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Everyone acts like all these wonders arise from private innovation. They discount the decades of public investment that brought us to the point that a company c

Everyone acts like all these wonders arise from private innovation. They discount the decades of public investment that brought us to the point that a company could develop a specific mRNA vaccine. From the public roads and public education to the trillions spent over the past 50 years to bring computer and bio technologies to their current point, it’s public investment that makes it all possible. Our capitalist system works by private investors capturing most of the value of public investment. The dreaded Chomsky points out that the US socializes the risk and privatizes the profit. But, here I am, talking trash about pirates in a barroom on the Barbary Coast! Let me stop before I lose a limb…

maxerickson 4y ago
What value do you place on a delivered dose of vaccine? Because the recipient profits the amount you get if you subtract the price of purchase and administration from that value. So like say the value is $100. When the vaccine was $26, the recipient and government got about $74 of value for each shot delivered and Moderna got $26 minus the cost of developing and producing the vaccine. Who's getting most of the value there? If you don't think the vaccine provides $100 of value, then the controversy here is that they've priced it outside of the range where it will do any good. Of course sensible parties like insurance companies know the value is much more than $100 and will pay for it.