9 ms·

Here's what we just witnessed. 1. Companies were cornering certain drugs, then hiking their prices up significantly. Shkrelli did the same thing (but stated he

Here's what we just witnessed. 1. Companies were cornering certain drugs, then hiking their prices up significantly. Shkrelli did the same thing (but stated he was willing to give it free for anyone who asked). Note, that this is not illegal in any way, but news was all over it and citizens were pissed. 2. Shkrelli, being outspoken, became the focus of this issue. He dug a hole for himself, but concerning drug prices, he did nothing illegal. 3. Prosecutors, needing to do something got him on fraud charges where he misstated information on an investment but still tripled their money. 4. Shkrelli goes to jail, news and citizenry quelled. Companies still free to continue cornering the market and jacking up prices with impunity. That's how you get away with this stuff. News made money with the story. Companies made money with their drug hikes, politicians and prosecutors look good because they took action, Shkrelli investors made money. Shkrelli lost, patients lost, taxpayers lost. Rinse, repeat. Systemic corruption.

swanson 9y ago
Don't forget 3b) had to go through hundreds of jurors while the news/twitter laughed about people saying they could not be impartial because he "had a punchable face" and "disrespected the Wu Tang Clan". Better hope you don't say anything too mean on Twitter and ever end up in court :(
- thrillgore 9y ago
  In the defense of the potential juror, you cannot disrespect the Wu-Tang Clan. They'll banish you to the 36 chambers.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  It's more, "don't be an asshole". Which I feel is quite good advice for anyone. People are less willing to help people who are assholes to others.
monochromatic 9y ago
Except this investigation was already in progress when the drug price thing happened.
- mkhalil 9y ago
  Do you have a source?
  - tomjakubowski 9y ago
    It's easily verifiable yourself. Here's a Newsweek article from September 2015, when the Turing Pharmaceuticals story broke: http://www.newsweek.com/martin-shkreli-drug-manipulation-daraprim-retrophin-375416 http://www.newsweek.com/martin-shkreli-drug-manipulation-dar... > Since at least in January, Shkreli has been under criminal investigation by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, court records show. And Shkreli is not alone—some of his business associates have also received grand jury subpoenas in the case.
anonytrary 9y ago
This. There's a bigger problem we need to deal with. The system. The laws. The government. The banks. The Federal Reserve. If there was a Statist 101 course, this entire 300-year project would get a D, maybe a C. It's atrocious, and we all accept it because we are sheep who need protection from the big bad wolves of the world. Eventually, it will become clear that there is one big bad wolf we should really fear.
justboxing 9y ago
[RETRACTED]
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  That got him kicked off Twitter but had nothing to do with the legality of this case.
  - tehwebguy 9y ago
    It is why his bail was revoked and certainly played into the judge’s sentencing
- kolpa 9y ago
  He did some thing wrong on Twitter, so instead of government prosecuting him for that, he was prosecuted for an unrelated charge?
dmix 9y ago
The best explanation of the drug price phenomenon: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-drugs-vs-chairs/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-dr... Shkreli was the just the lowest hanging fruit who a) didn't have the backing of a major pharma company to mask him and b) he also happened to enjoy the attention he get from playing the "villain" character, ironically or not, in an outrage driven (social) media culture. I also don't think it's possible to separate his identity within pharma nor his politics with the Clinton drama, from his sentencing in this case. Nearly every single headline has started with "Pharmabro" and judges always consider external factors and personal behaviour during sentencing.
- ahtu123 9y ago
  I'm sure there are some much more egregious and systematic violators of what we consider fair drug pricing and much worse, but they actually have the money and power that Shkreli thought he had to stay out of the limelight. Well.. he was also dumb enough to actually try to get famous on this.
jcoffland 9y ago
Shkreli has repeatedly flaunted his wealth, privilege and false sense of superiority. Although not illegal, it's offensive. Offending the public, whether right or wrong, has consequences. Shkreli is getting a taste of mob justice, or just what he asked for.
- foxhound6 9y ago
  > ...Offending the public, whether right or wrong, has consequences. Shkreli is getting a taste of mob justice, or just what he asked for. Isn't that exactly what the justice system is in place to prevent?
  - ggg9990 9y ago
    No, it’s what the justice system is in place to formalize.
    - m_mueller 9y ago
      ... in the US, apparently.
      - ggg9990 9y ago
        Pretty much everywhere, if the justice system doesn’t reflect the population’s desire for mob justice, the people will administer it extrajudicially. The places with low bloodthirst traditionally have strong civic fabrics and low violent crime. If those things change the justice system will adapt or die.
        m_mueller 9y ago
        Isn‘t this a chicken and egg problem? If people don‘t get to know court proceedings when they happen it doesn‘t give them more outrage and justice porn and calms down the overall atmosphere. To compare, Swiss people generally don‘t care about what happens in courts, they care about the next direct democractic vote (and get riled up about it sometimes), but I consider that at least more at the root of politics and not targeted at individuals.
dgllghr 9y ago
In addition, I noticed that our system punished him for defrauding the wealthy and not for jacking up drug prices, which harms the average American.
- kolpa 9y ago
  He didn't even defraud the wealthy. He played fast and loose but he won for his investors.
  - k3d 9y ago
