4 ms·

I didn't watch the linked video, but aren't things like education and affordable housing also problems that governments have been tackling for decades without m

I didn't watch the linked video, but aren't things like education and affordable housing also problems that governments have been tackling for decades without much progress and even often making things worse? For example, economists are almost uniformly against rent control, which many cities try to implement. And the flood of government money encouraging educational loans seems to have made college costs spiral. Personally, I think both the free market and the government can do good and can do bad. Sensible policies and entrepreneurs can help these issues, and bad policies and bad companies can worsen them.

Alex3917 7y ago
The government is in charge of determining what types of businesses are profitable though, so even areas where the government hasn't been effective usually still require better government policies in order for the markets to be able to offer solutions. There are certainly problems that businesses can ameliorate given current government policies, but it just isn't realistic to think that we can solve every problem on our own by routing around government.
- ibeckermayer 7y ago
  Exactly right. I can give you a perfect example from a project I'm working on: http://openinsulin.org/ http://openinsulin.org/ We're working to make medicine more affordable, focusing on insulin in particular. Insulin has been around for decades, it's easy to make. Technology has been improving, things should be getting cheaper. Instead, insulin continues to rise [1]. People with diabetes need this stuff, if they don't have it they'll literally drop dead. The left wing "solution" to this problem is to force taxpayers to subsidize it, and perhaps impose price controls. The right wing "solution" is to puke some cookie cutter line about the "free market" and America's incredible "innovation" in drug development, exposing his skin-deep understanding of what those terms mean. (Later, he'll throw a fit about how so many millenials want socialized medicine). So our startup idea is to create cheap small-scale insulin production hardware, except the second we try to pay back investors and become "for profit", we get regulated like any other drug manufacturer. That means we need to hire an army of lawyers, go through a multi-year multi-million dollar FDA approval process for all the production equipment etc., and open ourselves to patent lawsuits and other weapons of corporate thuggery that the big-time drug companies are so willing to wield. If we manage to make it through that gauntlet of fuckery, god knows if we'll actually be able to sell it for any cheaper than the status quo. I'm open to being told I'm wrong about this problem, but from my understanding there's simply no way to solve this problem without massive regulatory reform. [1] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/11u1Lqm70xFl0kWTtrt6kAEhrSE=/0x0:1903x757/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1903x757):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8500453/ioi150073f1.png https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/11u1Lqm70xFl0kWTtrt6kAEhrSE=...
  - kaushikktiwari 7y ago
    This is really cool--did you hear about how a bunch of hospitals are coming together to manufacture generic drugs that are marked up by PBMs--I imagine if something like that where a stakeholder with input in the buying process can come in and guarantee like a monopolistic market for an upstart..the drugs are going to be cheaper but the fact that the hospitals themselves are consumers means people can take long term bets without fear of losing money
    - ibeckermayer 7y ago
      Hmm that's an interesting avenue. I've heard of that briefly somewhere but haven't put any thought into seeking out partnership. Thanks for the tip.
  - mattieuga 7y ago
    This is awesome! I'm the founder of Alto Pharmacy - let me know if we can help with anything (matt at alto.com)
  - sjg007 7y ago
    There may be another way, partner with academic hospitals and have them sell the insulin at cost.
    - ibeckermayer 7y ago
      That’s an interesting idea. Maybe something like - We make the insulin and give it to them for free. - They sell it - They donate to us as a 501c3 The legal framework is really twisted and difficult to parse. Maybe this is the perfect loophole, maybe somebody would end up in prison. We’ve got some lawyers volunteering, but per not having much money its difficult to get steady legal counsel to brainstorm with about the legal risks
      - sjg007 7y ago
        Why would you go to jail??
mindslight 7y ago
> aren't things like education and affordable housing also problems that governments have been tackling for decades without much progress and even often making things worse Not exactly. Government has been throwing band aids at the symptoms, while continuing full steam ahead with the underlying policy - an inflationary treadmill that keeps pushing "full employment" at a time when human labor is rapidly less required. Housing is not affordable not because it has become expensive to build, but because it has been effectively financialized into a rent extraction scheme. And changing those fundamentals would disrupt the exit plans of everyone that has bought into the bubble. I'm not excited about private industry approaches - they can succeed in isolation but they can't change the game. Even if innovation does say, bring down the cost of housing. The explicit government policy is to then raise prices across the board to make sure that average costs still keep going up. Essentially, economic progress itself has been turned into a zero sum affair for everyone but the upper class. This feedback is exactly what happened after free trade and big box stores brought the benefits of cheaper goods and economies of scale, but also hollowed out our local economies. Rather than everybody ending up with more buying power that compensated for the local lost income, prices were raised to erode those gains. So we were left with lower quality goods for the same price, and displaced workers unable to take over a share of the still-needed work, as the still-employed had to keep working "full time" to keep the same buying power.

