I find it hard to believe that he got a fair trial this time around. He was already tried and found guilty in a trial by media a few years back. This investigation & prosecution are a direct result of his legal actions that didn't play well politically. BOTH presidential candidates condemned him. To me it's sad. The sacrificial lambing of Shkreli instead of lawmakers addressing the underlying problem of costly pharma is probably the most Venezuela thing I've ever seen happen in the US. They made the system, he's just trying to prosper ffs.
Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
131–140 of 633 posts
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#132I use to hate this guy, then I saw the Vice interview on him. It was nice to see his side of the story. I don't know much about this case in particular. It was kinda sleazy to see the congress question him about his price increases when they knew damn well it was perfectly legal and they haven't done anything to stop it. Shkreli seems to be trying to expose this hypocrisy, but the news loves their stories. Vice inter…
What's wrong with Congress questioning someone about legal but shady activity? If he broke the law, he'd just be prosecuted. No reason for Congress to have anything to do with it. But if what he did was legal but wrong, then maybe the law should be changed, and that's exactly what Congress is for.
It doesn't inspire confidence that they questioned Shkreli, who was a relatively small player in the medical space, while a senator's daughter was in the middle of one of the most egregious price gouging schemes in recent memory. They even wrote legislation to make it mandatory to carry their product in schools and public buildings.
The Shkreli inquiry reeked of hypocrisy and grandstanding. Those congressmen knew perfectly well what was going on, and many of them receive contributions from companies involved in it.
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Prosecutors argued that Shkreli lied to investors in two hedge funds and the pharmaceutical company Retrophin, all of which he founded. Shkreli told investors he graduated from Columbia University, that his hedge fund was large and profitable, and that he had hired an auditor, they said. These were all lies, according to prosecutors. yeah seems like a great dude...
Also, according to the NYT article, all investors tripled their money. "The investors who invested all made money — by the defense’s tally, more than triple what they invested."
So, it is okay to lie to investors, as long as you eventually pull a success off? And you make those investors you were lying to money by committing fraud on the investors in your new company (Retrophin), so they make money, but not as much they would have if you weren't secretly taking profits to pay off the investors you previously defrauded?
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
One could argue that he hurt a lot of sick people by making it very difficult or impossible for them to afford the hundreds of percent price increases he laid upon the drugs he took control over. Edit: [0] "... it says that the drug is available for free to people with deep financial need. But Dr. Aberg has watched her patients have to "jump through the hoops" to get it. Patients have to prove both financial need and…
He raised the price of Daraprim in order to fund R&D to find alternative treatments as Daraprim caused some nasty side effects. It was free to any individual who wished to obtain it, with Martin footing the bill. The side effect of the price hike was the insurance companies has to pay more, not individuals. So no, one couldn't argue he hurt a lot of sick people.
> It was free to any individual who wished to obtain it, with Martin footing the bill.
[0] "... it says that the drug is available for free to people with deep financial need. But Dr. Aberg has watched her patients have to "jump through the hoops" to get it. Patients have to prove both financial need and health status, something that's difficult to focus on when their lives are in danger. In June, one of her patients gave up on the process. The patient switched therapies, only to suffer a negative side effect."
[0] http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/25/news/economy/daraprim-aids-d...
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, he claims that he gave the medicine away for free to people who could prove they couldn't afford it, so that he was really only screwing insurance companies. I believe that he was trying to draw media attention to the outrageous, legally-allowed colluding practices of the insurance and pharma industries. It would have been in his best interest to not draw attention to himself and slowly raise the price of the d…
> FWIW, he claims that he gave the medicine away for free to people who could prove they couldn't afford it, so that he was really only screwing insurance companies. Screwing insurance companies means increased costs for everyone . I'd really rather not pay 20% higher premiums every year to pad someone like Shkreli's pocketbook.
If you make money on a trade, someone else is losing money. That's nothing new.
Where he went wrong is going into the healthcare space with that attitude. Shkreli thought that he didn't care about the bad PR it would bring him, but the microscope on him ended up uncovering illegal behavior.
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, everybody came out okay - Shkreli really made his investors a lot of money! Yeah, he lied, but he did some incredible work: typical fraudsters take your money and run - he doesn't fit that mold. Honestly, the issue was that he's an utter asshole, including to his investors. Investors are willing to put with a lot if you triple their money, but Shkreli managed to cross that line. That made him an easy target f…
Just because his investors made money doesn't excuse him. Suppose you lent 10,000 to a friend and the friend promised to return it within a year. A year later, your friend doesn't pay you back and makes a bunch of excuses. Instead, he takes the 5,000 he has left to the casino, gambles it on the roulette wheel and by luck manages to turn that into 30,000 and pays you back 1.5 years later. I don't think you would be ha…
You might find FedEx's origin story interesting.
> “I asked Fred where the funds had come from, and he responded, ‘The meeting with the General Dynamics board was a bust and I knew we needed money for Monday, so I took a plane to Las Vegas and won $27,000.’ I said, ‘You mean you took our last $5,000— how could you do that?’ He shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘What difference does it make? Without the funds for the fuel companies, we couldn’t have flown anyway.’ Fred’s luck held again. It was not much, but it came at a critical time and kept us in business for another week.” [0]
[0]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/fred-smith-blackjac...
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#137Note that this does not have anything to do with his pricing of pharmaceuticals. From a different article: "Prosecutors say Shkreli looted his drug company to pay back investors in two failed hedge funds he ran. The defense says investors got their original investments back and even made hefty profits."
In theory it had nothing to do with it, although it's not clear that the prosecution would have gone after him without that negative attention. Also, it had an effect on the juror pool.
Was it the nazis or soviets (or both) who made effectively everyone criminal so that they could then persecute them at will?
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Obtaining a license just to increase a drug's price from $13.50 to $750 for no apparent reason other than greed isn't enough for you? This case isn't about that. Are you suggesting we should convict and punish people on trial for one crime because we don't like their past activities and behaviors? Even if those other behaviors were illegal, they should be considered during a separate trial that's actually pertainin…
> This case isn't about that. That wasn't your question, was it? You asked why he's human garbage, I explained why. I wasn't defending or attacking this case, I was explaining why some think he is human garbage.
Edit: Whoops, different person. See bottom.
> Nowhere was I (or you) saying anything about this case.
Your specific words in your original response were "He's human garbage, let him rot." That response was to me saying I think the details of the case lead me to believe that I think he should a light sentence.
You very specifically noted through that euphemism that you think he shouldn't get a light sentence in this case because he's human garbage.
Edit: Sorry. That was someone else. I was specifically asking in context, but that wasn't you originally. Mea Culpa. Leaving it here with this note so people that saw it previously can see me retraction.
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you kidding? He's human garbage, let him rot. It's astounding how people are being taken in by this con man.
Regardless of big an asshole he is based on seeing the Vice interview and thinking about the big fraud pharma industry makes me think he is actually way better than the conniving people who run big pharma. This guy speaks out and maybe he is an asshole and suddenly everyone hates him. The rest keep their profits to themselves and we don't seem to care or mind.
Of course we care. People are criticizing the pharma industry's practices and calling for change all the time. Shkreli is a particularly obnoxious symptom, but he's not the disease.
Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud
#140Can we please have a conversation on the abuse of Federal plea bargains and insanely high sentencing guidelines? Thousands of Americans every year plead guilty in federal court to crimes they did not commit because they face insanely high prison terms if convicted. Often Federal sentences are several times longer than ones in state courts for the exact same crimes.