    defrauding isn't synonymous with stealing- he did take the money under false pretenses. if I come to you for investment in my cool new startup that does distributed crypto machine learning ai for entertaining bored housecats on the blockchain and come back a year later having sextupled your investment in money from illegal arms smuggling, you've still been defrauded.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      Except derivatives that almost sank the country for a few decades in 2008. For some reason selling derivative where it's incredibly difficult or impossible to know what securities they are derived from isn't fraud. https://www.thebalance.com/role-of-derivatives-in-creating-mortgage-crisis-3970477 https://www.thebalance.com/role-of-derivatives-in-creating-m...
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    No, he defrauded his investors and lost their money. He later managed to come up with money from another source to pay them back, but that doesn't erase the fraud that he previously committed.
biggc 9y ago
> 3. Prosecutors, needing to do something got him on fraud charges where he misstated information on an investment but still tripled their money. I don't think the outcome should matter. Lying to investors should land you in jail. It shouldn't become okay "if investors still made money"
- sol_remmy 9y ago
  > I don't think the outcome should matter. According to the article, "prosecutors had pushed for at least 15 years, saying Shkreli had not shown remorse for his actions" How come the jury is allow to consider his alleged lack of remorse but is not allowed to consider the outcome? Both are current events
  - 9889095r3jh 9y ago
    If he shows no remorse, and he faced no consequences, why wouldn't he pull another scam? That makes him more of a danger.
    - MrFantastic 9y ago
      1 time is an accident, 2 times is a trend.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    What jury? Federal criminal sentencing is done by the judge, not a jury. Also, I don't agree with GP, but arguably the outcome is less relevant to the risk to society posed by reoffense than is genuine remorse or the lack thereof.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    If I push my wife off a cliff for life insurance but she falls onto and kills a terrorist or school shooter does that lessen my crime? Does it even change the nature of my crime? No so it shouldn't enter in.
    - 9y ago
mrj 9y ago
Well, you seem to be saying that because the investment tripled, then no crime has taken place. That's not really how it works.
- theptip 9y ago
  Exactly. Matt Levine has a good summary: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-28/big-companies-can-keep-big-secrets https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-28/big-compa... "The government's argument is that those investors did lose money; it's just that Shkreli eventually paid them back after they started complaining. If your fraud loses money for investors, and they catch you, and you pay them back, then the losses still count. And while Shkreli has an argument that that's not what happened here -- that he gave Retrophin stock to the funds out of the goodness of his heart after they suffered honest losses, rather than to settle legal claims from disgruntled investors accusing him of fraud -- it is frankly not a very good one. And so he is getting tagged with the full amount that investors put into his funds, even though those investors all ultimately got paid back. That seems analytically correct, though also a bit rough on him. Shkreli is obviously an unpopular character but he is not, as these things go, a particularly bad fraudster. His lawyers were seeking a sentence of "perhaps just 16 months or less," and that actually sounds about right to me for this sort of fraud. If he gets much more than that, I suppose it can be technically justified by legal arguments about the amount of loss that he caused, but I suspect it will really be driven more by his all-around dreadfulness."
- Clubber 9y ago
  I didn't intend to insinuate that. I was more trying to paint a picture of him being a scapegoat for the monopolization of drug prices. His prosecution diverted the public eye from this much larger problem.
whack 9y ago
What you described is a perfect example of a hacky-fix vs well-engineered-solution. Treating the symptom instead of treating the problem. Our entire society is built on layers upon layers of hacky fixes. It's depressing, but look on the bright side. If you want to make a difference in the world, what a time to be alive!
dmode 9y ago
How does 1,2, and 4 matter ? Did he defraud investors ? Yes. Was it illegal, yes ? How does it matter if he was a total douche. He would still be out and doing his thing if he didn't commit a crime.
- sol_remmy 9y ago
  Because the sentence was WAY harsher than normal because of 1,2 and 4. It was a white collar crime. NO monetary damages. And 8 years?? Clearly they sentenced him for 8 years for political reasons
  - jonnycomputer 9y ago
    it was white collar crime, so you know, its like totally not a big deal. right? speaks to me of a culture problem here.
    - kirillseva 9y ago
      the thing that he was sentenced for was a white collar crime with no monetary damages. If it were a white collar crime with damage done then sure, prison time might have been appropriate. 7 years seems too harsh, and was most likely the byproduct of Martin behaving like an asshole and the general public being "upset" about the drug price hike
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        Him being a chronic and flaming asshole throughout the whole thing makes it clear that if he isn't somehow taught a lesson, he will keep doing this stuff. Like a lot of sociopaths, he has figured out that most people are nicer than him and he can get away with a lot of outrageous behavior because most people are simply better behaved than him, so he is unlikely to be crapped on to the degree that he is all too happy to crap on others. Hopefully the long sentence will clue him that betting that way stops working if you push it far enough. No, you don't get to disregard social norms in how you treat others, then bank on them protecting you. Life is a two way street. Social contracts involve two parts. You don't get to endlessly abuse social norms because your wiring is outside the norm and being mean is perfectly comfortable to you.
9889095r3jh 9y ago
No here's what actually happened. 1. Shkreli lied to investors. Regardless of whether the investors eventually made money, Shkreli put them needlessly at risk, and broke the law. 2. He could have gone away for 15 years, or walked away with a slap on the wrist. The judge sentenced him for 7 years in prison, given the fact that this guy showed no remorse, and thought it made him likely to reoffend, perhaps with more serious consequences.
- Clubber 9y ago
  Yes, but you are getting distracted by exactly what you were supposed to get distracted by. He was hated because he hiked drug prices (and he was a dick). The news jumped all over this story and he was a perfect scapegoat. Sadly, It's still perfectly legal to corner a drug and hike the prices. That was the bigger crime, and it continues to go on, costing taxpayers and patients millions if not billions of dollars, and sometimes costing their health. Yes, hiking drug prices isn't what you should be looking at. Look at Shkrelli! He's in jail; problem solved. Politicians are now off the hook with this conviction. No problem here, justice served. /s
  - king_magic 9y ago
    I initially did not agree with you, then re-read your posts several time, and have come to the conclusion you are absolutely right. Cornering a drug and hiking the price simply for profit and no other legitimate reason (supply chain issue, newer/more effective version, etc...) should be illegal. It is a crime, maybe not in the letter of the law, but ethically, it's a crime.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      They're also leveraging the very thing that was intended to keep pharmaceuticals a legitimate industry; the FDA. The drug he (and many companies) target are drugs where the patent has expired but there is no FDA approved generic. I believe FDA approval can take up to 5 years, so that's 5 years it takes for the market to react. Of course in a free market, this would never happen because 10 other companies would start making the drug, but the FDA safeguards are being leveraged against fair competition. Not only are these companies jacking up prices with monopolistic practices, but they are eroding the legitimacy of the FDA (also to their benefit).
irunbackwards 9y ago
bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered
- Clubber 9y ago
  Unless you donate to politicians, the pigs and politicians get really fat.
FussyZeus 9y ago
For as much of a smug bastard he was, I did have a hearty laugh at his congressional questioning. He treated it with all the dignity and respect it deserved; exactly none. It was political theater performed so the political class could act like they were doing something while the company Shkreli worked for and the rest of their compatriots were, whilist he was humiliating Congress, making record profits doing exactly what he did.
- Clubber 9y ago
  It's a brilliant charade. Politicians were in trouble. They of course are paid to keep things nice for Pharma (including monopolistic practices on drugs) but people were angry and they after all have to get reelected every 2,4,6 years, so they had to make it look like they were doing something without actually doing something. The brought Shkrelli in so they could perform as politicians concerned about their constituents. He wasn't willing to play his part. Shkrelli still made a perfect scapegoat. The news has seemed to move on from the monopolistic practices thing like it never happened.
  - FussyZeus 9y ago
    The news may have moved on but the people are smarter than most give them credit for. They do remember this stuff, just gotta jog their memories a little bit.
where_do_i_live 9y ago
3. .. tripled their money haha no... he LOST their money (All of it), LIED about it (fraud), and paid them back with OTHER funds. Get the facts right first. Misstated - information, the only misstatements are in your post.
- Clubber 9y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli/investor-in-martin-shkrelis-fund-says-he-made-millions-idUSKBN19Q2DJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli/investo... (Reuters) - One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment. This was apparently the guy who alerted investigators to the fraud. He made millions.
  - where_do_i_live 9y ago
    I make no claim that they were not paid back and in excess of their initial investment (which was not in pharmaceuticals) If I lose your money, lie to you, but then I give you 10X your money because I had that in a bank account somewhere because I won the lottery doesn't mean that I didn't commit fraud in relation to your original investment. Just because your "investment" was repaid at a greater amount doesn't mean you weren't defrauded. He made money because of a settlement, NOT because the investment was in pharma. From your own source article: ...largely through an agreement in which Shkreli gave him shares in his drug company Retrophin Inc. Shkreli committed fraud, got caught, investors realized they were defrauded, Shkreli then settled privately and paid them above their initial investments with funds completely unrelated to their investments. He made millions because Shkreli got lucky and was able to settle with them privately. That does not absolve him from the criminal actions he committed just because he settled the civil cases. If Shkreli didn't get lucky with his pharma scheme those investors would not get paid back because their original investment funds were all gone long ago, and again, were not involved in the pharma scheme. You seem to lack the understanding of the facts in this case.
    - 9y ago
zaidf 9y ago
I’m not fan of Shrekeli but the 7 years seems to be excessive relative to other similar cases. For example, Rajaratnam got 11 years in what was dubbed as the biggest trading scandal on Wall Street. (source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-galleon-rajaratnam/rajaratnam-gets-11-year-prison-sentence-idUSTRE79C0MC20111013 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-galleon-rajaratnam/rajara... )
mkhalil 9y ago
In regards to 3: His investors only eventually made money after Shkreli paid them in stock and cash from Retrophin. Prosecutors, on the other hand, have argued that Shkreli should not get any credit for what they described as stealing from Retrophin to pay off the investors. source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/09/pharma-bro-shkreli-to-be-sentenced-for-defrauding-investors.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/09/pharma-bro-shkreli-to-be-sen...

