'The Conservative Nanny State' - Freedomain Radio Interviews Economist Dr. Dean Baker

How Republicans use the government and the Federal Reserve to enrich the wealthy and impoverish the poor.

The free book is available at: http://www.conservativenannystate.org

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• philosophy
• conservative
• Nanny
• state
• Republican
• exploitation
• economics
• libertarian

[PsyogiBottoms]

Though I love and support you 100% Steph - but I'm tired of hearing about all the problems - I know all the problems.

What I don't know is what I can actually do to end this Fascist, Imperial rule.

As just not paying taxes and not participating isn't going to be enough.

I want to push back - hell - kick back - how, without violence can this actually be achieved?

[andyissemicool]

I would use the word "fucked", but that works too :).

[alistairproductions]

@PsyogiBottoms buy gold and silver

[GodOfTheInternets]

@PsyogiBottoms

I suggest "we" start an organization "Anarchism Without Adjectives" that focusses on refuting the stereotypical idea of anarchism "far-left naive teenagers who prefer chaos". I'm personally a social-anarchist but If I had to choose between anarcho-capitalism and statism I'd choose the first... A website and a lot of willing people would be needed. I wrote a little pamphlet as introduction for IF this movement ever sees the light.

[lnd3005]

Something else we should keep in mind is that the days of the billion dollar drug are coming to a close. The patents for the blockbuster drugs are expiring, and new ones aren't being found at the rate they used to be. Pharmaceuticals companies are trying to find niche markets now, for specific and rare diseases. From what I've heard from those better educated on the topic than I, these markets are are less susceptible to the generics predation you describe.

[lnd3005]

Though I'm sure you're aware of it, I'll remind you that most of the money spent by Pfizer or any company developing new drugs, is spent on satisfying regulatory requirements. In the absence of the state, these expenditures would be much reduced. Private consumer safety agencies would still exist in a free market, of course, and the drug companies would spend money to get their approval. But I think it's safe to say this process would be much more efficient than the state parasitism of today.

[lnd3005]

In a free market there is no state (b/c the state is a forced monopoly on security, and so is inconsistent w/ a free market). W/o a state there is no intellectual property. Only secrecy can protect information if there's no state to enforce, say, patents or copyrights. In a free market, what you've called fraud or theft, as pertains to information, would happen all the time, b/c there would be no overarching coercive authority to stop it.

[obama200]

In a free market there is no fraud which would mean no theft of intellectual property. Generics represent a theft of intellectual property. Pfizer invests $1B in drug development (average cost) and some company rips off the chemical structures and synthesizes the drug without having to fund $1B for development. This would bring drug production to a massive slow-down.

[lnd3005]

In a free market scenario, there would be no patent enforcement, so either trade secrets, or something comparable, would become key, or there will be general shift toward generics.

We are actually already seeing a shift like that, just b/c new and useful drugs are becoming more difficult to discover. So ultimately it may not matter, for drugs.

But in medical devices it's likely a problem. I won't put solving that problem past the human imagination, though!

[lnd3005]

The bulk of medical research has been socialized, everywhere on the planet. And it has been since... always, as far as I know.

People in industry just don't do basic research, in any field. It's left to the universities, which are publicly funded.

[arkadyka]

I am not following this. Stef thinks that an economist who advocates Medicare and Medicaid as revolutionary thinker? Not to cast wide nets, but anyone holding statist programs like medicare/medicaid in high regard is hardly in any position to be making free market critiques? I would read the book, but how is the author NOT a standard liberal/socialist?

[obama200]

How stupid. I hear the first thing about drug patents. Does this author realize that it take 1 billion dollars to develop a drug from start to finish? How are drug companies supposed to recoup their money if after 1B is invested, some generic company duplicates the chemical structure and sells the drug dirt cheap? If drug companies can't recoup their invested money, no new drugs would ever be developed!