4 ms·

What if the cost was $100 trillion?

shadowgovt 4y ago
Its sticker price is actually $3.8 million. At that price, it could be administered to every child in the UK with the disease at about the cost of 1 year of the UK's defense budget.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  It's probably cheaper if you're buying it in that sort of quantity. Three million quid on this, three million quid on that, three million quid over there, soon you're talking about a lot of money. If you buy 1600 doses of it at a time they're going to sharpen the pencil for you.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  What happens if UK requires defense that year?
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  The thing that tires me about this old chestnut is that it’s just a shell game and not actually a substantive idea. “Just take money from somewhere else.” It’s akin to saying that we will use the latest AI technology and machine learning to make our value proposition work. It sounds satisfying but it says nothing.
  - CraigJPerry 4y ago
    Why would you need to take money from somewhere else? This is misunderstanding how money works for a currency issuer.
    - Waterluvian 4y ago
      Lol exactly. “Just print more money!”
    - gus_massa 4y ago
      It's a very complicated problem, but just printing money usually cause inflation. There is no free lunch.
      - CraigJPerry 4y ago
        There is no free lunch but money is not a constraint. Physical resources are a hard constraint. Labour is a hard constraint. Money is not. Inflation caused by excess money supply (NB: not inflation caused by excess money velocity) cannot survive taxation. Taxation destroys money supply. It’s no more (or less) complicated than any of the thousands of other fiscal decisions a government makes every year. There’s a fallacy alluded to in the statement “it’s a very complicated problem” - the allusion is to one of inaction being a safer default choice but nothing about inaction in the face of a complex problem guarantees against making things worse By qualifying with “complex” problem i mean a problem that’s as complex as choosing what to fund in a national budget. A problem for which no answer can be proven correct. A problem which can only be addressed by taking a considered view on risk. A problem with unresolvable uncertainties.
        concordDance 4y ago
        The real constraint is indeed what that money buys, e.g the aforementioned person hours. And if you print money and inflate then the price of goods rises. So sure, you might only pay a bit more for the treatment but now fruits are more expensive and your population gets slightly more unhealthy.
        CraigJPerry 4y ago
        >> and inflate >> >> Inflation caused by excess money supply (NB: not inflation caused by excess money velocity) cannot survive taxation. Taxation destroys money supply.
        gus_massa 4y ago
        So you are actually proposing to raise taxes. The problems is that everyone hate that, and will avoid paying taxes and/or vote for the opposition party.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Now you're trading off against the defence of Ukraine (for example). How many Ukrainian soldiers lives is this child's life worth? I think a big problem is you don't currently realise just how many different worthy causes are currently underfunded. At a guess you could probably spend a couple of trillion a year in the UK before you've exhausted most of the nice things that could be done. There are sooooo many good things to do and only so many person hours (which is what money pays for mostly) to do them. If you did scrap the defence budget then the money shouldn't go on treating these kids but instead should be invested in the surgery backlogs, ambulance wait times and the justice system trial backlog.

Its sticker price is actually $3.8 million. At that price, it could be administered to every child in the UK with the disease at about the cost of 1 year of the UK's defense budget.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
It's probably cheaper if you're buying it in that sort of quantity. Three million quid on this, three million quid on that, three million quid over there, soon you're talking about a lot of money. If you buy 1600 doses of it at a time they're going to sharpen the pencil for you.
mrtksn 4y ago
What happens if UK requires defense that year?
Waterluvian 4y ago
The thing that tires me about this old chestnut is that it’s just a shell game and not actually a substantive idea. “Just take money from somewhere else.” It’s akin to saying that we will use the latest AI technology and machine learning to make our value proposition work. It sounds satisfying but it says nothing.
- CraigJPerry 4y ago
  Why would you need to take money from somewhere else? This is misunderstanding how money works for a currency issuer.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Lol exactly. “Just print more money!”
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    It's a very complicated problem, but just printing money usually cause inflation. There is no free lunch.
    - CraigJPerry 4y ago
      There is no free lunch but money is not a constraint. Physical resources are a hard constraint. Labour is a hard constraint. Money is not. Inflation caused by excess money supply (NB: not inflation caused by excess money velocity) cannot survive taxation. Taxation destroys money supply. It’s no more (or less) complicated than any of the thousands of other fiscal decisions a government makes every year. There’s a fallacy alluded to in the statement “it’s a very complicated problem” - the allusion is to one of inaction being a safer default choice but nothing about inaction in the face of a complex problem guarantees against making things worse By qualifying with “complex” problem i mean a problem that’s as complex as choosing what to fund in a national budget. A problem for which no answer can be proven correct. A problem which can only be addressed by taking a considered view on risk. A problem with unresolvable uncertainties.
      - concordDance 4y ago
        The real constraint is indeed what that money buys, e.g the aforementioned person hours. And if you print money and inflate then the price of goods rises. So sure, you might only pay a bit more for the treatment but now fruits are more expensive and your population gets slightly more unhealthy.
        CraigJPerry 4y ago
        >> and inflate >> >> Inflation caused by excess money supply (NB: not inflation caused by excess money velocity) cannot survive taxation. Taxation destroys money supply.
        gus_massa 4y ago
        So you are actually proposing to raise taxes. The problems is that everyone hate that, and will avoid paying taxes and/or vote for the opposition party.
concordDance 4y ago
Now you're trading off against the defence of Ukraine (for example). How many Ukrainian soldiers lives is this child's life worth? I think a big problem is you don't currently realise just how many different worthy causes are currently underfunded. At a guess you could probably spend a couple of trillion a year in the UK before you've exhausted most of the nice things that could be done. There are sooooo many good things to do and only so many person hours (which is what money pays for mostly) to do them. If you did scrap the defence budget then the money shouldn't go on treating these kids but instead should be invested in the surgery backlogs, ambulance wait times and the justice system trial backlog.