They did not oppose SDI because of science. They made "scientific" arguments to strengthen their political position. For example in 1986 UCS asked 549 of the American Physical Society's 37,000 members if Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was "a step in the wrong direction for America's national security policy." Despite the biased wording of the push-poll question, only 54 percent disapproved of SDI. Even so, UCS declared that the poll proved "profound and pervasive skepticism toward SDI in the scientific community." Their political position came first. Their political positions don't grow out of their science, rather vice versa. Now they are complaining because their opponents are doing the same thing. Politicizing science is bad, but I can't take the complaints of one of the groups that started it seriously.
The UCS has always put their ideology ahead of their science. You mention AIDS as an issue to oppose Republicans, yet Republican Presidents have spent more on combating AIDS (on a per year in office basis) than Democratic Presidents. President Clinton talked about AIDS a lot, but didn't spend much money on it. President G. W. Bush hasn't talked about AIDS much, but he significantly increased the amount of money that was dedicated to fighting AIDS. But then you support the Democrats, so I guess you prefer talk over action.
No, a bunch of Democrats claim that science favors the Democrat position on everything...even when last year "science" opposed the same position because the Republicans were pushing it.
because science has become politicized. They started promoting a political agenda by the 80's (I think they actually started doing so from day one, but I'm not sure), by lobbying against SDI. SDI was many things, but it was not a science issue. The UCS starts with a political agenda and then looks for science to back it up. The UCS support for Global Warming is one of the reasons I have been so skeptical of it. I used to give a lot of creditability to UCS, then I noticed that they always oppose Republicans and usually support Democrats (I would say always, but I might have missed the occasional opposition to a Democrat idea).
The rule I have always used relative to any type of technology is this: In five years any current technology will cost 10% of its current price. I used to think this was Moore's Law. By the time I learned what Moore's Law really was, I couldn't remember where I learned this rule. Computer prices have only remained at the prices they are due to constantly raising the bar.
Not having done a study on Standard Oil, I don't know whether this was true or not. I do know that some of the things that "everyone knows" are the result of conclusions publicized by people with hidden axes to grind. Certainly at least some of Standard Oil's business practices should be illegal. I, also, know that some of the other monopolies of the time existed because of government interference in the market (among other things, railroads had monopolies in areas that were created by the government, at one level or another).
When the law was passed, they knew pretty clearly what damage the targeted pollutants did. Now people want to pass laws when we have limited understanding of what role CO2 plays in climate. What role do other atmospheric factors play. The last I saw (about 6 months to a year ago), the Global Warming models had a less than 90% accuracy rate at predicting the historical temperature change for the time period which the data used to construct the models came from.
I am sorry, I didn't do thorough research, but what you are saying is FUD. "Stage 4 are post approval and are used to determine if the drug patents could be extended by including uses for related disease. Essentially, they track off-label use and try to rebrand the drug using a different name for a slightly different purpose."
Now let's see what Wikipedia says "Phase IV
Phase IV trials involve the post-launch safety surveillance and ongoing technical support of a drug. Phase IV studies may be mandated by regulatory authorities or may be undertaken by the sponsoring company for competitive or other reasons (for example, the drug may not have been tested for interactions with other drugs, or on certain population groups such as pregnant women, who are unlikely to subject themselves to trials). Post-launch safety surveillance is designed to detect any rare or long-term adverse effects over a much larger patient population and timescale than was possible during the initial clinical trials. Such adverse effects detected by Phase IV trials may result in the withdrawal or restriction of a drug - recent examples include cerivastatin (brand names Baycol and Lipobay), troglitazone (Rezulin) and rofecoxib (Vioxx)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial#Phase_ IV
Considering the problems revealed about Vioxx, I think it is a good thing that drug companies paid for Phase IV Clinical Trials.
Read the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
"Standard Oil's market position had been established through an emphasis on efficiency and responsibility. While most companies dumped gasoline (this being before the automobile) in rivers, Standard used it to fuel the company's own machines. Where gigantic mountains of heavy waste grew by other companies' refineries, Rockefeller found ways to market and sell these waste products, creating the first synthetic competitor for beeswax, as well as acquiring the company that invented and produced Vaseline, the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, which was a Standard company only from 1908 until 1911."
Yes they also used very aggressive business tactics. Tactics that are certainly unethical and probably appropriately illegal (now, not illegal then). However, I suspect that if the government didn't act either to prop up their monopoly or to bust it that it would have come apart anyway. Monopolies are not a sustainable business model in a free market system without government support. The explanation of why this is so was a five page paper that I am not going to try and reporduce here.
