather than making metric buttloads of cash off of it is any more likely than any of those? Well, I think the scenario painted is indeed more likely than the others you mention ;D , as a company with an existing treatment for AIDS does indeed have an incentive to prevent other treatments from being developed. But what they would like to do is wholly irrelevant, if they lack the power to do it, and in a competitive market, they lack this power. . .
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Post by Retrograde on Aug 31, 2006 17:07:32 GMT -4
but that company wouldn't use this drug since it also, decreases its profits on the long run.But here you're assuming that Company B is making the same profit as Company A from the same catagory of drugs. In real life if you have compeditors, generally one is more profitable in an area than the other. Variability in profit margins isn't needed here though. All you need is for the innovator to capture the gain (the profits from the new treatment) while the pain (loss of profits from the old treatment) is shared. The decision of the innovator to develop the new drug will be based on its effects on their own profits, not on the aggregate profits of all producers. There's nothing particularly special about drugs here. Why is there any innovation at all? It may be in the interests of existing producers to prevent innovation, but they don't have the power to prevent it. People make the same argument about the secret miracle automotive technology by which you can build a cheap reliable automobile that can fly to the moon on a litre of petrol or whatever the hell it is, but which is being suppressed to protect the profits of the existing producers. Sounds nice, until you take microeconomics 101. Hey - I've got a new theory. The technology to fly to the moon existed in the 1960s, but was suppressed to protect the profits of everyone making money from fake moon landings. What do you think?
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Post by Retrograde on Aug 31, 2006 16:32:41 GMT -4
but that company wouldn't use this drug since it also, decreases its profits on the long run. See my post on this. Suppose there are five companies in the business, the profits from the current treatment are USD 100 million per annum, and each of the five firms has a 20% share of these profits. If the profits from an alternative treatment are USD 40 million per annum, then certainly the collective profits of the industry go down if the alternative treatment is brought to market. But if one of these firms can develop and patent the alternative treatment, they will gain USD 20 million per annum - 20 million lost, and 40 million gained. Why would they care that the other firms are losing 80 million per annum now? Furthermore, there are companies that aren't profiting from the sale of existing treatments. If one of them can develop an alternative treatment, why would they not do it? What interest do they have in protecting the profits of the firms selling the existing treatment? The scenario of suppression of a superior treatment in favor of profits only works in a monopolistic environment (could happen there) or in a cartel (usually breaks down because of cheating). In a competitive market, why would a firm say "We have a new treatment for this disease, but let's suppress it, because we want to protect the profits of the other firms selling existing treatment to this disease"?
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Post by Retrograde on Aug 31, 2006 15:42:18 GMT -4
echnaton I think I heard about the possibility of exploring the AIDS drug but keeping it in secret from my economy teacher at school. I amsure I read something on the internet about that. However, maybe you are right that nobody can keep the secret of exploring a new medicine, but you seem to assume that info become public as tests proceed. I don't know, but what if the tests are done in secret, i.e some inportant company tries medicine of AIDS on apes in underground studies? If you have any info, please tell me what do you think Well, certainly a pharmaceutical company wants to keep as much secrecy around its drug development as possible, because it doesn't want its competitors to steal its ideas. But once the drug is developed, why keep it secret? The rational that has been offered here is to protect their profits from other, more profitable treatments. When does this make sense? Well, if company X has a monopoly on treatment of AIDS, and they discover there is a better treatment, but which is less profitable for them, certainly there is a strong incentive for them not to cannibalize their existing product. That's a case where the conspiracy could work, although even then, there is a great deal of risk - what if one of the many people involved in the development of the drug decides to talk? Furthermore as soon as company Y discovers the better treatment, the game is over - company Y has no interest in protecting the profits of company X. If company X does not have a monopoly, then it would probably bring to market the new treatment anyway, even if it reduces the aggregate profits of the companies involved in treatment of the disease. They will do this, because it increases their own profits - when they cannibalize existing treatments, they are reducing the profits mostly of other companies. So why would they not be willing to do that? In a market with multiple producers, the way a superior (but less profitable) product would be suppressed would be if the producers form a cartel, and agree to keep the new product suppressed. Cartels, however, are plagued by cheating - look at OPEC, for example. The reason for this is simple - the aggregate profits of the cartel are higher if everyone maintains discipline. But the individual profits of a particular producer are higher if that producer breaks discipline. This is why a lot of conspiracies don't work. It's not because we can trust the would-be conspirators; it's because the would-be conspirators can't trust each other ;D
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Post by Retrograde on Aug 31, 2006 15:30:48 GMT -4
the logic behind this is, for example: you have to treat a cancer patient with chemotherapy which will generate a lot more profit thatn if you give him a pill medicine for a few months. So it wiln ot matter the fear of anyone exploring the medicine as he will not sell it, as chemotherapy is more profitable for him also. Well, if it is always him. But as pointed out, these markets are competitive. If I am making a lot of money on chemotherapy, I may not want to develop a drug that eliminates the need for my main product, but why would someone else not develop it? Someone who is not making money on chemotherapy? That person wouldn't be interested in protecting my profits. These conspiratorial explanations only work if there is a monoploy or cartel in the particular market. And certainly sometimes there is. But from what I can tell of the pharmaceutical market, it is characterized by vigorous competition. And this is the usual protection against most corporate abuse - we don't rely on the goodwill of the people running corporations, but the existence of product market competition that denies them the ability to do much that we might regard as unscrupulous. . .
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