Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 446 posts

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#181

Post by s73v3r_ »

brucephillips wrote: post #174
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the outrage was ever about Shkreli not saving someone's life. It was about Shkreli making lots of money from people's suffering, after artificially inflating the price of a drug that he controlled. In other words, getting rich from increasing the amount of misery in this world.

AFAIK, only the insurance companies paid his exorbitant prices.

Schools and some other public places were also required to keep Epi-pens on hand, by law. Some of them did pay the exorbitant prices.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#182

Post by brucephillips »

king_magic wrote: post #101
Clubber wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you are getting distracted by exactly what you were supposed to get distracted by. He was hated because he hiked drug prices (and he was a dick). The news jumped all over this story and he was a perfect scapegoat. Sadly, It's still perfectly legal to corner a drug and hike the prices. That was the bigger crime, and it continues to go on, costing taxpayers and patients millions if not billions of dollars, and…

I initially did not agree with you, then re-read your posts several time, and have come to the conclusion you are absolutely right. Cornering a drug and hiking the price simply for profit and no other legitimate reason (supply chain issue, newer/more effective version, etc...) should be illegal. It is a crime, maybe not in the letter of the law, but ethically, it's a crime.

> Cornering a drug and hiking the price simply for profit and no other legitimate reason (supply chain issue, newer/more effective version, etc...) should be illegal.

This is how all patents work. Are you against patents?

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#183

Post by MaybiusStrip »

rayiner wrote: post #132
otalp wrote: post #92

It does say something depressing about our laws that he got sent to prison for the thing where he lied to rich people while still making them money rather than the thing where he extorted sick poor people...which is still fully legal even if the majority of society thinks it shouldn't.

Not it doesn’t. Our legal framework doesn’t oblige you to save someone’s life just because you have the means to do so. If it did, we’d all be in big trouble—for the cost of a fully loaded MacBook Pro, you could save someone from malaria in Africa. The fact that people think a particular unpopular thing shouldn’t be legal doesn’t change that. There are a lot of things people believe should be illegal that aren’t ille…

Regulating the price of medication isn't a slippery slope to outlawing MacBook pros. What a preposterous thing to say.

The law is whatever society decides it should be. There is nothing inherently rational about it. You'd have to accept some pretty messed up things as rational if you actually believed that.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#184

Post by tpush »

The majority of comments here being sad about Shkreli kinda reaffirms my views about HN, I have to say.

Shkreli always seemed like a personified 4chan teenager "memelord" with money. Good to see that playing out your delusions of grandeur and arrogance toward the justice system is met with consequences.

Maybe in prison he will mature a bit.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#185

Post by Clubber »

dragonwriter wrote: post #109
foxhound6 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...Offending the public, whether right or wrong, has consequences. Shkreli is getting a taste of mob justice, or just what he asked for. Isn't that exactly what the justice system is in place to prevent?

Criminal punishment in a republic [0] is exactly the institutionalization of the idea that offending the public has consequences. Hence, in the US, the popular styling of criminal cases as “The people vs. defendant ”. [0] a “republic” in the sense of a regime where government is notionally an institution for the interest of the public rather than a private property interest of a ruler or distinct ruling class; in non…

It's breaking the laws of the country who are indirectly created by the "public," it has nothing to do with mob mentality. We are a nation of laws. In fact, republics are a safeguard against mob mentality which can happen in direct democracy.

Until being offensive is illegal, it should hold no bearing in a just trial. Fortunately, we have the first amendment, which makes being an obnoxious asshole in and of itself perfectly legal.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#186

Post by walshemj »

zaroth wrote: post #176
walshemj wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes going "fuck you judge" whilst on trial does tend to have that effect. Its also why contempt of court and malfeasance in public office has such harsh panties

Damn You Autocorrect.

Genuine ROTFL I think I will leave that typo in :_)

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#187

Post by danso »

birken wrote: post #149
bhouston wrote: post #5

He was so obnoxious that I guess it is easy to be happy about that, but he was so small time in the grand scheme of things. But nearly no bankers responsible for the 2008 financial crisis ever went to jail: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/how-wal...

Like it or hate it, this is what the SEC does. You think Martha Stewart deserved jail time for making 50k in an insider trading scheme she didn't really care about? The SEC finds very public cases and then brings the hammer down in order to act a deterrent. Martin Shkreli broke the law, something he didn't have to do. It isn't like it was mob justice and some hugely biased jury convicted him of all the crimes he was…

Well put. Just because O.J. was found not guilty and no big bankers went to jail in 2008 doesn't mean judges in other courtrooms are going to relax their standards when you flip them off

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Penelope-Soto-Woman-Who-...

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#188

Post by brucephillips »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #181
brucephillips wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, only the insurance companies paid his exorbitant prices.

Schools and some other public places were also required to keep Epi-pens on hand, by law. Some of them did pay the exorbitant prices.

Shkreli did not increase epipen prices.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#189

Post by MrFantastic »

jjoonathan wrote: post #158
throwaway84742 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn’t “extort sick poor people”, he extorted insurance companies. If you couldn’t afford his drugs, he was offering them for free.

Insurance premiums are pricing more and more people out of the market and that trend is driven by this sort of behavior. I'm glad that Shkreli felt obligated to help the people who could directly attribute their suffering to him, but he's still a jerk who extorts sick people.

So do Health Care insurance companies. People don't realize how broken that system is until they or someone they know gets really sick.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#190

Post by brucephillips »

otalp wrote: post #92

It does say something depressing about our laws that he got sent to prison for the thing where he lied to rich people while still making them money rather than the thing where he extorted sick poor people...which is still fully legal even if the majority of society thinks it shouldn't.

If you're going to complain, offer a solution. What should be illegal? Patents? Transferring patents?
Post reply on HN