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are just regular fires. Disasters happen. Folks are used to that.

wut. What on earth is regular about these fires? I avoid mainstream media as much as possible but I've seen plenty of pictures and video the absolute hellscape of Californian communities that are now simply gone. It's by far the worst fire California has ever had.

Doing something on climate change would only benefit their checks if it lead to new jobs for the folks who'll be put out of work.

Putting up wind farms and solar panels would employ vastly more people than the fossil fuel industry does. Running high speed rail through the United States would employ even more, and do so for decades as the US caught up to where Europe was in the Thatcher administration.

That kind of infrastructure needs government backing to make happen. And that means taxes.

No new taxes needed - just take a trillion dollars out of the annual imperial budget and you'd have more than enough to do all of the above plus provide free health care and education while eliminating homelessness. But even if taxes were increased, the cost to taxpayers would be more than offset by the increased wages during the boom.

So you claim. All I see is an article citing studies to the contrary.

That's because you're willfully ignorant.

The FDA says precisely the same thing about cannabis.

No they do not.

Yes, yes they do. A Schedule I drug is one which is considered to have no medical benefit. You don't even know what the claims are! What makes you think you can make a contribution to the discussion? The FDA backs up the DEA here, and vice versa, so there is no conflict there either.

Even if they did your statement is irrelevant, since this is a scientific article about Kratom not Cannabis.

My statement is relevant because it establishes poor faith on the part of the federal government when it comes to the characterization of chemical compounds, including the FDA. The FDA is an ideal expression of greed and arrogance. Any study which wasn't done precisely by their guidelines is considered to be completely invalid, even if it is superior to a typical FDA-approved study overall. If it was Not Invented Here, then it's "no evidence". That's bunkum.

Keeping dangerous drugs off the street is positive. Keeping bad medical devices out of doctors offices and hospitals is positive. Complaining that congress didn't give the FDA authority or money to invent new drugs is a lame criticism.

Preventing bad things isn't positive, it's just avoiding bad things. The FDA can only smite, it cannot reward nor can it further science, only retard it. I think that's dumb. Since the FDA is being wielded as a weapon by Big Pharma, it's not just stupid but actively harmful.

The federal government does this kind of thing all the time. There always was evidence that milk from cows treated with BGH/rBST is inferior to milk from other cows, for example; it increases udder infections which is known to increase the pus content of milk by a significant percentage. But milk producers who labeled their milk as non-BGH were forced by the USDA to also carry a disclaimer stating that there was no difference between the two, which is an outright lie that they knew was a lie. Essentially the same force is at work here. They know that there is evidence that Kratom has medical benefits, but they are stating otherwise. This is a fraud perpetuated against The People, and you are making yourself a party to it by claiming otherwise.

I'm just going to leave this here...

http://www.pogo.org/our-work/r...

And the majority of the revenue for those comes from taxes specifically laid to collect revenue for those.

And regardless of how you or anyone else feels about it, we spend far more money on the illusion of defense than we should.... by a vast amount. In 2015 the military ate up 54% of our discretionary spending. https://www.nationalpriorities...

And where did it all go? Well, we can't actually say because the DoD hasn't completed an audit since 1990. THAT is how fucked up they are at handling money. http://www.pogo.org/straus/iss...

Exactly what does Snowden have to do with Wikileaks, which released the emails leaked to them by the DNC insider and those phished from Podesta's gmail account?

And just what did they think would happen to an NSA whistleblower who got stuck in Russia after the USA cancelled his passport? It's doubly ironic when the NSA watchdog who said that Snowden should have come to him was fired for retaliation against whistleblowers.

This isn't exactly new. The fact that they had to dig up something this old to push tells you they've got nothing.

That is greater than the $580B or so spent on the DoD in 2014

This page shows national security spending in 2014 was more like $968B. Yes, defense discretionary spending was around $580B but they also need to pay for the VA and military pensions as well as other national security expenditures. Neither figure includes the trillions we spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Still not the trillions we would need to fund a basic income, but certainly getting closer. Obviously, we can't totally eliminate national security spending and we would still have to honor our commitments to our veterans but there is a lot of money that can be removed from the defense budget while still spending more than any other country in the world.

