Article states that 'sources have indicated' that one of several causes of innovative decline could be a loophole adding three years of patent protection. Article states that loophole could have diverted funds from major research efforts.
Note: These major research efforts would also produce PATENT APPLICATIONS.
So argument that patent tweaking could have diverted further patents from being obtained is twisted by the SlashGrok powers that be into "Patents yet again harming innovation".
The GAO took no such position though. All GAO did was paraphrase comments from these "sources". The Democrats selectively read the publication by ignoring the other "sources" in the report that contradicted the same argument. Regardless, this hardly can be construed as an endorsement by the GAO that line-extension patents are harmful (let alone a significant problem for innovation).
Consider the risk for a company that focus on developing a few new drugs and then milk it for decades with minor improvements vs. one that keeps spending money developing completely new drugs regularly. The point is that under the current system there's a greater capital return on the former approach, and so the capital is invested in small incremental improvements, and less is available for the groundbreaking (and high risk) research.
That is your belief -- not the conclusions of the GAO. Read my comment on the matter.
In any event, this is flawed analysis.
First, the drug industry only do line-extensions because they are very low hanging fruit. In other words, the costs and risks involved in creating a line-extension are orders of magnitude lower than they are for the rest of their drugs (they pretty much _KNOW_ that it will work and the regulatory hurdles are lower) and because they can be reasonably sure that they will be received fairly well.
Second, the revenue dollars generated by the line-extensions (that are of little utility) are much lower than they are for the original drug. Managed care, savvy consumers, and most socialized-medicine countries know that the marginal benefits of these drugs are low--and they DO push back significantly (just look at the financial statements)--and that the cost differential compared to the generics are HUGE.
Third, competition is often around the corner with better alternatives so their window of opportunity is lower and price competition grows dramatically.
Lastly, this opinion rests on the false belief that the drug companies either can't walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time or that they'll just kind of give up because they have "enough money" (forgetting for a minute that the generic status of their blockbuster is almost always a HUGE hit). These line-extensions basically become limited-cash-cows of sorts. The line-extensions generate net revenue quickly for the drug companies and it is almost always in their own best interest to plow that money back into R&D (they're in the business of making money, after all). Even if the resulting drug (2nd generation) is a drug that might compete directly against their own successful line-extension, the drug companies stand to benefit in general because they're able to charge a lot more for it (not competing against generics to the same extent) and because there is almost always significant marketshare to be taken (back) from the competition (both generics and otherwise).
When was the last time a big Pharma ran a net loss, let alone went bankrupt? If they're in the business of spending money to save lives, that should happen a lot more often.
You obviously know nothing about the business. I happen to be work closely with the drug industry (as a well-connected early-stage investor/VC and by working in a closely-related industry). There are thousands of small bio-techs in the US alone that are driving much of early the innovation that you ultimately see being sold by the big Pharma companies. These companies have a very high rate of failure and they depend very much on patents.
You may also want to look at how investors have faired in these supposedly highly lucrative businesses. Between 2000 and today Pfizer has lost almost 50% of its market value. Too lucrative? Hardly.
In any event, the big pharma companies do their best to diversify their risks so that one or even several losses are offset by their gains in other areas (usually with the handful of hit drugs). Arguing that pharma companies should go bankrupt more often is like arguing that insurance companies should go bankrupt more often or that consumers shouldn't be obligated to pay their premiums... It's just plain idiotic.
You're right; the designs are patented, and you're wrong; that doesn't render my argument moot. My argument- that the idea that pharmaceuticals need tremendous margins in orer to stay innovative is bunk - is quite correct. Just like with processors, there is a large enough cost of entry for medicine manufacturing that patent protection is not going to be the prime motivation for innovation. Like both AMD's and Intel's excellent offerings this year, the real incentive comes from getting more revenues by having best processor/medicine/whateverProduct, and patents are (or should be) a sideshow, if present at all.
And this is based on your experience.... where exactly? Do you understand that these drugs are in testing LONG before they even make it to market? Do you understand that many of these generic drug companies with only several million dollars in resources regularly are able to copy most drugs well enough to obtain FDA approval? Do you have any idea what the financial model looks like? Read the damn GAO article at least.... it should become clear that a ~30% margin for ~3 years (or whatever maginal numbers you are envisioning) would be WOEFULLY inadequate given the current or forseeable scientific, clinical, and regulatory environment).
Also, you might want to compare, say, Pfizer's current margins of 24% (volatile and likely to plummet soon) against, say, Redhat's margins of 22%... Yeah, you might argue it's because they're spending it a lot of money on marketing, but these companies are spending to maximize their profits (because they can't generate enough sales to recoup their losses otherwise)....not because they all like to throw that kind money out the window continuously.
Wrong. The Democrats simply distorted this GAO report. The Dems just pulled comments that the GAO merely cited (those of "consumer-advocates"). What's more those assertions were just based on the beliefs of the "advocates" and were not cited as being in any way more authoritive that comments to the contrary. Just because the GAO quotes a Democratic activist does not mean that they're supporting their beliefs or backing them up in any shape, way, or form.