Do you know why Standard Oil became a monopoly? It became a monopoly because it was vastly more efficient than its competitors (It found a market for products that its competitors were throwing away). In addition, it lowered the price of its primary products for the consumer. Standard Oil wasn't broken up because the people rose up against it. It was broken up because other businesses rose up against it.
On another point, Paul Krugman has a well deserved reputation as being fast and loose with the facts. Just Google "Krugman Watch".
I don't believe that CO2 should be covered by the Clean Air Act. I remember what types of pollution that the Clean Air Act was passed to address. When the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act were passed, it was thought that it would take hundreds of years for the ecosystems to recover. Less than 20 years later, fish that had been driven out of a river near where I grew up over a generation earlier were returning. When those Acts were passed it was thought that those fish would not return without mankind's intervention, yet they did. I think that the Global Warming alarmists overrate man's ability to effect the environment. Yes people should make an effort to minimize their CO2 emmissions, but it is too early to call for government action. We don't know enough. In 10 to 20 years (5 at the minimum) we may start to understand climatology enough to pass laws.
Oh yeah, BTW, I was shitting in a system that was designed to filter the shit so it didn't enter the water supply since before the Clean Water Act was passed. The house I grew up in had a septic system that was installed when the plumbing was retrofitted to it (the house was built before indoor plumbing was in use in most of the U.S.). The septic system was periodically updated as technology improved. However, the purpose of the septic system from day one was to prevent the shit from getting into the water supply. When did people first start suggesting that CO2 was a pollutant?
"If people had believed that the Clean Water Act could have extended to shit, it never would have passed." Actually, no. The Clean Water Act applied to shit from day one. I hate to have to tell you this but shit does not automatically end up in the water. As a general rule if a person were to shit out in the middle of nowhere it would end up on the ground. Putting shit into water was a technological development. Putting CO2 into the air just happens, all the time. We have developed systems to keep our shit out of the streams, lakes and oceans. Exactly how are you going to keep the CO2 you breathe out out of the atmosphere?
If you believe that CO2 is a pollutant, than you should stop breathing, because every time you breathe you are polluting the atmosphere. If people had believed that the Clean Air Act could have extended to CO2, it never would have passed.
That is why it is called a Research & Development budget. And without that stage 4 clinical trial, the drug doesn't come to market. Whether you think there is a need for stage 4 clinical trials or not, the government mandates them. If somebody doesn't pay for them the drugs don't get FDA approval. That is as much a part of the cost of bringing the drug to market as the initial discovery.
"Do you have any idea of how much of the very expensive preliminary research is done at non-pharma research institutions such as universities? The vast majority of the research needed to bring a new drug to market is funded by government agencies and takes place outside of the pharmaceutical company. This is public money, and yet it is used to generate revenue for companies."
I do have an idea of how much of the research is done at non-pharma research institutions. But you obviously don't. Just look at pharma companies reporting statements for the SEC. See, most pharma companies are publicly traded, so you can look at what their R&D budgets are. In addition, you can even get a pretty good idea of what the money in the R&D budget goes for. So the answer is you don't have a clue if you think MOST of the money is public money. Yes, a lot of preliminary research is done on the public dime, but the money to determine if the treatment meets FDA requirements (efficacy and safety) comes on big pharma's dime. Take a look at how much a pharma company has to spend to bring a drug to market, then look at how many drugs never make it to market.
The system isn't perfect, but trying to fix it by assuming that big pharma is evil will only make it a lot worse.
Do you have any idea how much it costs to bring a new drug to market? Yes, pharma companies make big bucks, but they lay out a crap load of money testing and testing drugs to make sure that A: they actually accomplish what they are supposed to (double blind tests). B: they actually do less harm than good. C: are a better treatment for said problem than preexisting treatments. This takes a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of tedious paperwork. AIDS has been known for less than 30 years, disagreements about the nature of the virus weren't resolved until 1986, there were still some legitimate scientific questions about HIV causing AIDS in the early 90's.
It has always been faster to get approval for new medical treatments in other parts of the world than in the US. The US requires a high level of experimental proof that a treatment is effective and that it does not cause more harm than good. This requires quite a bit of time. Sometimes this means that people have to wait longer for an effective treatment to be available than we all would like. However, in the 70's there was a cancer treatment that was hailed as a wonderful, effective treatment of cancer and "wasn't it a tragedy that you had to be rich enough to travel to Mexico to get this treatment". It was Laetril, it took a long time and it appeared to be an effective treatment (anecdotally), but after years of study it proved to not be very effective and to cause more harm than it healed.
