Re-import Prescription Drugs?

Buying prescription drugs in other countries and reimportation seems to be mostly a tricky sleight of hand that only benefits the end user. Do we really believe that putting drugs in a shipping container, shipping them off to some other country and then bringing them back somehow magically reduce its cost? Many foreign markets threaten to confiscate the drug company's patents as extortion to force the companies to sell at lower prices. The company has patents to protect their investment in research and development. If a generic company can 'steal' the patented formula because another country invalidates a patent, then the generic company can produce and sell a drug for dirt cheap while avoiding the cost of R&D. And since many of the world's governments have gone the socialized medicine route, the US is one of the lonely protectors of patent protection that fuels private investment into R&D.

And then there is the question of safety. Are those cheap-o knock offs whipped up in outer Slobovia going to be up to the FDA standards? Are concerns about purity and safety legitimate? BTW, do all those protections enforced by the FDA drive up costs in the US?

What about all the hand wringing over outsourcing? Where is all the concern for American jobs and a 'living wage' from the let's-buy-foreign-drugs crowd? Keeping these jobs here and charging high prices certainly must help the 'living wage' situation, right? But apparently that's not so great for low prices. There is no free lunch.

And as one of the richest countries on the planet, shouldn't we feel good that we, the global 1%'ers, are carrying the load and helping out our global brothers and sisters? Isn't the world justified in pointing their finger of judgment towards us and telling us we are not paying our fair share? Is this just a global tax of our obscene wealth? Aren't higher prices for us just a progressive payment structure that allows those less fortunate than us to share in the pharmaceutical bounty? Just spreading the wealth around a bit? Can we say that those who are trying to get out of their prescription drug fair share hate the world's poor?

The same crowd that condemns Walmart's evil importation offshore goods in order to lower costs seems to have no problem with the Walmart-ization of medicine. Providing goods at lower costs that allows the poor to enjoy a much higher cost of living is moral outrage when Walmart does it, but when the reimport drugs crowd proposes a similar model for prescription drugs, in order to do an end run around pharmaceutical companies and their high domestic costs, it is a moral necessity.

I guess it all depends on who's wallet is being gored. Or whose vote you are looking for.

Big Government Means Bigger Business

Newsflash: The rich are already rich. Higher tax rates don't prevent them from being or becoming rich. The wealthy are less concerned with higher tax rates because they will avoid taxation by shuffling their wealth around and by collaborating with government to ensure their position. Higher tax rates will not prevent GE and the Hollywood effete from acquiring wealth – they have already ascended. Large corporations are natural allies of heavy handed fiscal policy because they are better positioned to influence government in their favor and better able to reposition themselves financially and globally in order to skirt or avoid taxation. Big business is the natural ally of big government.

Tax rates do, however, have a mitigative effect on those moving through the economic continuum. In free societies people are not restricted to the class into which they are born. Unlike most economic systems throughout the world, capitalism allows for infinite mobility through the economic spectrum. But onerous tax regimes – and worst yet, being told that the system is rigged against you – can have profound and devastating effects on those trying to climb the economic ladder.

One of the better aspects of the 'creative destruction' of capitalism is the possibility of unseating the power structure. If the influence and control by the government is relatively weak then there is less ability for a group that has the policing power of the state to influence, collude and control. At the very least, corporations can be toppled by the next guy with a better mouse trap. Simply put, if WalMart is functioning in ways that offend your sensibilities, you can spend your dollar elsewhere. If government is doing a poor job, good luck trying to change that.

When a controlling bureaucratic labyrinth exists, the rich and powerful will seek to impose their will with the force of law. The small guy doesn't have the same ability to influence the heavy hand of government as the wealthy. Sure the little guy gets one vote. But the wealthy get that same vote plus a lobbyist. This is the impetus that motivates those with the notion of smaller government. It is mystifying that so many vote for larger government to control the economic and social reigns while thinking it will lessen the influence peddling.

Ironically, those who seek to lessen the shipping of jobs overseas, the consolidation of power and wealth into the hands of a few and reign in corporate behavior with taxation, caps, restrictions and regulation often make the problem worse. One must be careful when ceding power to the government or imposing one's will via government mandate to not just intend to do good.

Job Killer

Is there ever a condition where laying off staff is a good decision? What if you owned a company and the market changed and you had to lay off people? Could we all point to you and blame you for firing people for your own gain? After all, saving the business would accrue to your benefit. Heck, you might even be paid a bonus for keeping the company afloat so that it can hire again some day.