swanson 9y ago

Don't forget 3b) had to go through hundreds of jurors while the news/twitter laughed about people saying they could not be impartial because he "had a punchable face" and "disrespected the Wu Tang Clan". Better hope you don't say anything too mean on Twitter and ever end up in court :(

thrillgore 9y ago
In the defense of the potential juror, you cannot disrespect the Wu-Tang Clan. They'll banish you to the 36 chambers.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
It's more, "don't be an asshole". Which I feel is quite good advice for anyone. People are less willing to help people who are assholes to others.

monochromatic 9y ago

Except this investigation was already in progress when the drug price thing happened.

mkhalil 9y ago
Do you have a source?
- tomjakubowski 9y ago
  It's easily verifiable yourself. Here's a Newsweek article from September 2015, when the Turing Pharmaceuticals story broke: http://www.newsweek.com/martin-shkreli-drug-manipulation-daraprim-retrophin-375416 http://www.newsweek.com/martin-shkreli-drug-manipulation-dar... > Since at least in January, Shkreli has been under criminal investigation by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, court records show. And Shkreli is not alone—some of his business associates have also received grand jury subpoenas in the case.

anonytrary 9y ago

This. There's a bigger problem we need to deal with. The system. The laws. The government. The banks. The Federal Reserve. If there was a Statist 101 course, this entire 300-year project would get a D, maybe a C. It's atrocious, and we all accept it because we are sheep who need protection from the big bad wolves of the world. Eventually, it will become clear that there is one big bad wolf we should really fear.