The University won't see a drop of revenue. The students are almost certainly automatically billed as part of the enrolling or Residency. Even the students who are banned will probably still have to pay the fee. Usually the fee for this is part of a "Student Activity" fee or some such. At most colleges and universities, you can choose not to use a service, but you can't choose not to pay for it.
No, no you don't understand. After the government is done charging their oh so modest administrative fee, they will give the money to the RIAA or some related body, who will also take an administrative fee out of the money so raised. The 2 or 3 cents left will be divided equally between all the artists who were already registered when the levy went into effect. And since it isn't possible to pay in fractions of a penny, never mind.
Important note: the "in time of War or public danger" clause applies to those in the military in service at such times.
My other comment on this Executive Order is this. First note that this is an Executive Order
Yes, I understand that. I don't have a problem with that. If there is no real difference between Product A and Product B, but Product A has Reseller Agreements with all retailers to maintain minimum price, why are you buying Product A? If a company wants to artificially suppress demand by increasing the retail price, that is their right. If you are foolish enough to think that Product A is better just because it costs more, that is your problem.
That would be perfectly legitimate, as long as they only go after in court people and organizations they have entered into legally binding contracts with. The thing to remember is this: the minimum retail price has nothing to do with the profits of the manufacturer. If Manufacturer A sells its products for $1.00 and Reseller A sells it for $1.01 and Manufacturer B sells its products for $1.00 but has an agreement with Reseller A to sell the product for no less than $1.50, Manufacturer A and Manufacturer B are making the same amount of money on the product.
Greenhouse gases as listed in this report are fairly minor. If carbon dioxide had been proposed as a pollutant when they first passed the Clean Air Act, it wouldn't have stood a chance, because (in case you didn't know) CO2 is emitted by every animal as part of the process of living. If one factors in only the pollutants that have a negative impact on people's health in and of themselves, I suspect the U.S. is not even in the top 20. If the U.S. and Europe were emitting those types of pollutants on anything close to the scale that China is, there is a good chance that we would be worried about Global Cooling, not Global Warming. We will see what happens over time, but remembering the days when acid rain was killing the fish in rivers and ponds all throughout the Northeast, I find it difficult to get too worked up about CO2.
Slashdot Mirror
They did not oppose SDI because of science. They made "scientific" arguments to strengthen their political position. For example in 1986 UCS asked 549 of the American Physical Society's 37,000 members if Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was "a step in the wrong direction for America's national security policy." Despite the biased wording of the push-poll question, only 54 percent disapproved of SDI. Even so, UCS declared that the poll proved "profound and pervasive skepticism toward SDI in the scientific community." Their political position came first. Their political positions don't grow out of their science, rather vice versa. Now they are complaining because their opponents are doing the same thing. Politicizing science is bad, but I can't take the complaints of one of the groups that started it seriously.
The UCS has always put their ideology ahead of their science. You mention AIDS as an issue to oppose Republicans, yet Republican Presidents have spent more on combating AIDS (on a per year in office basis) than Democratic Presidents. President Clinton talked about AIDS a lot, but didn't spend much money on it. President G. W. Bush hasn't talked about AIDS much, but he significantly increased the amount of money that was dedicated to fighting AIDS. But then you support the Democrats, so I guess you prefer talk over action.
No, a bunch of Democrats claim that science favors the Democrat position on everything...even when last year "science" opposed the same position because the Republicans were pushing it.
because science has become politicized. They started promoting a political agenda by the 80's (I think they actually started doing so from day one, but I'm not sure), by lobbying against SDI. SDI was many things, but it was not a science issue. The UCS starts with a political agenda and then looks for science to back it up. The UCS support for Global Warming is one of the reasons I have been so skeptical of it. I used to give a lot of creditability to UCS, then I noticed that they always oppose Republicans and usually support Democrats (I would say always, but I might have missed the occasional opposition to a Democrat idea).
The rule I have always used relative to any type of technology is this: In five years any current technology will cost 10% of its current price. I used to think this was Moore's Law. By the time I learned what Moore's Law really was, I couldn't remember where I learned this rule. Computer prices have only remained at the prices they are due to constantly raising the bar.
Not having done a study on Standard Oil, I don't know whether this was true or not. I do know that some of the things that "everyone knows" are the result of conclusions publicized by people with hidden axes to grind. Certainly at least some of Standard Oil's business practices should be illegal. I, also, know that some of the other monopolies of the time existed because of government interference in the market (among other things, railroads had monopolies in areas that were created by the government, at one level or another).
