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> money is the measure of value to society The internalization of this leads rich people to conclude they are rich because the provided even more value to the

> money is the measure of value to society The internalization of this leads rich people to conclude they are rich because the provided even more value to the world than they kept to themselves, otherwise they wouldn't have paid them so well. The richer they are the more they think they think they are benefactors and any complaints about how they acquired their wealth is just jealousy or, uh, socialism or something. Sometimes it is the case that the wealthy have contributed something of such value that the world is better off, sometimes not. A drug company taking a 40 year old out of patent drug that has a stable but fixed market can increase shareholder returns by increasing the price 5-fold if they've cornered the market on this niche drug. Did they really do anything good for society? It sure doesn't seem that way, even if they are "creating value" by jacking up the price. The kneejerk reaction of many is to say I should start a company to compete with that predatory pricing model. But that is naive because (a) there are lots of moats to cross to get there and (b) even if stuck it out, I know that the predatory company can drop the price in an instant and use their scale and place as the market leader to crush my nascent company. So nobody does it.

WalterBright 6y ago
> The internalization of this leads rich people to conclude they are rich because the provided even more value to the world than they kept to themselves, otherwise they wouldn't have paid them so well. That's right, and that's a consequence of free markets and the astounding rise in overall standard of living in countries with free markets. > The richer they are the more they think they think they are benefactors and any complaints about how they acquired their wealth is just jealousy or, uh, socialism or something. Most of the complaints I see are based on envy. > cornered the market on this niche drug Most of that appears to be the result of FDA regulations making it very difficult for competitors.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > That's right, and that's a consequence of free markets and the astounding rise in overall standard of living in countries with free markets. Let's talk about the end result in 2020: - the chronic diabetes pandemic: half of American adults, 100 million, are pre-diabetic or worse because of HFCS (corn syrup). By 2026 it's estimated hospital budgets will almost entirely be spent on mgmt. of diabetes patients. - the US outsourced so much of its pharma and PPE mfg. to China that is was unable to defend itself against a pandemic - we reverted to Roman times in terms of public health policy - tens of millions of Americans don't have health insurance You might hand-wave this away as complaints, but US society is rotten to the very core. Our standard of living is medieval for many.
fragmede 6y ago
If I'm able to force the competition to drop their predatory rates to sane levels, then even if I go out of business, I've still won. The objective was for there to be reasonable rates, not to make money. We saw this with Google Fiber, where the incumbent cable monopolies speeds hadn't kept pace with technology. As soon as ATT started offering fiber, Google Fiber "won", in a sense that consumer gigabit fiber Internet now exists.
fsckboy 6y ago
some people internalize ideas that lead them to commit suicide, and those type of problems afflict rich and poor people. So, having internalized wrong ideas does not cast doubt on what money is. rich people can internalize whatever they like, but the money they control allows them to effect more changes to society than the money controlled by people with less and in proportion to the amount of money, whether they are investing for the future or simply consuming today. it is inescapable what money is measuring, and the rubber meets the road as to how you measure your values in how you allocate your money resources too. you are putting a lot of adjectives on things like "predatory"; money is neutral in this regard. How much does society value health care vs food? Just how much is spent. I'm not telling you anything about what to think, I'm just telling you what money is.

WalterBright 6y ago

> The internalization of this leads rich people to conclude they are rich because the provided even more value to the world than they kept to themselves, otherwise they wouldn't have paid them so well. That's right, and that's a consequence of free markets and the astounding rise in overall standard of living in countries with free markets. > The richer they are the more they think they think they are benefactors and any complaints about how they acquired their wealth is just jealousy or, uh, socialism or something. Most of the complaints I see are based on envy. > cornered the market on this niche drug Most of that appears to be the result of FDA regulations making it very difficult for competitors.

redis_mlc 6y ago
> That's right, and that's a consequence of free markets and the astounding rise in overall standard of living in countries with free markets. Let's talk about the end result in 2020: - the chronic diabetes pandemic: half of American adults, 100 million, are pre-diabetic or worse because of HFCS (corn syrup). By 2026 it's estimated hospital budgets will almost entirely be spent on mgmt. of diabetes patients. - the US outsourced so much of its pharma and PPE mfg. to China that is was unable to defend itself against a pandemic - we reverted to Roman times in terms of public health policy - tens of millions of Americans don't have health insurance You might hand-wave this away as complaints, but US society is rotten to the very core. Our standard of living is medieval for many.

fragmede 6y ago

If I'm able to force the competition to drop their predatory rates to sane levels, then even if I go out of business, I've still won. The objective was for there to be reasonable rates, not to make money. We saw this with Google Fiber, where the incumbent cable monopolies speeds hadn't kept pace with technology. As soon as ATT started offering fiber, Google Fiber "won", in a sense that consumer gigabit fiber Internet now exists.

fsckboy 6y ago

some people internalize ideas that lead them to commit suicide, and those type of problems afflict rich and poor people. So, having internalized wrong ideas does not cast doubt on what money is. rich people can internalize whatever they like, but the money they control allows them to effect more changes to society than the money controlled by people with less and in proportion to the amount of money, whether they are investing for the future or simply consuming today. it is inescapable what money is measuring, and the rubber meets the road as to how you measure your values in how you allocate your money resources too. you are putting a lot of adjectives on things like "predatory"; money is neutral in this regard. How much does society value health care vs food? Just how much is spent. I'm not telling you anything about what to think, I'm just telling you what money is.