justboxing 9y ago

[RETRACTED]

matt_wulfeck 9y ago
That got him kicked off Twitter but had nothing to do with the legality of this case.
- tehwebguy 9y ago
  It is why his bail was revoked and certainly played into the judge’s sentencing
kolpa 9y ago
He did some thing wrong on Twitter, so instead of government prosecuting him for that, he was prosecuted for an unrelated charge?

dmix 9y ago

The best explanation of the drug price phenomenon: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-drugs-vs-chairs/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-dr... Shkreli was the just the lowest hanging fruit who a) didn't have the backing of a major pharma company to mask him and b) he also happened to enjoy the attention he get from playing the "villain" character, ironically or not, in an outrage driven (social) media culture. I also don't think it's possible to separate his identity within pharma nor his politics with the Clinton drama, from his sentencing in this case. Nearly every single headline has started with "Pharmabro" and judges always consider external factors and personal behaviour during sentencing.

ahtu123 9y ago
I'm sure there are some much more egregious and systematic violators of what we consider fair drug pricing and much worse, but they actually have the money and power that Shkreli thought he had to stay out of the limelight. Well.. he was also dumb enough to actually try to get famous on this.

jcoffland 9y ago

Shkreli has repeatedly flaunted his wealth, privilege and false sense of superiority. Although not illegal, it's offensive. Offending the public, whether right or wrong, has consequences. Shkreli is getting a taste of mob justice, or just what he asked for.

foxhound6 9y ago
> ...Offending the public, whether right or wrong, has consequences. Shkreli is getting a taste of mob justice, or just what he asked for. Isn't that exactly what the justice system is in place to prevent?
- ggg9990 9y ago
  No, it’s what the justice system is in place to formalize.
  - m_mueller 9y ago
    ... in the US, apparently.
    - ggg9990 9y ago
      Pretty much everywhere, if the justice system doesn’t reflect the population’s desire for mob justice, the people will administer it extrajudicially. The places with low bloodthirst traditionally have strong civic fabrics and low violent crime. If those things change the justice system will adapt or die.
      - m_mueller 9y ago
        Isn‘t this a chicken and egg problem? If people don‘t get to know court proceedings when they happen it doesn‘t give them more outrage and justice porn and calms down the overall atmosphere. To compare, Swiss people generally don‘t care about what happens in courts, they care about the next direct democractic vote (and get riled up about it sometimes), but I consider that at least more at the root of politics and not targeted at individuals.

dgllghr 9y ago

In addition, I noticed that our system punished him for defrauding the wealthy and not for jacking up drug prices, which harms the average American.

kolpa 9y ago
He didn't even defraud the wealthy. He played fast and loose but he won for his investors.
- k3d 9y ago
  defrauding isn't synonymous with stealing- he did take the money under false pretenses. if I come to you for investment in my cool new startup that does distributed crypto machine learning ai for entertaining bored housecats on the blockchain and come back a year later having sextupled your investment in money from illegal arms smuggling, you've still been defrauded.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Except derivatives that almost sank the country for a few decades in 2008. For some reason selling derivative where it's incredibly difficult or impossible to know what securities they are derived from isn't fraud. https://www.thebalance.com/role-of-derivatives-in-creating-mortgage-crisis-3970477 https://www.thebalance.com/role-of-derivatives-in-creating-m...
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago
  No, he defrauded his investors and lost their money. He later managed to come up with money from another source to pay them back, but that doesn't erase the fraud that he previously committed.

biggc 9y ago

> 3. Prosecutors, needing to do something got him on fraud charges where he misstated information on an investment but still tripled their money. I don't think the outcome should matter. Lying to investors should land you in jail. It shouldn't become okay "if investors still made money"

sol_remmy 9y ago
> I don't think the outcome should matter. According to the article, "prosecutors had pushed for at least 15 years, saying Shkreli had not shown remorse for his actions" How come the jury is allow to consider his alleged lack of remorse but is not allowed to consider the outcome? Both are current events
- 9889095r3jh 9y ago
  If he shows no remorse, and he faced no consequences, why wouldn't he pull another scam? That makes him more of a danger.
  - MrFantastic 9y ago
    1 time is an accident, 2 times is a trend.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  What jury? Federal criminal sentencing is done by the judge, not a jury. Also, I don't agree with GP, but arguably the outcome is less relevant to the risk to society posed by reoffense than is genuine remorse or the lack thereof.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  If I push my wife off a cliff for life insurance but she falls onto and kills a terrorist or school shooter does that lessen my crime? Does it even change the nature of my crime? No so it shouldn't enter in.
  - 9y ago

mrj 9y ago

Well, you seem to be saying that because the investment tripled, then no crime has taken place. That's not really how it works.