I can see what you mean, this really had a (sic) significant impact on Booz-Allen. Wow, they had to schedule an emergency call and let investors know that projected targets would be impacted and issue new guidance on earnings. I don't know what reality you live in, but this isn't a slap on the hand, this is barely a "wag of the finger" without so much as a "tisk-tisk". The military industrial complex is out of FREAKING control and has been since Eisenhower. It is corrupt to the core and now it has the ability to track all of our digital footprints 1984 style. I encourage you to show me how this incident of which you referenced had an significant impact on Booz-Allen or its practices.

Source: Penalties Are Weak for Misbehaving Contractors

Excerpt

Last year, the Air Force temporarily suspended the San Antonio division of [Booz Allen] from future contracts because it had obtained and distributed confidential Pentagon bidding data for its own competitive advantage. In 2006, the Justice Department said the company overbilled travel expenses, and the agency initially recommended that Booz Allen be barred from federal contracting.

Those incidents had little or no impact on Booz Allen’s success in recent years or on its ability to compete for federal contracts, which last year provided 99 percent of the company’s $5.8 billion in revenue.

Ironically, the Air Force has desperately tried to kill the A10 repeatedly since the 1980s. It's neither fast, nor an air-air fighter, nor particularly 'glamorous'.

Their complaints are always on other grounds, of course, but that's the root of it.

In fact, their pressure to kill this ugly, effective plane has climbed to the point that they're conducting internal witch-hunts to purge (and presumably punish) anyone in their ranks that disagrees. http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/alerts/national-security/ns-a10-20030604.html

Unfortunately for the Air Force, the A10 works (outstandingly; it's perhaps the best ground-attack fighter ever built), has universal support outside the Air Force, and is iconic to the militarily-ignorant public.

there is no basis to assume that intelligence officers are routinely, intentionally, and wantonly violating the law.

The FBI routinely, intentionally, and wantonly violates the law when it comes to NSLs. Notice that the report linked in the article is the THIRD one about the problem, I don't see why I should assume the NSA is any better.

I think you're also misinterpreting his comment: cops don't get fired when they botch an investigation on Constitutional grounds because they aren't willfully violating the Constitution

Cops dont' get fired because the system is too corrupt to fire them. We live in a world where two police officers can anally rape a man with their taser, on tape, absolutely confirmed to have happened, and the police ombudsman recommends nothing more than additional training. There is no honest excuse for that and it betrays a deep deep perversion of the law enforcement culture in this country.

That is the reality of the world in which we live. I know it would be wonderful if we could just trust the authorities to adhere to and uphold the law, but that's a dangerous fantasy. Our public officials aren't all looking to get us, but they are more than willing to turn a blind eye to some terrible abuses of power. Especially when it means bigger budgets and job security.

When any government official steps outside of their legitimate authority they should feel the full force of the law any of us would experience if we did the same act. In fact, there should be an extra penalty for the violation of public trust. Anything else makes a mockery of the rule of law. Every overreach of government power is a crime.

The DOD has an Intelligence Oversight office whose sole purpose is to ensure that intelligence operations do not run afoul of the law with respect to US Persons.

Yes, and I'm sure they're about as interested in prosecuting actual crimes as our friend the Idaho ombudsman is. Internal review boards serve no purpose but whitewashing. Are documents like this really supposed to make me any more comfortable? The document itself is whitewashed!

If you want me to trust that authority is responsibly wielded, start holding people responsible who fail to do so. Is that so unreasonable?

But they aren't really paid twice as much. It's a myth that they are. If you are a contractor you get more cash, but yo ustill have to buy your health insurance, pay your own retirement, pay for all the benefits government employees take for granted.

It's twice as much AFTER ADDING IN BENEFITS.

Because the contractor billing rates published by GSA include not only salaries but also other costs including benefits contractors provide their employees, POGO added OPM’s 36.25 percent benefit rate to federal employee salaries and BLS’s 33.5 percent loading to private sector employee salaries to reflect the full fringe benefit package paid to full-time employees in service-providing organizations that employ 500 or more workers.

http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/reports/contract-oversight/bad-business/co-gp-20110913.html#Summary%20of%20Methodology

If all these costs were accounted for then the supposed gap would be much narrower or potentially even non-existent.