Alex3917 7y ago

The government is in charge of determining what types of businesses are profitable though, so even areas where the government hasn't been effective usually still require better government policies in order for the markets to be able to offer solutions. There are certainly problems that businesses can ameliorate given current government policies, but it just isn't realistic to think that we can solve every problem on our own by routing around government.

ibeckermayer 7y ago
Exactly right. I can give you a perfect example from a project I'm working on: http://openinsulin.org/ http://openinsulin.org/ We're working to make medicine more affordable, focusing on insulin in particular. Insulin has been around for decades, it's easy to make. Technology has been improving, things should be getting cheaper. Instead, insulin continues to rise [1]. People with diabetes need this stuff, if they don't have it they'll literally drop dead. The left wing "solution" to this problem is to force taxpayers to subsidize it, and perhaps impose price controls. The right wing "solution" is to puke some cookie cutter line about the "free market" and America's incredible "innovation" in drug development, exposing his skin-deep understanding of what those terms mean. (Later, he'll throw a fit about how so many millenials want socialized medicine). So our startup idea is to create cheap small-scale insulin production hardware, except the second we try to pay back investors and become "for profit", we get regulated like any other drug manufacturer. That means we need to hire an army of lawyers, go through a multi-year multi-million dollar FDA approval process for all the production equipment etc., and open ourselves to patent lawsuits and other weapons of corporate thuggery that the big-time drug companies are so willing to wield. If we manage to make it through that gauntlet of fuckery, god knows if we'll actually be able to sell it for any cheaper than the status quo. I'm open to being told I'm wrong about this problem, but from my understanding there's simply no way to solve this problem without massive regulatory reform. [1] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/11u1Lqm70xFl0kWTtrt6kAEhrSE=/0x0:1903x757/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1903x757):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8500453/ioi150073f1.png https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/11u1Lqm70xFl0kWTtrt6kAEhrSE=...
- kaushikktiwari 7y ago
  This is really cool--did you hear about how a bunch of hospitals are coming together to manufacture generic drugs that are marked up by PBMs--I imagine if something like that where a stakeholder with input in the buying process can come in and guarantee like a monopolistic market for an upstart..the drugs are going to be cheaper but the fact that the hospitals themselves are consumers means people can take long term bets without fear of losing money
  - ibeckermayer 7y ago
    Hmm that's an interesting avenue. I've heard of that briefly somewhere but haven't put any thought into seeking out partnership. Thanks for the tip.
- mattieuga 7y ago
  This is awesome! I'm the founder of Alto Pharmacy - let me know if we can help with anything (matt at alto.com)
- sjg007 7y ago
  There may be another way, partner with academic hospitals and have them sell the insulin at cost.
  - ibeckermayer 7y ago
    That’s an interesting idea. Maybe something like - We make the insulin and give it to them for free. - They sell it - They donate to us as a 501c3 The legal framework is really twisted and difficult to parse. Maybe this is the perfect loophole, maybe somebody would end up in prison. We’ve got some lawyers volunteering, but per not having much money its difficult to get steady legal counsel to brainstorm with about the legal risks
    - sjg007 7y ago
      Why would you go to jail??

mindslight 7y ago

> aren't things like education and affordable housing also problems that governments have been tackling for decades without much progress and even often making things worse Not exactly. Government has been throwing band aids at the symptoms, while continuing full steam ahead with the underlying policy - an inflationary treadmill that keeps pushing "full employment" at a time when human labor is rapidly less required. Housing is not affordable not because it has become expensive to build, but because it has been effectively financialized into a rent extraction scheme. And changing those fundamentals would disrupt the exit plans of everyone that has bought into the bubble. I'm not excited about private industry approaches - they can succeed in isolation but they can't change the game. Even if innovation does say, bring down the cost of housing. The explicit government policy is to then raise prices across the board to make sure that average costs still keep going up. Essentially, economic progress itself has been turned into a zero sum affair for everyone but the upper class. This feedback is exactly what happened after free trade and big box stores brought the benefits of cheaper goods and economies of scale, but also hollowed out our local economies. Rather than everybody ending up with more buying power that compensated for the local lost income, prices were raised to erode those gains. So we were left with lower quality goods for the same price, and displaced workers unable to take over a share of the still-needed work, as the still-employed had to keep working "full time" to keep the same buying power.