4 ms·

I'm curious, what does fraud have to do with "libertarianism"? Don't most libertarians loathe fraud and think it should be cracked down on harder?

jjoonathan 11y ago
If a libertarian took a broad enough view of fraud to object to Valeant's core business tactics then we'd get along just fine. I suspect that most do not. Tactic 1: buying other firms' medicines and then swiftly hiking their prices Tactic 2: exploiting the principal agent problem between insurer and insuree with bribes (err, I mean "coupons") There was a comparison to Enron earlier in this thread. While accounting fraud brought them down, their core business model was legal, compatible with market philosophy, and familiar: Tactic 3: buying up the power generation infrastructure and creating artificial scarcity to ramp prices. For companies that are actively engaging in this sort of nonsense, see telcos. Or Goldman Sachs -- they were in the news a while ago for doing it with Aluminum. Anyway, the fraud is almost incidental, it's the "innovative" business models that drive me nuts. Because at the same time as pharma investors, execs, and lawyers are raking in the cash, Chem PhDs and postdocs are getting paid peanuts if they can find a job at all: http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-happening-to-pharmaceutical.html http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-happening-to-ph... > To illuminate for US readers, a UK-based PhD chemist such as myself with about 10 years post-PhD experience can expect to earn 35-40k GBP, which translates to about 55-60k USD No, I'm not one, I code now, but I would have chosen differently if the market hadn't hammered so hard to shoo me away from contributing to, IMO, the more important cause. I'm convinced that the non-excludable (and therefore "valueless," per the market's reasoning) goods produced in academia account for a healthy fraction of the value in the pharma and medical industries, and it pains me that the market not only disagrees but strenuously so. It gets its priorities not just wrong but completely backwards. A "circus of values," as one popular philosopher put it.
- microcolonel 11y ago
  The market response to this misconduct has been enormous. The legal response hasn't even been decided or implimented. They're already a failed company because the insurers won't touch them. You don't have to feel guilty that you once believed in something.
  - jjoonathan 11y ago
    We're hearing about them because they went too far, not because the incentive landscape keeps the rest of their peers headed in the opposite direction (as it ought to and doesn't).

jjoonathan 11y ago

If a libertarian took a broad enough view of fraud to object to Valeant's core business tactics then we'd get along just fine. I suspect that most do not. Tactic 1: buying other firms' medicines and then swiftly hiking their prices Tactic 2: exploiting the principal agent problem between insurer and insuree with bribes (err, I mean "coupons") There was a comparison to Enron earlier in this thread. While accounting fraud brought them down, their core business model was legal, compatible with market philosophy, and familiar: Tactic 3: buying up the power generation infrastructure and creating artificial scarcity to ramp prices. For companies that are actively engaging in this sort of nonsense, see telcos. Or Goldman Sachs -- they were in the news a while ago for doing it with Aluminum. Anyway, the fraud is almost incidental, it's the "innovative" business models that drive me nuts. Because at the same time as pharma investors, execs, and lawyers are raking in the cash, Chem PhDs and postdocs are getting paid peanuts if they can find a job at all: http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-happening-to-pharmaceutical.html http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-happening-to-ph... > To illuminate for US readers, a UK-based PhD chemist such as myself with about 10 years post-PhD experience can expect to earn 35-40k GBP, which translates to about 55-60k USD No, I'm not one, I code now, but I would have chosen differently if the market hadn't hammered so hard to shoo me away from contributing to, IMO, the more important cause. I'm convinced that the non-excludable (and therefore "valueless," per the market's reasoning) goods produced in academia account for a healthy fraction of the value in the pharma and medical industries, and it pains me that the market not only disagrees but strenuously so. It gets its priorities not just wrong but completely backwards. A "circus of values," as one popular philosopher put it.

microcolonel 11y ago
The market response to this misconduct has been enormous. The legal response hasn't even been decided or implimented. They're already a failed company because the insurers won't touch them. You don't have to feel guilty that you once believed in something.
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  We're hearing about them because they went too far, not because the incentive landscape keeps the rest of their peers headed in the opposite direction (as it ought to and doesn't).