Except that they are accounted for already.

http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/reports/contract-oversight/bad-business/co-gp-20110913.html#Summary%20of%20Methodology

Because the contractor billing rates published by GSA include not only salaries but also other costs including benefits contractors provide their employees, POGO added OPM’s 36.25 percent benefit rate to federal employee salaries and BLS’s 33.5 percent loading to private sector employee salaries to reflect the full fringe benefit package paid to full-time employees in service-providing organizations that employ 500 or more workers.

And when they talk about how much Federal employees make vs Contractors they never factor in that a Contractor doesn't get any benefits, any life insurance, any health insurance, or anything.

Except that they did factor that in.

Because the contractor billing rates published by GSA include not only salaries but also other costs including benefits contractors provide their employees, POGO added OPM’s 36.25 percent benefit rate to federal employee salaries

http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/reports/contract-oversight/bad-business/co-gp-20110913.html#Summary%20of%20Methodology

...in the study. I work in government IT, and figuring the cost of benefits is standard procedure when we're working up a budget, and trivially simple. Here's a link to the actual study

You're right about bringing in consultants for short-term projects, of course it makes more sense than hiring.

POGO's report is freely available on the web. If you actually look at their methodology, you'll see that they included benefits.

Because the contractor billing rates published by GSA include not only salaries but also other costs including benefits contractors provide their employees,[66] POGO added OPMâ(TM)s 36.25 percent benefit rate to federal employee salaries[67] and BLSâ(TM)s 33.5 percent loading to private sector employee salaries to reflect the full fringe benefit package paid to full-time employees in service-providing organizations that employ 500 or more workers

The US military whistle blowers would have been MUCH better off going to the Project on Government Oversight, an organization which has a history of helping whistle blowers get out their stories and keep them out of jail.

Do they have solid tips like: don't use your first name + 'ass' + your date of birth as your email name when leaking sensitive documents?

Because bradass87 could have used such wisdom.

The US military whistle blowers would have been MUCH better off going to the Project on Government Oversight, an organization which has a history of helping whistle blowers get out their stories and keep them out of jail. Other than continuing to link to Wikileaks and give them publicity, I have no clue as to how to help them.

I was thinking in particular about linux on the desktop and in particular compiz versus the graphics drivers. You and the parent are right though, if I didn't fiddle with it and just used stable software, it would be like a tank. Not the M1 though -- it's a real gas guzzler whose stops for refueling caused Iraqi tanks to escape in 1991 (according to General Schwarzkopf). Also, it's not clear how well it would function in a real drawn out battle, not only is it a gas guzzler, but in a place like Iraq it needs to have it's air filters replaced every so often, which is another delay.

There are also arguments that say that the radar evading capabilities of these planes hasn't actually been vetted all that much because the U.S. controls the air-space in most of its engagements so having stealth isn't actually very helpful. In any case, the stealth planes fly such a small fraction of the bombing runs that any statistics on how few they have lost to enemy fire are meaningless.

Where is the post facto law?

Existing law at the time gave the telecoms immunity. The problem is that they had to prove that they were provided with a lawful request. Now don't confuse a lawful request with the legality of the program, for this purpose, it is that someone presented them with something otherwise authorized by law that showed the government had th authority and ordered the taps. A simple order o r authorization by the AG would be sufficient.

The problem is that the administration classified that information and it would be a felony to disclose that information to anyone. The immunity bill doesn't give immunity, it provides a vehicle in which immunity that was already existent at the time can be accessed without disclosing state secrets or causing someone to commit a felony in the simple act of their defense.

I'm not sure how people can have such strong opinions and think things like the constitution is at risk when they don't even know the facts about the situation. Typically I would ignore posts like this because I figured the smart people would sort it out. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be happening and now it is being claimed that there is a buy off on congress. And the map light project does this without naming any sources, providing their data showing before or after contributions, methodology or anything that I would consider to be the facts surrounding the situation. For all we know, they simply stated their opinion. It is purely amazing that half backed accusations and suggestive opinion can rule the thoughts of people who have all the tools necessary to validate claims in front of them but fail to do so for whatever reason. I think it is something to do with an ideolocracy of some sort where Ideology trumps life and facts.