When the law was passed, they knew pretty clearly what damage the targeted pollutants did. Now people want to pass laws when we have limited understanding of what role CO2 plays in climate. What role do other atmospheric factors play. The last I saw (about 6 months to a year ago), the Global Warming models had a less than 90% accuracy rate at predicting the historical temperature change for the time period which the data used to construct the models came from.
I am sorry, I didn't do thorough research, but what you are saying is FUD. "Stage 4 are post approval and are used to determine if the drug patents could be extended by including uses for related disease. Essentially, they track off-label use and try to rebrand the drug using a different name for a slightly different purpose." Now let's see what Wikipedia says "Phase IV Phase IV trials involve the post-launch safety surveillance and ongoing technical support of a drug. Phase IV studies may be mandated by regulatory authorities or may be undertaken by the sponsoring company for competitive or other reasons (for example, the drug may not have been tested for interactions with other drugs, or on certain population groups such as pregnant women, who are unlikely to subject themselves to trials). Post-launch safety surveillance is designed to detect any rare or long-term adverse effects over a much larger patient population and timescale than was possible during the initial clinical trials. Such adverse effects detected by Phase IV trials may result in the withdrawal or restriction of a drug - recent examples include cerivastatin (brand names Baycol and Lipobay), troglitazone (Rezulin) and rofecoxib (Vioxx)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial#Phase_ IV
Considering the problems revealed about Vioxx, I think it is a good thing that drug companies paid for Phase IV Clinical Trials.
Read the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil "Standard Oil's market position had been established through an emphasis on efficiency and responsibility. While most companies dumped gasoline (this being before the automobile) in rivers, Standard used it to fuel the company's own machines. Where gigantic mountains of heavy waste grew by other companies' refineries, Rockefeller found ways to market and sell these waste products, creating the first synthetic competitor for beeswax, as well as acquiring the company that invented and produced Vaseline, the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, which was a Standard company only from 1908 until 1911." Yes they also used very aggressive business tactics. Tactics that are certainly unethical and probably appropriately illegal (now, not illegal then). However, I suspect that if the government didn't act either to prop up their monopoly or to bust it that it would have come apart anyway. Monopolies are not a sustainable business model in a free market system without government support. The explanation of why this is so was a five page paper that I am not going to try and reporduce here.
Do you know why Standard Oil became a monopoly? It became a monopoly because it was vastly more efficient than its competitors (It found a market for products that its competitors were throwing away). In addition, it lowered the price of its primary products for the consumer. Standard Oil wasn't broken up because the people rose up against it. It was broken up because other businesses rose up against it. On another point, Paul Krugman has a well deserved reputation as being fast and loose with the facts. Just Google "Krugman Watch".
I don't believe that CO2 should be covered by the Clean Air Act. I remember what types of pollution that the Clean Air Act was passed to address. When the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act were passed, it was thought that it would take hundreds of years for the ecosystems to recover. Less than 20 years later, fish that had been driven out of a river near where I grew up over a generation earlier were returning. When those Acts were passed it was thought that those fish would not return without mankind's intervention, yet they did. I think that the Global Warming alarmists overrate man's ability to effect the environment. Yes people should make an effort to minimize their CO2 emmissions, but it is too early to call for government action. We don't know enough. In 10 to 20 years (5 at the minimum) we may start to understand climatology enough to pass laws.
Oh yeah, BTW, I was shitting in a system that was designed to filter the shit so it didn't enter the water supply since before the Clean Water Act was passed. The house I grew up in had a septic system that was installed when the plumbing was retrofitted to it (the house was built before indoor plumbing was in use in most of the U.S.). The septic system was periodically updated as technology improved. However, the purpose of the septic system from day one was to prevent the shit from getting into the water supply. When did people first start suggesting that CO2 was a pollutant?
"If people had believed that the Clean Water Act could have extended to shit, it never would have passed." Actually, no. The Clean Water Act applied to shit from day one. I hate to have to tell you this but shit does not automatically end up in the water. As a general rule if a person were to shit out in the middle of nowhere it would end up on the ground. Putting shit into water was a technological development. Putting CO2 into the air just happens, all the time. We have developed systems to keep our shit out of the streams, lakes and oceans. Exactly how are you going to keep the CO2 you breathe out out of the atmosphere?
If you believe that CO2 is a pollutant, than you should stop breathing, because every time you breathe you are polluting the atmosphere. If people had believed that the Clean Air Act could have extended to CO2, it never would have passed.