Should buggy whip companies still be employing people? Should Kodak not be able to adjust workforces because their share of the market has diminished? Do you have the same level of anger for the lost jobs at places like Solyndra? And do you ascribe those cuts as Obama slashing jobs for his own gain? Was giving Trade Adjustment Assistance money to each employee buying votes or could it in any way improve his political aspirations? Should elected government officials be giving money out to potential voters? Did Obama gain by getting $1.09 Million worth of lobbying out of Solyndra? Since money allocated to the company from government loans was paying the bills, did Obama and fellow Democrats gain from the campaign contributions of Solyndra employees?

We could tit-for-tat all day long. No policy or plan will be perfect. That is where spiritual people who believe there is an afterlife have an advantage over the secularist. The believer postpones utopia to the afterlife. A person of the left and secularists are compelled to create Utopia here on earth. Everything will not turn out perfect for everybody. Sometimes companies have to lay off staff. There are many left-wing Obama-philes who lay off people all the time.  And sometimes they are not very nice about it.  Heard of Hollywood anyone? It is just that they don't get demonized and drug out in front of the world by the right because the right act like grown ups and understand that sometimes businesses have to adjust to real life conditions.

The left's paper of record, The New York Times, is struggling with this right now. The company is having to make hard decisions about whether they can afford to continue with their current pension scheme. Of course, the dogmatic Utopians are wailing about how this means the management is a pack of wolves that is trying to make a killing on the backs of the proletariat. So not only is Romney a job slashing dog, but so is the NYT when they are faced with the financial realities of running their business.

Oil Companies Earn Billions. No S#!%.

Think Progress posted a threadbare canard of the left - "big oil" is reaping obscene profits. The ideas posited in the article are so hackneyed as to be wearisome. Yes "big oil" makes big profits, because they sell billions of units of product. Apparently simple math is not the strong suit of the authors. And they show contempt for the reader when they assume the reader won’t see through the demagoguery or that the reader is too stupid to do the math for themselves.

To ensure that we are all on the same page, a review of some basic mathematics may be in order. In case the authors are unaware, a mathematical concept has been developed that may help the authors understand what is going on here – it is called percentages. And it is percentages that can help us to understand what to make of the "outrageous profits" – that is, if we are really interested in understanding the profits in context.

If a manufacturer builds 50 TVs per year and it costs $300 in parts, labor and overhead to build the TVs and he then sells them for $600, is that an outrageous profit? If consumers are happy to pay $600 for the TV because of the perceived added value to their lives, then whether it is outrageous or not, they may pay that amount. However, that is a 100% profit.

If that same manufacturer sells the TV for $323.70 is that an outrageous profit? Is 7.9% fairer? Less outrageous? 7.9% is about what "big oil" makes on average in profit. This is less than periodical publishers (53.1%), software companies (23.2%), cigarette makers (22.5%), beverage brewers (20.3%), railroads (15.5%), agricultural chemical manufacturers (15.2%), soft drink canners (15%), makers of toys and games (9.7%) and specialty eateries (9.2%). (Source: Yahoo!, 12 Mar 2012)

(For scale, it is worth considering that he would have to make over 4,200 units, or about 2 per hour working 8 hrs/day, in order to see his first $100k in profits – that comes after paying salaries and benefits to employees, rent/mortgage, light, heat, property taxes, maintenance, etc., etc., etc. and before reinvestment in new equipment, research, et al.)

But if the TV guy (who at some ordained quantity, only known by leftists, stops being a decent producer of needed goods and becomes demonic, "big TV") sold ten million TVs – which assumes he can even produce ten million – at 7.9% profit, he would report an obscene profit of $237 million. These enormous earnings would translate to $2 billion in profit over ten years. "That’s right, a profit figure with" 9 "zeros – count them:" $2,000,000,000. This demagogic slight of hand employed by the authors might be humorous if it weren’t so contemptuous and tendentious. It assumes the reader is too stupid to understand or too partisan or care that no matter what the total dollar amount of the profit, the percentage is well below many other industries. Only those lacking a basic high school education or the Kool Aid drinker would be taken in by such a specious presentation of the data.

Any company that is producing something will necessarily maximize profits for the shareholders. However, this is limited by how much a buyer is willing to pay. Oil companies, like most companies, are price takers, not price setters. If a TV manufacturer decides to include a 100% profit in the price of its TV, the buyer may decide that the added value of having a TV in the home is not worth the price. This desire to price 'set' is mitigated by the market when another company sells the product cheaper – maybe deciding to produce the product with less profit. The second company can undercut the competition and gain a larger portion of the market share. This will have the effect of driving down prices at the first company if they want to stay in business. The business then 'takes' the price that the market allows.