BTW, if you look at this site, you see a difference in amounts reported. If you look at this PDF you can see this in action. So yes, some verifiable numbers, data sets and all that is quite important in making the accusation that our leaders are being paid off. Hell according to the PDF, there is around a 11-15% difference between the candidate and PAC reporting in Dick Gepheardt's reporting alone.

Where is the post facto law?

Existing law at the time gave the telecoms immunity. The problem is that they had to prove that they were provided with a lawful request. Now don't confuse a lawful request with the legality of the program, for this purpose, it is that someone presented them with something otherwise authorized by law that showed the government had th authority and ordered the taps. A simple order o r authorization by the AG would be sufficient.

The problem is that the administration classified that information and it would be a felony to disclose that information to anyone. The immunity bill doesn't give immunity, it provides a vehicle in which immunity that was already existent at the time can be accessed without disclosing state secrets or causing someone to commit a felony in the simple act of their defense.

I'm not sure how people can have such strong opinions and think things like the constitution is at risk when they don't even know the facts about the situation. Typically I would ignore posts like this because I figured the smart people would sort it out. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be happening and now it is being claimed that there is a buy off on congress. And the map light project does this without naming any sources, providing their data showing before or after contributions, methodology or anything that I would consider to be the facts surrounding the situation. For all we know, they simply stated their opinion. It is purely amazing that half backed accusations and suggestive opinion can rule the thoughts of people who have all the tools necessary to validate claims in front of them but fail to do so for whatever reason. I think it is something to do with an ideolocracy of some sort where Ideology trumps life and facts.

BTW, if you look at this site, you see a difference in amounts reported. If you look at this PDF you can see this in action. So yes, some verifiable numbers, data sets and all that is quite important in making the accusation that our leaders are being paid off. Hell according to the PDF, there is around a 11-15% difference between the candidate and PAC reporting in Dick Gepheardt's reporting alone.

I found this link interesting

Big Dreams Still Need Oversight:
Missile Defense Testing and Financial Accountability
are Being Circumvented)

It's not buying jets that you need, that would be fine. You need to do a search, and read up on all the pork-barrel projects used to funnel money into companies like boeing. For example, congress having the USAF lease 100 767 tankers from Boeing at a price billions of dollars above what it would have cost to buy them outright, and actually leaving the USAF with less tankers at the end of the day.

Sensitive data leaks, missing plutonium, hard drives with classified data unaccounted for....

Those kinds of failures.

The kind of incompetencies and oversight that can not and should not be tolerated or have excuses made for, whether they are dealing with projects that relate to national security or just studying the fluid dynamics of ketchup. People have been fired for much less in the past.

DOE is more than capable of doing this and have done so for many years. Admittedly there have been a few problems but it never started a real situation of calamatious proportions.

Last I checked, the DoE ran the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. The same site with some obscene safety issues. Accidentally drilling into the core of a nuclear device resulted in the evacuation of the entire plant. Securing a warhead with duct tape increased the chances of a flat out nuclear explosion. And that's ignoring the clichéd "OMG THREE MILE ISLAND" commentary.

+++Warning to any fool that thinks it's easy to steal radioactive material from one of these teams. You'll die twice before you get to pull your trigger once!+++

Perhaps you reached this conclusion because the security teams were cheating during their security drills ? Cheating. for twenty years. It's not too hard to look impenetrable when you know the exact building and wall where an attack will take place. A DoE whistleblower admitted to a 50% success rate for security tests. Special forces teams were able to penetrate Los Alamos and wander off with enough material to create a nuclear bomb. Even an freakin' journalist was able to sneak into Los Alamos. There are plenty of other issues raised over at the Project On Governmental Oversight. Again, that's ignoring all the major security issues with CREM's going on over the last month.

Now, you're absolutely right in the fact that we need to get that waste cleaned up. But thinking that the DoE, NNSA, or the US government on the whole is "more than capable" is bullshit. We're flirting with disaster. If we take the outlook that everything is fine and dandy, we're going to quickly hit the point where someone will cause a situation of calamatious proportions.