During our review, we found a wide variety of views among consumer advocates, drug development experts and analysts, and industry representatives regarding how the protection of intellectual property affects innovation in drug development. Intellectual property protections are designed to help encourage innovation by providing financial incentives to engage in research and development efforts.
One form of intellectual property protection is a patent, which provides its owner with the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for 20 years. In the United States, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issues patents. Typically, companies that develop brand-name drugs obtain a patent on the active ingredient used in the drug. Patents are seen as playing a key role in drug development, because they allow pharmaceutical companies to charge prices that allow them to recover their investments made in discovering and developing a new drug and earn a profit.
Emphasis is mine... but this is the GAO's summary.
This is definitely contrary to the original poster's assertion that patent's are having a net negative effect on the drug industry right now.
This conclusion has been seriously twisted by the Democrats and the Poster.
Please read the damn GAO publication before parroting crap about how bad the drug industry is. This was not the conclusion reached by the GAO. All the GAO did was publish select comments made by "consumer-advocates" (as well as comments by other parties which contradicted these statements). There was no real analysis presented on the patent/line-extension issue. What's more, the focus was on all the various factors that are believed to be contributing to the decline in drug approvals. In other words, this is definitely not a detailed study by the GAO concluding that patents (or even patents on line-extensions) hurt innovation.
Here are the most relevant quotes for those too lazy to read the actual document:
Through both their reports and our interviews with them, consumer advocates and some pharmaceutical industry analysts expressed concerns that certain intellectual property protections do not encourage innovation. First, they contended that companies can easily obtain new patents by making minor changes to existing products regardless of whether the drugs offer significant therapeutic advances. Second, they indicated that pharmaceutical companies may develop new uses for previously approved drugs that have no patent protection and receive an additional 3 years of "market exclusivity." According to these sources, these intellectual property protections enable companies to earn significant profits while reducing the incentive to develop more innovative drugs. These sources pointed to the relatively high percentage of non-NMEs, and standard NMEs in particular, that have been approved over the past decade as evidence that development efforts have focused on making changes to existing drugs. Some analysts specifically highlighted the practice commonly known as producing line extensions--deriving new products from existing compounds by making small changes to existing products, such as changing a drug's dosage, or changing a drug from a tablet to a capsule. According to analysts, these changes are typically made to blockbuster drugs shortly before their patents expire. Some analysts also concluded that this practice redirects resources that otherwise could be applied to developing new and innovative drugs.
No where did the GAO state that any of these comments were even based on actual detailed analysis. You should also note that only "some" of these advocates concluded that these line-extensions play some role in redirecting resources away from other more innovative drugs.
You should also note the next paragraph:
In contrast, the pharmaceutical industry contended that due to the rising costs and complexity of developing new drugs, these intellectual property protections are crucial to maintaining drug development efforts. Drug sponsors and industry analysts also indicated that new drugs produced by modifying existing compounds are the result of incremental innovation, and such drugs can result in important therapies. For example, by changing a medicine to reduce its dosage schedule requirements, some industry analysts indicated that patients are more likely to comply with their prescription's instructions. Finally, some analysts assert that the revenues generated from incremental innovation are needed to fund the more risky ongoing research and development efforts, which can lead to new innovations.
Please read the article for yourself. It is hardly the damning indictment of patents in the drug industry that the poster or the Democrats imply. The article identifies many other problems (e.g., flawed scientific understanding, inability of academia to transition, etc), most of which I'd be willing to bet the average slashdot reader is ignorant of. If anything, a careful reading of this document suggests that patents are very critical to innovation in the drug industry and that, at most, some tweaking might be in order.
The issue is clear cut and quite simple. The "test" you can apply is likewise simple. Is a product in one market benefitting from a different product that is a monopoly in a different pre-existing market? Can other companies, without monopolies, gain that same benefit? If the answer to the first question is "yes" and the second is "no" then you have an antitrust violation. There are certain classic ways this happens including tying and and other forms of bundling, but it is the above concept that is important. That is what leveraging a monopoly is.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Your understanding of law, like your understanding of economic theory and many important economic facts, leaves much to be desired. The test has traditionally been for "market powers". One need not be a monopoly in the industry -- they only need to be judged to have "market powers" in the relevant market (and this can be defined in various ways). There are several different tests that the court has used to establish this (e.g., HHI, Market Share, and the Lerner index). What's more, traditionally copyright and especially patent holders are presumed to be market powers (the courts have since backed off from the presumption). So, no, this is test far from simple and Apple and similar technology companies are not, a priori, free to leverage their strength in one market to gain in another.
All of those are covered by the fact that they are not unfairly competing with an existing market. Bundling isn't illegal by itself. Having a monopoly isn't illegal by itself. Bundling a product from a separate, existing market with a product that you have monopolized is illegal.
First, you are ignoring the actual tests (as mentioned above). Second, the "relevant market" can be defined much more narrowly then you imagine, e.g., Macintosh computer market. Third, all of these products are arguably competing in existing markets as almost none of them lack competition on their respect platforms (both at the time of launch and currently).
