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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Anytime a visible asshole does what other assholes do invisibly, they'll be pointed to as the bad apple rather than representative of a bigger problem. The other assholes have to do that, lest people come down on all of them instead of just the one with the big mouth.
That said, he jacked up the price of a drug that people needed. A lot of companies have done that. He only bragged about it. It's hard for me to imagine how companies will convince anyone by saying "This guy's the problem, not us" when really, the actual behavior is identical. I think people will know that what he did, not how he acted about it, is the problem.
He may have painted a punchable human face on the problem, but it's the problem that people hate even more than him. One can say "Drug prices need to be regulated" and companies can't possibly say "It's just this one guy, you know."
edited 25th Sep '15 8:55:05 AM by BonsaiForest
edited 25th Sep '15 9:37:04 AM by BonsaiForest
Yes. Why would you think otherwise?
Editorial: Donald Trump is Saving our Democracy
I don't see what's wrong about companies moving to nations that give them the most support. That stops the governments from abusing their power.
Leviticus 19:34I think I've stated before that the only distribution of power I'd ever be happy with was one where I had absolute power.
In general, elites are a bad thing - one solution is citizen empowerment, but citizen jackasses aren't any more trustworthy than government or corporate jackasses (doxxing, for example, is not an example of the responsible use of citizen power - it's an example of internet vigilantism).
If you declare Hobbes to be correct and humanity basically a collection of selfish idiots, then no institution should be trusted with any kind of real power, but I rather prefer to live in the opposite world where you can make great things happen by choosing the right people to put into positions of authority and giving them the resources they need to do their work.
edited 25th Sep '15 11:22:37 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
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Think this way, X country or state has some regulations companies don't enjoy, Y state is desperate for some investment and industry so Y state lowers standards and drops regulations for the companies in X to move to Y.
Meanwhile those companies screw around as much as they can legally in Y and another Z state is trying to attract more business for the same reason was Y, then both Z and Y engage in a fiscal war to see which one is more attractive for the companies.
After a while every citizen in X, Y and Z get screwed because those regulations were in place to not let them get fucked over some stuff like labour rights, unfair pricing and exploitative work.
edited 25th Sep '15 11:22:01 AM by AngelusNox
Inter arma enim silent leges
I'm not sure how that follows. I mean, I'd love to have folks like Krugman telling governments how to run economies, as opposed to, say, Paul Ryan. So if that makes me a technocrat, sure, why not?
However, we have seen in Europe the horrible consequences of setting technocrats to run things — they bring their pet theories to governance, which may or may not have anything to do with reality, and demonstrate woeful ineptitude at being in charge of nations.
edited 25th Sep '15 11:37:02 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"ascribing to a single philosophy or ideology for governance seems to be asurefire way to, whichever way you go, create a rigid, inflexible system that cannot be perfect
It is hard to remember or cope with the fact that nothing "perfect" exists
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesThe ideal ruler of a nation or group of nations needs to be a generalist: someone with a broad capacity to absorb and make sense out of vast amounts of often contradictory information. Specialists tend to get trapped in the limited scope of their fields of expertise.
Generalists surround themselves with specialists in order to gain access to the depth of knowledge they need to inform any given decision, but relying on the specialists to make those decisions is likely to lead them into error.
Paul Krugman, as awesome as he is at economics (and Civil War history) is not leader material — first, because he's about as eloquent on a podium as an acne-stricken teenager, and second, because he would be sacrificing his proven areas of expertise in order to deal with stuff that he has no background on whatsoever.
edited 25th Sep '15 11:48:58 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"This is from the article I'd been reading. It's a super long one, be warned.
But I find that excerpt very interesting.
Perfect is a subjective term to anybody who uses it. :p
Even the best case somebody can imagine may not be perfect by their own standards, but somehow they'd still know it if they saw it.
And governments need to be able to change. New things are learned and new problems arise. The same rules won't always work for a changing world.
You gotta believe me when I scare you away, all that I wish for is that you would stayedited 25th Sep '15 12:03:18 PM by tclittle
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."Oh, boy. Let's publicly doxx welfare recipients so that gun-toting redneck vigilantes can pay them a visit.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"By his logic, everyone who receives any government benefit should have their personal information made public. So, about that tax subsidy for your expensive office building...
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

As long as sociopaths like that exist, there will be a reason to regulate drug prices and the use of medical IP. I do worry a little bit that he will be held out by the mainstream drug companies as an obvious outlier that's being used to stir up populist resentment, rather than a canary warning of a deeper threat.
edited 25th Sep '15 8:44:04 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"