--LordPixie

DOE is more than capable of doing this and have done so for many years. Admittedly there have been a few problems but it never started a real situation of calamatious proportions.

Last I checked, the DoE ran the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. The same site with some obscene safety issues. Accidentally drilling into the core of a nuclear device resulted in the evacuation of the entire plant. Securing a warhead with duct tape increased the chances of a flat out nuclear explosion. And that's ignoring the clichéd "OMG THREE MILE ISLAND" commentary.

+++Warning to any fool that thinks it's easy to steal radioactive material from one of these teams. You'll die twice before you get to pull your trigger once!+++

Perhaps you reached this conclusion because the security teams were cheating during their security drills ? Cheating. for twenty years. It's not too hard to look impenetrable when you know the exact building and wall where an attack will take place. A DoE whistleblower admitted to a 50% success rate for security tests. Special forces teams were able to penetrate Los Alamos and wander off with enough material to create a nuclear bomb. Even an freakin' journalist was able to sneak into Los Alamos. There are plenty of other issues raised over at the Project On Governmental Oversight. Again, that's ignoring all the major security issues with CREM's going on over the last month.

Now, you're absolutely right in the fact that we need to get that waste cleaned up. But thinking that the DoE, NNSA, or the US government on the whole is "more than capable" is bullshit. We're flirting with disaster. If we take the outlook that everything is fine and dandy, we're going to quickly hit the point where someone will cause a situation of calamatious proportions.


--LordPixie

DOE is more than capable of doing this and have done so for many years. Admittedly there have been a few problems but it never started a real situation of calamatious proportions.

Last I checked, the DoE ran the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. The same site with some obscene safety issues. Accidentally drilling into the core of a nuclear device resulted in the evacuation of the entire plant. Securing a warhead with duct tape increased the chances of a flat out nuclear explosion. And that's ignoring the clichéd "OMG THREE MILE ISLAND" commentary.

+++Warning to any fool that thinks it's easy to steal radioactive material from one of these teams. You'll die twice before you get to pull your trigger once!+++

Perhaps you reached this conclusion because the security teams were cheating during their security drills ? Cheating. for twenty years. It's not too hard to look impenetrable when you know the exact building and wall where an attack will take place. A DoE whistleblower admitted to a 50% success rate for security tests. Special forces teams were able to penetrate Los Alamos and wander off with enough material to create a nuclear bomb. Even an freakin' journalist was able to sneak into Los Alamos. There are plenty of other issues raised over at the Project On Governmental Oversight. Again, that's ignoring all the major security issues with CREM's going on over the last month.

Now, you're absolutely right in the fact that we need to get that waste cleaned up. But thinking that the DoE, NNSA, or the US government on the whole is "more than capable" is bullshit. We're flirting with disaster. If we take the outlook that everything is fine and dandy, we're going to quickly hit the point where someone will cause a situation of calamatious proportions.


--LordPixie

Bad weather has prevented U.S. military officials from reaching a site near Zawar Kili, Afghanistan, where a Feb. 4 strike by a CIA Predator unmanned aerial vehicle reportedly killed several Al Qaeda leaders, Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke told reporters here today.

" Thankfully new UK carriers don't have catapults..."

True, but according to the defense industry press, your new boats are being designed for them. You're not getting them right off, but if the US/UK Joint Strike Fighter program tanks, you'll probably have to add them to get a modern strike fighter on the seas. The UK government learned the hard way during the Falklands war that while small STOVL carriers are a cheap method of sea control, they suck at power projection, and a handful of old A-4 Skyhawks and some Exocet missles gave them all the trouble they could handle. This is why the U.S. Navy abandoned it's Sea Control Ship (on which the Spanish light carrier Principe De Asturias is based) concept in the 70's and decided to stick with large catapult flattops. Nothing says intimidation like a flattop with 70+ tactical aircraft sitting off of your coast.

The only reason the Royal Navy is going with the STOVL JSF is because Lockheed Martin promises it will deliver F-18 caliber performance (around Mach 2, with the ability to carry lots of ordinance) with vertical flight capability. Considering how badly the F-22 program has gone (which LM also runs), I'm not real optimistic about JSF. Besides, I'm still not sold on the idea that you can take one aiframe and make it do EVERYTHING. Most newer fighters have multiple abilities, but you wouldn't take an F-15 and turn it into a dedicated tank-buster, or a carrier-born anti-sub bird. Don't be terribly shocked if JSF is eventually canceled.

If that happens, the Royal Navy will want to get a Mach 2 class bird out to sea fast, and that'll mean an F-18 derivative or a navalized Eurofighter. And having a carrier designed for catapults would allow them to make that transistion quickly. It's actually a smart move on the part of the UK. The RN just can't continue to use Sea Harriers forever. They're just not up to snuff for fleet defense AND power projection, and they're getting long in the tooth.

Many people here have commented that my story wasn't a big deal, because the area into which I went wasn't sufficiently top-secret. If I had walked out with, say, a wheelbarrow full of uranium, then they would have been impressed.

Well, in 1997, during a security training simulation, soldiers were able to do just that. In 2000, during a similar exercise, feaux bad guys "gain(ed) access to the reactor fuel... potentially causing a sizable nuclear detonation that would have taken out part of New Mexico and caused havoc downwind."

I'm a scared, out-of-shape lummox without any military training whatsoever, and with no motivation to do anything harmful. Yet I got into an area that I was assured could not be accessed by any outsider - an area that no one will even say officially what it's purpose is.

If I could do what I did - and these simulated attackers coudl make such spectacular inroads - what could a more determined adversary accomplish? That's the question my story asks.

Several Slashdotters said that TA-33 couldn't have been that important, if Bussolini and Alexander stored their allegedly fraudulently-purchased goods there, and if I was able to get in.

To that, one Slashdot reader replied, "I'm not comfortable assuming that the buildings he managed to get into were useless just based on the fact that he was able to access them. It seems like that sort of head-in-the-sand circular logic does not good security practices make."

I agree.

--

For more, go to Defense Tech.

I think we're getting the kind of accountability you describe, most critically through secondary sources with the expertise to put the facts in context; they're no longer as limited by funding in accessing and citing primary materials. There is also a quick-and-easy paper trail available that can be used to confront political flip-flops in nanoseconds.

I think the market (desire) for information will provide what you want. A nice example here in Northern Virginia was the defeat of a .5% sales tax hike to fund transportation improvements. A combination of anti-tax conservatives and anti-sprawl activists successfully opposed it while spending about 1/7 as much as the real estate developers who favored passage, critically using web sites and email viral campaigning.

One element that will be harder to predict is the reaction of the public. Perhaps informatgion availability will encourage a desire to be informed. I sure appreciate having candidate white papers and such at my fingertips.

Finally, and I should have written this first, the gov't does need to lift all roadblacks to the information getting out. A glaring problem cited repeatedly in recent years is access to the proceedings of Congressional committees, as well as other documents (example). Another I care about is the declassification and digitization of secret documents. I don't know how much progress has been made on these fronts.

Actually, after doing a bit more looking, it seems that pretty much all levels of govt. have some set of rules concerning contractors and such. It also seems that the big boys never get touched by these rules, despite numerous infractions. POGO has a report about it: Federal Contractor Misconduct.

I especially liked the part of the artcile where Rosen complains that people will spend "thousands of dollars" on hard drives but won't pay for music. Makes me wonder where she buys her hard drives??

Obviously, she buys from the same vendors that the Pentagon does!

Section added to comply with non discrimation policies:
For those international readers, the US Pentagon has been known to pay $75 for a screw, $400 for a hammer, etc.

I especially liked the part of the artcile where Rosen complains that people will spend "thousands of dollars" on hard drives but won't pay for music. Makes me wonder where she buys her hard drives??

Obviously, she buys from the same vendors that the Pentagon does!

Section added to comply with non discrimation policies:
For those international readers, the US Pentagon has been known to pay $75 for a screw, $400 for a hammer, etc.

Nonsense. Patents make it possible for corporations to create life-saving technology and saves lives. Pharmaceutical companies raise capital from the marketplace for research and development and regulatory testing, not because shareholders are happy to volunteer funds for R&D, but because they hope the company will make a profit. If the company could not make a profit, the R&D and development wouldn't get done, and the products would be brought to market. If the company didn't have patents, competitors would simply free-ride on the R&D and compete with them using their own work. No profits, no product, no life saving drugs.

Life saving drugs, such as tetracycline and a host of antibiotics, leukemia fighting drugs, and lifestyle preserving drugs such as Prozac and many others are the product of, not deterred by, the patent system.

Of course you're right, so far as life-saving drugs are really developed solely by privately-financed R&D. The reality, however, is very different.

Indeed, a recent study found that, for the top 5 best-selling drugs currently on the market, fully 80% of the money which funded their development was put up not by the pharmacutical companies which own the patents, not by private investors, but by the federal government in the form of research grants. More generally (and for which I can find a link to back me up), between 70 and 90 percent of important drugs are developed with significant government help, and a whopping 38% of all health-care related R&D is financed by the federal government. (Government grants are heavily skewed towards basic research; thus we can expect that this displaces drug discovery research much more than eg. engineering type R&D for new technology in hospitals.) All the government gets back for their tremendous investment (other than a healthier society, which, of course, is their main goal), is a $50 patent fee.

Obviously pharmacuticals still spend a tremendous amount of capital and incur large risks to take the final steps to bring a drug to market and test its safety and efficacy. (The government grants go more to the basic research end of things.) Indeed, you are right in suggesting that the current "free-market" drug development system would completely collapse if pharmacutical companies did not have the monopoly profits of patents to cover their capital investments. Nor could the system survive without government grants at their current, tremendous levels; while the pharmacuticals are certainly not struggling to keep afloat at the moment, their profit rewards are generally commensurate to the risks they incur from the share of development they actually do finance.

What you should realize, however, is that the current system is not a free-market at all. It is so heavily subsidized as to transcend mere "corporate welfare"; instead it is really a huge socialist enterprise with a quasi-capitalist front-end tacked on. The solution, as impossible as it is obvious, is to remove the privatized delivery system and let the entire drug development pipeline be financed, and controlled, by government and academia. In other words, let science for the public good be run by scientists and the public, and not by businessmen.

Thing is, as every developed country in the world except the US has realized, our ethical conception of medicine inherently clashes with capitalist motives. There are only two ways for an entity to profit from offering health care:

1) by killing poor people.
2) by being a broad enough entity that it can reap the benefits of providing health care without charging for it.

#1 is obvious if you think about it for a while: if you charge the rate which the market will bear for live-saving treatments, then obviously some people will be unable to pay. If you think this does not go on in America today then you are very badly deluded.

#2 refers to the fact that having a healthy population is essential for economic growth and a stable society. However, hospitals and pharmacutical companies are not broad enough to benefit from the fact that healthy people can provide a net economic positive while sick or dead people cannot. Our current system has a cobbled-together kludge to fix this: most people's health costs are borne by their employer, who *does* reap (some of) the economic and social benefit of them being healthy.

The problem with this is that it only works for people who are currently employed in a job good enough to pay benefits. The 50 million uninsured in America are mainly young people--children, students, and those with entry level jobs. The economic and societal benefit they will provide later in their lives is often contingent on their remaining healthy today, but the current system can't recognize this.

This is without even getting into the problems of the very poor: of the one-in-five children under 5 years old who lives beneath the povery line; of the mentally ill homeless who could provide a positive benefit to society if they could only recieve treatment. (Less than 50% of those below the poverty line recieve Medicaid, and it rarely provides more than emergency room care; a full 36% are completely uninsured, and thus obviously unable to pay for any medical care whatsoever. Uninsured In America, pg. 22, very large pdf.)

The current system is completely broken, but it will take more than just patent reform to fix it

Billion dollar boondogle of the 1980's ... Pictures of the SGT York unmanned tank at http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/8757/SGTY .html

There's a little footnote about it at this site: http://www.pogo.org/mici/f22/f22raptor.htm


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~ the real world is much simpler ~~