theptip 9y ago
Exactly. Matt Levine has a good summary: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-28/big-companies-can-keep-big-secrets https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-28/big-compa... "The government's argument is that those investors did lose money; it's just that Shkreli eventually paid them back after they started complaining. If your fraud loses money for investors, and they catch you, and you pay them back, then the losses still count. And while Shkreli has an argument that that's not what happened here -- that he gave Retrophin stock to the funds out of the goodness of his heart after they suffered honest losses, rather than to settle legal claims from disgruntled investors accusing him of fraud -- it is frankly not a very good one. And so he is getting tagged with the full amount that investors put into his funds, even though those investors all ultimately got paid back. That seems analytically correct, though also a bit rough on him. Shkreli is obviously an unpopular character but he is not, as these things go, a particularly bad fraudster. His lawyers were seeking a sentence of "perhaps just 16 months or less," and that actually sounds about right to me for this sort of fraud. If he gets much more than that, I suppose it can be technically justified by legal arguments about the amount of loss that he caused, but I suspect it will really be driven more by his all-around dreadfulness."
Clubber 9y ago
I didn't intend to insinuate that. I was more trying to paint a picture of him being a scapegoat for the monopolization of drug prices. His prosecution diverted the public eye from this much larger problem.

whack 9y ago

What you described is a perfect example of a hacky-fix vs well-engineered-solution. Treating the symptom instead of treating the problem. Our entire society is built on layers upon layers of hacky fixes. It's depressing, but look on the bright side. If you want to make a difference in the world, what a time to be alive!

dmode 9y ago

How does 1,2, and 4 matter ? Did he defraud investors ? Yes. Was it illegal, yes ? How does it matter if he was a total douche. He would still be out and doing his thing if he didn't commit a crime.

sol_remmy 9y ago
Because the sentence was WAY harsher than normal because of 1,2 and 4. It was a white collar crime. NO monetary damages. And 8 years?? Clearly they sentenced him for 8 years for political reasons
- jonnycomputer 9y ago
  it was white collar crime, so you know, its like totally not a big deal. right? speaks to me of a culture problem here.
  - kirillseva 9y ago
    the thing that he was sentenced for was a white collar crime with no monetary damages. If it were a white collar crime with damage done then sure, prison time might have been appropriate. 7 years seems too harsh, and was most likely the byproduct of Martin behaving like an asshole and the general public being "upset" about the drug price hike
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      Him being a chronic and flaming asshole throughout the whole thing makes it clear that if he isn't somehow taught a lesson, he will keep doing this stuff. Like a lot of sociopaths, he has figured out that most people are nicer than him and he can get away with a lot of outrageous behavior because most people are simply better behaved than him, so he is unlikely to be crapped on to the degree that he is all too happy to crap on others. Hopefully the long sentence will clue him that betting that way stops working if you push it far enough. No, you don't get to disregard social norms in how you treat others, then bank on them protecting you. Life is a two way street. Social contracts involve two parts. You don't get to endlessly abuse social norms because your wiring is outside the norm and being mean is perfectly comfortable to you.

9889095r3jh 9y ago

No here's what actually happened. 1. Shkreli lied to investors. Regardless of whether the investors eventually made money, Shkreli put them needlessly at risk, and broke the law. 2. He could have gone away for 15 years, or walked away with a slap on the wrist. The judge sentenced him for 7 years in prison, given the fact that this guy showed no remorse, and thought it made him likely to reoffend, perhaps with more serious consequences.

