5 ms·

What's bad faith? If I have a product that someone will pay a million dollars for, why wouldn't I charge a million dollars for it? Because the alternate is deat

by basseq 11y ago

What's bad faith? If I have a product that someone will pay a million dollars for, why wouldn't I charge a million dollars for it? Because the alternate is death? So what—I'm not a charity. There's a morality question here, and maybe I'm an asshole in this scenario, but being an asshole in of itself isn't a crime.

chrischen 11y ago
Turin did some anti-competitive tactics like block the production of generics. So they weren't just capitalizing on market inefficiency, they were causing it to some degree. That being said, bad faith can simply be determined by a vote, similar to how Uber drivers are expelled if they act in bad faith (bad ratings).
- basseq 11y ago
  The anti-competitive argument I like. You can take this to a logical legal argument with established roots in precedent and say that the "monopoly" in this case is detrimental to public welfare and spirited business competition.
hospes 11y ago
Being an asshole in this context should be criminalized. If company buys a drug (or owns one), which people need to keep them alive, and it increases prices in orders of magnitude without any business justification, other than making profit, then this should be criminalized. As a society we should decide where to draw the line. If an executive increases price of life saving drug purely to maximize companies profit, knowing that it will lead to death of other people, he should be treated as criminal.
- basseq 11y ago
  "Making profit" is the #1 business justification. This is in the same vein as, "Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" What, exactly, do you propose to criminalize? Excessive profits? What is profit? How is it calculated—is it tied to the number of deaths, or just any death? On specific drugs or the company as a whole? Is this healthcare only, or any industry where lives could be at stake? Don't get me wrong, I think this is egregious profiteering, but you can't just point to profit as a bad thing. There was an interesting look at the ethics of search and rescue businesses in Wired earlier in the year, where I see some parallels (as well as a company acting in good faith). [1] http://www.wired.com/2015/08/search-and-rescue-for-sale/ http://www.wired.com/2015/08/search-and-rescue-for-sale/
  - hospes 11y ago
    >> You can't just point to profit as a bad thing. It depends on context. In this context it is a bad thing. I believe that industries like healthcare and prison–industrial complex should not be for profit. The core of the problem is that it is for profit at least vast majority of it, including insurance, hospitals (most of them) and drug manufacturing.
    - mdpopescu 11y ago
      The legal distinction between for-profit and non-profit is irrelevant in this context. I'll just make a nice company that does the same thing and, instead of making a profit for my shareholders, I will give myself a nice fat check. Do you think that fixes anything?
jgoewert 11y ago
People say the same thing about entrepreneurs who sell sheets of plywood for $1000 a sheet after a hurricane, but the government seems to be able to arrest and prosecute them based on the "morality" of the situation. Seems equivalent to me.
- basseq 11y ago
  Profiteering and price gouging laws are interesting, typically differ by state, and are typically limited to disaster markets. They're also tied directly to a period of time and fall under emergency order. So... similar, but also different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging Really, this is a coercive monopoly. Legal countermeasures fall under anti-trust law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly

by basseq 11y ago

chrischen 11y ago

Turin did some anti-competitive tactics like block the production of generics. So they weren't just capitalizing on market inefficiency, they were causing it to some degree. That being said, bad faith can simply be determined by a vote, similar to how Uber drivers are expelled if they act in bad faith (bad ratings).

basseq 11y ago
The anti-competitive argument I like. You can take this to a logical legal argument with established roots in precedent and say that the "monopoly" in this case is detrimental to public welfare and spirited business competition.

hospes 11y ago

Being an asshole in this context should be criminalized. If company buys a drug (or owns one), which people need to keep them alive, and it increases prices in orders of magnitude without any business justification, other than making profit, then this should be criminalized. As a society we should decide where to draw the line. If an executive increases price of life saving drug purely to maximize companies profit, knowing that it will lead to death of other people, he should be treated as criminal.

basseq 11y ago
"Making profit" is the #1 business justification. This is in the same vein as, "Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" What, exactly, do you propose to criminalize? Excessive profits? What is profit? How is it calculated—is it tied to the number of deaths, or just any death? On specific drugs or the company as a whole? Is this healthcare only, or any industry where lives could be at stake? Don't get me wrong, I think this is egregious profiteering, but you can't just point to profit as a bad thing. There was an interesting look at the ethics of search and rescue businesses in Wired earlier in the year, where I see some parallels (as well as a company acting in good faith). [1] http://www.wired.com/2015/08/search-and-rescue-for-sale/ http://www.wired.com/2015/08/search-and-rescue-for-sale/
- hospes 11y ago
  >> You can't just point to profit as a bad thing. It depends on context. In this context it is a bad thing. I believe that industries like healthcare and prison–industrial complex should not be for profit. The core of the problem is that it is for profit at least vast majority of it, including insurance, hospitals (most of them) and drug manufacturing.
  - mdpopescu 11y ago
    The legal distinction between for-profit and non-profit is irrelevant in this context. I'll just make a nice company that does the same thing and, instead of making a profit for my shareholders, I will give myself a nice fat check. Do you think that fixes anything?

jgoewert 11y ago

People say the same thing about entrepreneurs who sell sheets of plywood for $1000 a sheet after a hurricane, but the government seems to be able to arrest and prosecute them based on the "morality" of the situation. Seems equivalent to me.

basseq 11y ago
Profiteering and price gouging laws are interesting, typically differ by state, and are typically limited to disaster markets. They're also tied directly to a period of time and fall under emergency order. So... similar, but also different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging Really, this is a coercive monopoly. Legal countermeasures fall under anti-trust law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly