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There is no tragedy of the commons here. This is not a shared resource being depleted. The proper descriptor here is rent-seeking[1] and the Turing/Daraprim ca
by inopinatus 10y ago
There is no tragedy of the commons here. This is not a shared resource being depleted. The proper descriptor here is rent-seeking[1] and the Turing/Daraprim case lines up with Shiller's "river chain" analogy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
- BoorishBears 10y agoAgain, this isn't anywhere near my wheelhouse, but I think of money the insurance companies allocate from premiums for drugs as being a shared resource that's being depleted. When the margins that insurance companies have set as targets are brushed up upon, premiums go up and we repeat the process again, except the premiums can't go up forever (right? I wonder if an expert on the subject could confirm) and the system will collapse
- inopinatus 10y agoWhat you've described is definitely not a commons but a simple pricing outcome for a financial product. In a competitive market you'd expect that price to find an equilibrium, not to rise without bound. Notwithstanding which, this case exhibits none of those characteristics. It is rent-seeking, pure and simple.