Clubber 9y ago
Yes, but you are getting distracted by exactly what you were supposed to get distracted by. He was hated because he hiked drug prices (and he was a dick). The news jumped all over this story and he was a perfect scapegoat. Sadly, It's still perfectly legal to corner a drug and hike the prices. That was the bigger crime, and it continues to go on, costing taxpayers and patients millions if not billions of dollars, and sometimes costing their health. Yes, hiking drug prices isn't what you should be looking at. Look at Shkrelli! He's in jail; problem solved. Politicians are now off the hook with this conviction. No problem here, justice served. /s
- king_magic 9y ago
  I initially did not agree with you, then re-read your posts several time, and have come to the conclusion you are absolutely right. Cornering a drug and hiking the price simply for profit and no other legitimate reason (supply chain issue, newer/more effective version, etc...) should be illegal. It is a crime, maybe not in the letter of the law, but ethically, it's a crime.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    They're also leveraging the very thing that was intended to keep pharmaceuticals a legitimate industry; the FDA. The drug he (and many companies) target are drugs where the patent has expired but there is no FDA approved generic. I believe FDA approval can take up to 5 years, so that's 5 years it takes for the market to react. Of course in a free market, this would never happen because 10 other companies would start making the drug, but the FDA safeguards are being leveraged against fair competition. Not only are these companies jacking up prices with monopolistic practices, but they are eroding the legitimacy of the FDA (also to their benefit).

irunbackwards 9y ago

bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered

Clubber 9y ago
Unless you donate to politicians, the pigs and politicians get really fat.

FussyZeus 9y ago

For as much of a smug bastard he was, I did have a hearty laugh at his congressional questioning. He treated it with all the dignity and respect it deserved; exactly none. It was political theater performed so the political class could act like they were doing something while the company Shkreli worked for and the rest of their compatriots were, whilist he was humiliating Congress, making record profits doing exactly what he did.

Clubber 9y ago
It's a brilliant charade. Politicians were in trouble. They of course are paid to keep things nice for Pharma (including monopolistic practices on drugs) but people were angry and they after all have to get reelected every 2,4,6 years, so they had to make it look like they were doing something without actually doing something. The brought Shkrelli in so they could perform as politicians concerned about their constituents. He wasn't willing to play his part. Shkrelli still made a perfect scapegoat. The news has seemed to move on from the monopolistic practices thing like it never happened.
- FussyZeus 9y ago
  The news may have moved on but the people are smarter than most give them credit for. They do remember this stuff, just gotta jog their memories a little bit.

where_do_i_live 9y ago

3. .. tripled their money haha no... he LOST their money (All of it), LIED about it (fraud), and paid them back with OTHER funds. Get the facts right first. Misstated - information, the only misstatements are in your post.

Clubber 9y ago
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli/investor-in-martin-shkrelis-fund-says-he-made-millions-idUSKBN19Q2DJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli/investo... (Reuters) - One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment. This was apparently the guy who alerted investigators to the fraud. He made millions.
- where_do_i_live 9y ago
  I make no claim that they were not paid back and in excess of their initial investment (which was not in pharmaceuticals) If I lose your money, lie to you, but then I give you 10X your money because I had that in a bank account somewhere because I won the lottery doesn't mean that I didn't commit fraud in relation to your original investment. Just because your "investment" was repaid at a greater amount doesn't mean you weren't defrauded. He made money because of a settlement, NOT because the investment was in pharma. From your own source article: ...largely through an agreement in which Shkreli gave him shares in his drug company Retrophin Inc. Shkreli committed fraud, got caught, investors realized they were defrauded, Shkreli then settled privately and paid them above their initial investments with funds completely unrelated to their investments. He made millions because Shkreli got lucky and was able to settle with them privately. That does not absolve him from the criminal actions he committed just because he settled the civil cases. If Shkreli didn't get lucky with his pharma scheme those investors would not get paid back because their original investment funds were all gone long ago, and again, were not involved in the pharma scheme. You seem to lack the understanding of the facts in this case.
  - 9y ago

zaidf 9y ago

I’m not fan of Shrekeli but the 7 years seems to be excessive relative to other similar cases. For example, Rajaratnam got 11 years in what was dubbed as the biggest trading scandal on Wall Street. (source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-galleon-rajaratnam/rajaratnam-gets-11-year-prison-sentence-idUSTRE79C0MC20111013 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-galleon-rajaratnam/rajara... )

mkhalil 9y ago

In regards to 3: His investors only eventually made money after Shkreli paid them in stock and cash from Retrophin. Prosecutors, on the other hand, have argued that Shkreli should not get any credit for what they described as stealing from Retrophin to pay off the investors. source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/09/pharma-bro-shkreli-to-be-sentenced-for-defrauding-investors.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/09/pharma-bro-shkreli-to-be-sen...