If the consumer sees sufficient self-benefit in the exchange, he will pay an additional sum that is profit for the business because he acknowledges that the business is able to provide the good or service in a more efficient manner than the consumer could. This is the tacit acknowledgment of comparative advantage. The cost of a good or service can be lowered because of specialization, economy of scale, division of labor and other factors that lower production costs and increase productivity. Profit is not necessarily bad. It can be an indicator that the consumer is willing to pay for efficiently produced, low-cost goods and services. And barring corruption, large profits are likely the result of someone, or some group, finding a way to increase production in a way that reduces production costs thereby increasing the profit margin. It is quite simplistic and utterly lacking nuance to think that profit equals theft.

So even though you might be able to build your own house by doing the framing, plumbing, electrical, roofing, concrete, heating and air conditioning, window installation, insulation, cabinetry, sheet rock, texturing, flooring, landscaping, etc, by yourself, you also might be willing to pay each of these specialty trades a bit of profit to do the work because you may not possess the skill, tools, time, knowledge, experience and expertise to perform the tasks. And even when paying them the profit you may still conclude that it is advantageous because they do it so much more efficiently than you could. And when larger companies do this on a larger scale they make larger profits. This is really all the article highlighted, albeit smugly. Well, duh.

Oil is a fungible product and its price is largely determined by the world oil market. However, additional supply can bring down prices just as increased demand can raise prices. The former is acknowledged by leftists when they propose that prices would drop if supply is increased via the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The article laments that a certain oil industry leader "opposes selling a small amount of reserve oil from the nearly full U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gas prices, which would provide some relief to drivers." So, apparently, even small increases in supply can create downward movement of prices to the tune of 18 to 72 cents per gallon. But when conservatives expand this idea to "drill baby drill", it is debunked as the cackling of simpletons. To the leftist mind, a "small," one time infusion from the SPR have miraculous effects on price while large infusions from ANWR or the Keystone pipeline wouldn't change a thing.

The article states, "It makes absolutely no sense to remain susceptible to a volatile global oil market. Instead we need to reduce our dependence on oil, which is priced globally and partly set by the OPEC cartel." I think most Americans would agree to that. But many think that bolstering domestic production might be a sensible part of a larger solution. And that doesn't make them a bunch of wackos.

As for speculators, they speculate based on their assessment of the future markets and geopolitical conditions. They assess conditions and speculate on the future – it is a risky business. Sometimes they win and sometimes they lose. Why doesn’t anybody cry for them when they lose?

The futures market isn’t necessarily a bad construct. It can moderate the price and risk of commodities and reduce uncertainty. An airline can reduce risk by locking in fuel prices with futures. Otherwise, ticket prices would jump around in response to the spot market. Would that be better?

And then there is the oil lobby. I bet the authors couldn't muster so much as a yawn when thinking about the amount of money labor unions spend on lobbying and campaign contributions. But who can blame them. It would undermine their demagoguery. 

Down With Capitalism

Chris Carrado has a great article that examines some of the motivations behind the Occupy Wall Street movement:  the left hates inequity in results more than it loves liberty, they hate profit more than they love freedom in markets.

If a company earns millions in profit because it develops a revolutionary medical device that saves thousands of lives, has it not paid its fair share? If a company produces a chemical that kills 99.5% of bacteria in farms, has it paid its fair share? If Ford creates a car so safe that it prevents 80% of otherwise fatal auto accidents, has Ford not done enough? If a grocery chain brings us a bounty of diverse, healthy foods we can purchase without the cost and effort of growing them ourselves, do we think we're also entitled to the profits it brings that chain?

Manufacturing

There is a lot of concern about sending jobs overseas. And not keeping manufacturing jobs here at home.

Why is oil production not considered manufacturing that could keep jobs here in the US? Canada seems to keep a lot of people empoloyed manufacturing petroleum products. Couldn't we bring those jobs home?

Occupy the mailbox

Poet Artie Moffa has devised a way to shake his fist at the big banks. It is painful that this is thought to be "brilliant" (as one commenter opined).



There are many reasons why this is a silly notion. As many of these types of activities go, they are often an impassioned orgy of virulence, but little else. Such a tactic is likely to do nothing more than make those who do it feel clever and self-satisfied.

The current number of YouTube views for this video is 109,168. If everybody who watched the video actually sent in their envelope and it cost the big bank they are targeting $0.25 each, the total cost of postage to the bank would be $27,292. Not exactly a sum that will take down a corporation. And this assumes all 109,168 viewers will send in an envelope. To the same bank.

Although we all share the dislike of bulk mail items arriving in our mail box, and even though many of us have been tempted to mail the materials back to the sender in a moment of protest, the reality is that most people just aren't going to go through the bother of sending the stuff back.

