301–310 of 446 posts
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It's amazing to watch the amount of mental contortions you're going through. I guess it's very important for you to maintain the consistency of your current worldview, and seeing the likes of Shkreli in a favorable light is an integral part of that. Ayn Rand would be proud.
Shkreli literally did not increase EpiPen prices. That was Mylan.
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Exactly. Same thing. Both voluntary business transactions subject to the same rules as any other voluntarily exchange. No one is obligated to sell any particular good or service for any particular price. I know a lot of people see this differently but I don't think they have an ethical leg to stand on. When it gets down to it they have no particular rule for fair pricing other than "that feels too high to me."
> No one is obligated to sell any particular good or service for any particular price. Well, nobody was forcing him to sell goods or services for any particular price. He set the price and now he has to face the consequences.
Do you have some special definition of "force" that you are using which doesn't involve you deciding for someone else which course of action they will take and then making them take it at risk of "consequences"?
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It's amazing to watch the amount of mental contortions you're going through. I guess it's very important for you to maintain the consistency of your current worldview, and seeing the likes of Shkreli in a favorable light is an integral part of that. Ayn Rand would be proud.
Shkreli literally did not increase EpiPen prices. That was Mylan.
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Are you saying that the investors money was not actually taken under false pretenses? Because the legal rule, based on precedent, applied was that the value fradulently taken (whether or not later returned ) is the “loss amount” for sentencing purposes.
Not disputing that. Just saying there were no ACTUAL losses.
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If Martin never existed, those poor people would possibly be much better off Well maybe . One of the reasons that drugs get invented is because people are willing to buy the rights to manufacture and distribute them. If Shkreli, and other people like him, didn't exist the drug might not be there in the first place. But you ARE obligated not to make it worse. I can think of lots of places that people make my life wors…
Just because someone, business or person doesn't want to continue a relationship with you, doesn't mean they are doing you harm. Harm is not doing something you don't like. Harm is purposely spilling nails and glass on the public road so that you can sell people more tires. If you are trying to take the pure libertarian stance, that whatever the free market dictates is ok, I am actually fine with that. But you can't…
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What makes it a stretch? In both scenarios there is a tradeoff between personal gain and someone else's wellbeing.
It's a question of personal responsibility: * I mug you, compared to being a bystander while you are mugged. * I hit you with my car, compared to being a passenger in the car ahead of the one that hit you. * I price-gouge you on a medication you need to live, compared to buying a laptop for my job instead of sending that money to buy food for someone half a world away. Do you really not see the difference?
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You do realize that insurance companies have to charge people more money than they spend in order to be profitable, right? Exorbitant drug costs is just another one of the factors that price poor people out of insurance, which is actually a much worse outcome than simply denying access to that specific drug.
The price of the drugs is amortized over everyone with insurance. The drug in question has a total potential audience of around 2000 people in the United States, if I remember correctly, so that means the cost of the treatment will be spread very widely. Also, the drug he raised the price on was a horrible 50-year-old drug. Shkreli raised the price with the explicit aim of getting funds to research a new drug, with l…