From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Mon Jul 16 2001 - 20:13:49 MDT
On Monday, July 16, 2001 3:07 PM Randy Smith randysmith101@hotmail.com
wrote:
>Exactly. A very recent news article showed that drug companies
>spend a fraction on reseach of what they spend on advertising.
I don't want to defend the drug companies here, but this does not mean that
the advertizing is not socially useful. For example, it lets people know
about the products. Also, some of the so called ad money went, according to
drug company spokespeople to giving out free samples.
That said, I think the real problem with drug companies is not so much their
budgets or how they divide, but the fact that they basically have a
protected market here in the US. With the FDA and perscription drug laws,
the costs for entry into that market are prohibitively high. Are you
willing to go along with getting rid of these regulations, which only seem
to slow down innovation and drive up costs?
>There must always be a first step. The main problem is that business
>has planted in the brains of us Americans that the economic indicators
> that indicate good opportunity for business, must also necessarily
>mean that things are good for Americans.
Suggest some measures. I don't think standard of living is the only measure
people go by these days. To be antibusiness or anticapitalist is not
something new. It's been around for a long, long time and has never really
gone out of fashion.
>Slaves are good for businesses. They work rather cheaply. But not
>so good for the slaves...
If that's so, how come slavery isn't practiced more widely today?
Why was the South poor and the North rich before the Civil War?
Why don't we see a lot of business going on in the Sudan, where slavery is
still practiced? It should be an economic powerhouse by that line of
thinking.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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