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In general, I wouldn't have a problem with this. It was a preplanned stock sale, and the value of Moderna skyrocketed, predictably. But, this... "In a congres

In general, I wouldn't have a problem with this. It was a preplanned stock sale, and the value of Moderna skyrocketed, predictably. But, this... "In a congressional hearing in March, Sanders highlighted that Moderna created its vaccine in partnership with the National Institutes of Health and received $1.7 billion in federal grant money for clinical development." sort of changes things. The solution? I am not sure.

MisterBastahrd 3y ago
Welcome to 20th century industry.
mikeyouse 3y ago
Perhaps we should do a sovereign wealth fund kind of thing where that type of funding grants the US taxpayer some common shares with no voting preference -- but if you think pure ROI -- $1.7B in investment to save millions and millions of lives worldwide isn't actually that problematic.
- henryfjordan 3y ago
  The investment isn't the problem, the profits are. We clearly could've only spent $1.3B for the same outcome.
  - JamesBarney 3y ago
    It is not straight forward that in the counterfactual where we limited CEO pay with government grants in 2010 we would 100% still have a Moderna. I imagine CEOs would be a more hesitant to take government grants if we did. And if they didn't take the 1.7b maybe everything would be the same, or maybe the company would have died/rolled out the vaccine 2 years later. How profitable do we want to make pandemic preparedness? I think we should make it wildly profitable.
  - twoodfin 3y ago
    $400 million in Moderna stock in 2023 doesn’t pay for vaccine clinical delivery in 2020!
jackmott42 3y ago
The end game for america is either a few elites living in gated communities with the rest of us living in filth, or revolution ssss
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  This is already the case, with the elites living in six different mansions "from the fruits of their labor", which was conveniently funded by tax dollars, tax dollars that large companies largely don't contribute to because of extremely favorable tax treatment for the capital class, while tens of thousands live and die on the street.
JamesBarney 3y ago
I'm not worried about it, this is probably some of the best 1.7 billion dollars the federal government has ever spent. If the money came with strings, maybe the US government would have a little more money and Moderna stock holders a little less, or maybe we wouldn't have a Moderna. And the upside of the former is so smaller compared to the downside of the latter I think in this case we made the right choice.
jameshart 3y ago
If the money came from stock sales, it didn't come out of the company's funding. It isn't that money that's funding this income. This income came from people who want to own a piece of the company's future success. Now, I guess those people are anticipating maybe future profits to be made from NIH funds... but that's sort of the point of government grants to private enterprise. In return for putting their capital up to fund labs and equipment and research, investors expect to be compensated... and some of that compensation comes in the form of government contracts to produce lifesaving vaccines.
aeyes 3y ago
There are many possible solutions. The first would be for the government to behave like a normal investor: Give money for stock or give a loan instead of writing blank cheques. The blank cheque at least could have disallowed any sort of patents. This is quite ridiculous: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/science/moderna-covid-vaccine-patent-nih.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/science/moderna-covid-vac...
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "Give money for stock" Wouldn't that distort the competitive landscape for the other participants, though? If I were running a business where one of the main customers was the government, shouldn't I be lobbying for the government to take a stake in me, and me only?

MisterBastahrd 3y ago

Welcome to 20th century industry.

mikeyouse 3y ago

Perhaps we should do a sovereign wealth fund kind of thing where that type of funding grants the US taxpayer some common shares with no voting preference -- but if you think pure ROI -- $1.7B in investment to save millions and millions of lives worldwide isn't actually that problematic.

henryfjordan 3y ago
The investment isn't the problem, the profits are. We clearly could've only spent $1.3B for the same outcome.
- JamesBarney 3y ago
  It is not straight forward that in the counterfactual where we limited CEO pay with government grants in 2010 we would 100% still have a Moderna. I imagine CEOs would be a more hesitant to take government grants if we did. And if they didn't take the 1.7b maybe everything would be the same, or maybe the company would have died/rolled out the vaccine 2 years later. How profitable do we want to make pandemic preparedness? I think we should make it wildly profitable.
- twoodfin 3y ago
  $400 million in Moderna stock in 2023 doesn’t pay for vaccine clinical delivery in 2020!

jackmott42 3y ago

The end game for america is either a few elites living in gated communities with the rest of us living in filth, or revolution ssss

mrguyorama 3y ago
This is already the case, with the elites living in six different mansions "from the fruits of their labor", which was conveniently funded by tax dollars, tax dollars that large companies largely don't contribute to because of extremely favorable tax treatment for the capital class, while tens of thousands live and die on the street.

JamesBarney 3y ago

I'm not worried about it, this is probably some of the best 1.7 billion dollars the federal government has ever spent. If the money came with strings, maybe the US government would have a little more money and Moderna stock holders a little less, or maybe we wouldn't have a Moderna. And the upside of the former is so smaller compared to the downside of the latter I think in this case we made the right choice.

jameshart 3y ago

If the money came from stock sales, it didn't come out of the company's funding. It isn't that money that's funding this income. This income came from people who want to own a piece of the company's future success. Now, I guess those people are anticipating maybe future profits to be made from NIH funds... but that's sort of the point of government grants to private enterprise. In return for putting their capital up to fund labs and equipment and research, investors expect to be compensated... and some of that compensation comes in the form of government contracts to produce lifesaving vaccines.

aeyes 3y ago

There are many possible solutions. The first would be for the government to behave like a normal investor: Give money for stock or give a loan instead of writing blank cheques. The blank cheque at least could have disallowed any sort of patents. This is quite ridiculous: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/science/moderna-covid-vaccine-patent-nih.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/science/moderna-covid-vac...

JimtheCoder 3y ago
"Give money for stock" Wouldn't that distort the competitive landscape for the other participants, though? If I were running a business where one of the main customers was the government, shouldn't I be lobbying for the government to take a stake in me, and me only?