Since everyone who watched will not likely send an envelope and since they are not likely targeting the same bank, the impact to any one organization will be even less. But if the tricky wood shim tactic is used, the price per parcel will rise and the pain to the bank will be greater. Even if it cost the bank a dollar per letter, the cost is not that great when spread across millions of customers. And that is exactly what would happen.

The bank isn't going to dock the pay of the CEO to cover the cost of this. It will pass the costs on to the consumer. Just as would be the case if this YouTuber ran a business and the local ne'er do wells filled his garbage dumpster with their garbage. He wouldn't just pay that amount out of his paycheck. He would add it to the price of his product as a cost of doing business. And that cost would not be significant enough to raise the price of his product so drastically that it would drive him out of business.

And if you think that since you are not a customer and therefore it won't affect you personally, what about all those who are? Isn't one of the points of OWS to speak up for those who are suffering because of the predatory practices of the large Wall Street banks? Isn't this just the sort of selfish, greedy, narcissistic behavior that the OWS crowd eschews? And besides, the merchant from whom you purchase your next car, house, gas, food, utility, clothing, medical care, TV, laptop, or iPhone may use this financial institution and you'll pay the fee as it is passed on to the consumer.

Moffa asks us to "Think of the scene in a mail room at a big bank." Well, it is likely that this type of mail is not handled in the mail room at 111 Wall Street. In fact, this probably takes place in some drearily familiar industrial park mail facility that employs people much like Artie, his mom or dad or other working stiffs who are not part of the 1%. They would like nothing more than to be able to do their jobs without the harassment of wood shims and notes from wise-acres who want them to join a union. They may already be a union member, which only makes the "really heavy, dense and crumbly" interruptions in their work day all the more tedious. Why not add baby powder to the mix? That would really show those greedy bankers. Do you suppose Moffa is appreciative of hecklers when he is on stage doing his job? One wonders whether Moffa would recommend spitting on the server at the local buffet if we disagree with the corporate business practices.

If we use Moffa's estimate of "a few roofing shingles, a few hundred wood shims and a few thousand empty envelopes," we might be verging on a couple thousand bucks of financial punishment to an institution while causing untold headaches for the rank and file who will have to deal with the real world implications of his proposed stunt.

And then Moffa gets to what he thinks is the point of such a protest. He admits that sending shingles to bankers "isn't really about running up the postage bill at the big banks, although that's a nice side effect." It is about creating meetings. Meetings to discuss the hundreds and thousands of weird credit card applications received by their fulfillment agent. He doesn't reason that these meetings will probably be held at the time clock in a noisy mail sorting facility and not range much beyond the topic of how to properly dispose of the debris sent in by disgruntled housewives, elderly retirees, and now, OWS protesters, and the fear induced in these times by opening envelopes containing foreign substances.

Moffa has much higher visions of grandeur.

Every hour the banks spend reacting to us is an hour they won't spend lobbying Congress on how to screw us.

Really? The banks will call the lobbyists back from DC to help sort mail? Does the SEIU stop lobbying just because a letter-writing campaign is waged against them?

Its an hour banks don't spend foreclosing on our houses.

Really? The bank will be so jolted that they will forget that Joe Blow hasn't made a payment in six months?

In large part, this is a masturbatory exercise. Maybe banking practices do need a thoroughgoing examination. Maybe government shouldn't have pressured banks to do Congress's social engineering so that we didn't find ourselves in this current situation. But this tactic gets us no closer to these ends.

What at first glance seems like a nifty idea, upon reflection devolves into an emotional fit. And the smugness dripping from such statements as "being immoral doesn't mean you're infertile," speaks only to fellow devotees who probably also had a Hans Landa "Ooooh, that's a bingo" response to shoving construction debris into an envelope.

Moffa would do well to understand that one's ideological opponents do not have to be evil or immoral simply because they have different thoughts and ideas. But this concept has yet to be learned by some of good will and is of little interest to those who would rather attack and destroy the messenger than engage in thoughtful conversation about competing ideas. This sort of dismissive rich/poor, black/white, young/old, red/blue, on/off mentality lacks nuance and is only helpful to those who are not confident in their own ideas. It is much easier to dismiss your opponents as evil, immoral, stupid, ignorant, mean spirited, war-mongering, selfish, greedy, hateful, nativist, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, bigoted, intolerant, fascist, misogynistic and hypocritical than to converse about the intricacies of different ideas.

And what about the environmental waste caused by such a protest? All the added driving and decreased fuel economy because of hauling roofing materials around. And does it create or save jobs for postal handlers? Well, yes. In the same way that splitting supertankers over coral reefs create jobs for the cleanup industry.