That is why it is called a Research & Development budget. And without that stage 4 clinical trial, the drug doesn't come to market. Whether you think there is a need for stage 4 clinical trials or not, the government mandates them. If somebody doesn't pay for them the drugs don't get FDA approval. That is as much a part of the cost of bringing the drug to market as the initial discovery.
"Do you have any idea of how much of the very expensive preliminary research is done at non-pharma research institutions such as universities? The vast majority of the research needed to bring a new drug to market is funded by government agencies and takes place outside of the pharmaceutical company. This is public money, and yet it is used to generate revenue for companies." I do have an idea of how much of the research is done at non-pharma research institutions. But you obviously don't. Just look at pharma companies reporting statements for the SEC. See, most pharma companies are publicly traded, so you can look at what their R&D budgets are. In addition, you can even get a pretty good idea of what the money in the R&D budget goes for. So the answer is you don't have a clue if you think MOST of the money is public money. Yes, a lot of preliminary research is done on the public dime, but the money to determine if the treatment meets FDA requirements (efficacy and safety) comes on big pharma's dime. Take a look at how much a pharma company has to spend to bring a drug to market, then look at how many drugs never make it to market. The system isn't perfect, but trying to fix it by assuming that big pharma is evil will only make it a lot worse.
Do you have any idea how much it costs to bring a new drug to market? Yes, pharma companies make big bucks, but they lay out a crap load of money testing and testing drugs to make sure that A: they actually accomplish what they are supposed to (double blind tests). B: they actually do less harm than good. C: are a better treatment for said problem than preexisting treatments. This takes a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of tedious paperwork. AIDS has been known for less than 30 years, disagreements about the nature of the virus weren't resolved until 1986, there were still some legitimate scientific questions about HIV causing AIDS in the early 90's.
It has always been faster to get approval for new medical treatments in other parts of the world than in the US. The US requires a high level of experimental proof that a treatment is effective and that it does not cause more harm than good. This requires quite a bit of time. Sometimes this means that people have to wait longer for an effective treatment to be available than we all would like. However, in the 70's there was a cancer treatment that was hailed as a wonderful, effective treatment of cancer and "wasn't it a tragedy that you had to be rich enough to travel to Mexico to get this treatment". It was Laetril, it took a long time and it appeared to be an effective treatment (anecdotally), but after years of study it proved to not be very effective and to cause more harm than it healed.
The University won't see a drop of revenue. The students are almost certainly automatically billed as part of the enrolling or Residency. Even the students who are banned will probably still have to pay the fee. Usually the fee for this is part of a "Student Activity" fee or some such. At most colleges and universities, you can choose not to use a service, but you can't choose not to pay for it.
No, no you don't understand. After the government is done charging their oh so modest administrative fee, they will give the money to the RIAA or some related body, who will also take an administrative fee out of the money so raised. The 2 or 3 cents left will be divided equally between all the artists who were already registered when the levy went into effect. And since it isn't possible to pay in fractions of a penny, never mind.
Important note: the "in time of War or public danger" clause applies to those in the military in service at such times. My other comment on this Executive Order is this. First note that this is an Executive Order
Yes, but is there any reason it should be illegal? That is what the topic of discussion is.
Yes, I understand that. I don't have a problem with that. If there is no real difference between Product A and Product B, but Product A has Reseller Agreements with all retailers to maintain minimum price, why are you buying Product A? If a company wants to artificially suppress demand by increasing the retail price, that is their right. If you are foolish enough to think that Product A is better just because it costs more, that is your problem.
That would be perfectly legitimate, as long as they only go after in court people and organizations they have entered into legally binding contracts with. The thing to remember is this: the minimum retail price has nothing to do with the profits of the manufacturer. If Manufacturer A sells its products for $1.00 and Reseller A sells it for $1.01 and Manufacturer B sells its products for $1.00 but has an agreement with Reseller A to sell the product for no less than $1.50, Manufacturer A and Manufacturer B are making the same amount of money on the product.
Greenhouse gases as listed in this report are fairly minor. If carbon dioxide had been proposed as a pollutant when they first passed the Clean Air Act, it wouldn't have stood a chance, because (in case you didn't know) CO2 is emitted by every animal as part of the process of living. If one factors in only the pollutants that have a negative impact on people's health in and of themselves, I suspect the U.S. is not even in the top 20. If the U.S. and Europe were emitting those types of pollutants on anything close to the scale that China is, there is a good chance that we would be worried about Global Cooling, not Global Warming. We will see what happens over time, but remembering the days when acid rain was killing the fish in rivers and ponds all throughout the Northeast, I find it difficult to get too worked up about CO2.