So as is often the case, protestations such as these may make the protester feel good, but won't do much beyond that. But who doesn't want a little self-induced pleasure? And Moffa seems to feel good about his self-stimulatory feel good exercise. So thanks to him for turning the camera on while preening in his digital masterbatorium.

ADDENDA:

From a poster at reddit:

The communications part is pointless; fill the envelope and send it back, but don't waste your time with the communications bit: the only people who will ever see it are minimum-wage (or near-minimum-wage) mail handlers who simply discard this sort of response.

I have (unfortunately) worked for institutions like this in the actual mail room, and this sort of thing is pretty standard (where I worked, we received 15000-20000 pieces of mail a day, and we had 6 people sorting all of it; each of us got several dozen of these trash-filled envelopes daily). We had boxes specifically for these sorts of envelopes, and the only thing we had to do was add a single comment to the person's file (if we could determine who it was from). That comment? ERE, which stands for Envelope Returned Empty.

Most of the time, we didn't even bother adding the comment (which is actually a good thing for the intended recipient, as it kept the address in an unknown state of use; sending the mail back like this shows it is a legit address; additional contact, including phone contact, was often then tried with these accounts). The envelope and its trash contents would simply be tossed in that bin, and we'd move along to the next piece of mail.

So don't bother wasting time (or money) creating fliers or inviting communication: the people who see it will toss it in the trash and, truth be told, are probably already on our side (but unable to do anything from their "expendable" position). Just send back the envelope with its original contents and move on.

Edit :: For what it's worth, this is also the reason why sending threats, powders or other sort of "illusion to cause harm" items is not only pointless, but is counter-productive: most company mail rooms are isolated to reduce the damage caused by an actual attack, and the only people who are going to be affected by it are the ones who the company considers to be some of the most expendable people in the company (where I worked, only the [Mexican-born] janitorial staff were considered more expendable).

Comment by davidwbrown66:

No!!! DO NOT PUT THE SHIMS IN THERE!!! I fix the fucking machines those envelopes go through and you fuck up all the machines if you stick shims in there. Those kinds of letters get sent through machines that require the letters to be slightly flexible as they get carried by belts around bullwheels.

Just stuff them with the paper like he originally said.

Don't fuck up the machines, that just messes with a postal machine operator and, worse, some poor technician.

Comment by b0blee:

If you make the envelope rigid with wood, it's a hazard to the postal machinery. It won't go through as Business Reply Mail (because it obviously isn't), and all you've done is annoy some poor postal workers.

Comment by moclips1:

your ideas have been tried before, and they don't work.  mass mailings from big companies are cheap to produce, cost only a few cents to mail per piece, and make money even if a lot of blank envelopes are returned. . those return envelopes are bar-coded, and any mailing that is too heavy gets thrown out, which costs the USPS money and not the company, good ideals, though. my sources: USPS employees, who hate mass mailings, and my 20+ years in marketing at a big heartless corporation.

Comment by Kelliwilliams2:

I can try to answer this helpfully. I used to work at a bank in my youth. Any rigid object that breaks machinery used for sorting material ill result in people staying late and sorting it by hand. Any mysterious object like rubble or dirt or an angry letter in mail will be considered a possible terrorist threat and result in a trip to loss prevention and the employee being questioned about their involvement and knowledge.

If you feel like doing this use clean paper not the stuff he suggests at the end or the crazy stuff people are suggesting like dog poop and cat litter. Any inconvenience experienced by the person opening these letters will not matter at all to anyone higher up and neither will any messages. Anything you put in these envelopes is going to end up on the hands,clothes and unfinished work of the employee. You break their machines? They work wo them.

What shall we protest?

They're protesting the fact that they've never been hungry; never been cold; never been without TV, air conditioning and a car. They've always had a video game console and a laptop and a smart phone. And they never, ever had to do any long, hard, real work for any of it.

There are groups of people who are willing to pump and purify your water. Provide endless and affordable electrical power so that you can be 72° all the time. That there are people who will kill, clean, cook, package and deliver foods so that you don't have to see the blood or the dirt." "And that these groups of people who provide these things are called corporations... who do these ugly, difficult and unpleasant things for you.

You should be grateful. You should thank them.

Against equality and change. And fear of what the government is constantly putting on us. And staying focused.

Against the Jews.

The Jews commit more white collar crime than any other ethnic group on the earth, and they go unprosecuted because they can buy their way out of it.

Whenever there's a billion dollar fraud, there's a Jew involved.

For taking down the system. Abolishing debt and the banking system. The capitalist monster. Capitalism. Profit.



For socialism and the fair wages in North Korea.