I merely wrote that the law makes that sort of tying illegal, which it does.
No, you did not say that. You said "The law says those computer manufacturers cannot be forced to pay for the development of IE..." Both actions are (arguably) illegal, but they are different actions and they have different implications for the market. Microsoft's bad actions do not excuse your sloppy thinking and failure to distinguish important differences. What's more, there is no evidence that Microsoft has directly profited from its development of IE (only indirectly--insofar as they might have prevented an alternative platform from threatening their Windows monopoly)
MS pays developers to create IE. The money to pay those developers comes from somewhere as they don't work for free. It is bundled together with and sold for one price in a package with Windows. That right there is enough to rule that the money from those Windows licenses is a payment for IE as well as Windows. Your line of reasoning was thrown out of court when the first company tried to claim a "buy one get one free" sale meant they did not really sell the second one, in legal terms. If you're selling a bundle, everything in that bundle is part of the price, regardless of if you want to claim some part is free and another part is not.
Yet more sloppy thinking. Both the courts and economists examine the specifics of the situation these days, they don't just look at the fact that something is tied together. Where do you draw the line? Your same over-simplified argument can be made for Apple, Redhat, Palm, and other OS purveyors. And while we're at it what about, say, calc.exe, notepad, wordpad, solitaire...? Hell you could even make the argument for the various shells and applets. Most agree that Microsoft's actions with Netscape were illegal, but this is based on thoughtful analysis and not the simplistic test which you suggest.
The law says those computer manufacturers cannot be forced to pay for the development of IE, just because the market is such that they have to buy Windows.
Again, your lack of comprehension rears its ugly head. The "law" did not find this. There is no evidence that Microsoft made anyone pay more for IE (or for the inclusion of IE into Windows). To the contrary, the courts found that Microsoft basically charged nothing for IE, contrary to their original plans (to sell it seperately), so that they could maintain their applications barrier by controlling the browser market (a potentially competing platform). They did this both with their pricing strategy (zero) and by forcing IE on OEMs.
Here is the relevant finding of fact:
Despite the opportunity to make a substantial amount of revenue from the sale of Internet Explorer, and with the knowledge that the dominant browser product on the market, Navigator, was being licensed at a price, senior executives at Microsoft decided that Microsoft needed to give its browser away in furtherance of the larger strategic goal of accelerating Internet Explorer's acquisition of browser usage share. Consequently, Microsoft decided not to charge an increment in price when it included Internet Explorer in Windows for the first time, and it has continued this policy ever since. In addition, Microsoft has never charged for an Internet Explorer license when it is distributed separately from Windows.
You might also note that the court found that Microsoft spent upwards of 100 million per year from 1995 onwards to develop IE...
You expect? Who cares? Most companies fail. That is beside the point. Unless the illegal action is stopped, the situation will never get better because no one will ever succeed and most people who are smart won't even try. Your cause and effect are a little screwed up here. The reason we have a largely capitalist economy is because it it generates innovation and the motivation it brings more than makes up for the inefficiencies. The point is to ensure the motivation remains, so that people will act. How many brilliant people with a great way to improve desktop computing did not try to build and market their idea because they knew they would be crushed by illegal actions? No one will ever know.
You are being obtuse. I said from the start that Microsoft is a monopoly and that their illegal actions have had a very real impact on the market (e.g., innovation, quality, market size, etc). Nor do I disagree that Microsoft should be punished for these actions (substantive impact or not). The only point I am debating is your assumption that Microsoft's actions with respect to OEM installation of competing OSes (specifically BeOS) is largely responsible for failure of competing OS products. Virtually everyone with enough combined technical and economic expertise understands this problem for the OS space (it is a natural monopoly). Even the Courts found this in the anti-trust case against Microsoft. Microsoft's actions in this case speak more of their arrogance and extreme paranoia than of necessity of action.
You can always argue that we should penalize Microsoft as-if their actions might have made a real difference, but that does not mean we have to be willfully ignorant and ignore all the evidence and economic theory to the contrary. I, for one, do not believe that we will see a mainstream competitor in the OS market, even with a fully restrained Microsoft, until the bulk of Windows' critical applications can be readily run on the competing platform or alternatives are available that are every bit as good and fully compatible with the Windows' versions. This might be starting to happen with "web 2.0" applications emerging... but it certainly was not the case when BeOS was making a go of it.
BeOS was attempting to capture a portion of the mainstream audience, and pre-installation is the mainstream market.
...and Microsoft should be punished for it. That, however, does not mean that every company that Microsoft ever acted exercised their monopoly powers against would have succeeded but for their actions. I can totally accept the argument with, say, Netscape -- however there is a strong argument to be made for it (unlike this example).
OEMs do have motivation, in that they would like a more competitive market for desktop OS's for the cost benefits it would bring them. In any case, at least one major vendor announced that they were shipping it until MS informed them it was in violation of their contract.
OEMs may well do better in a competitive OS marketplace, however that does not mean that it is in their own best interest marginally speaking when: 1) there is no established user-base to recieve it 2) The OS itself is still very immature 3) a real lack of software titles to even begin to encourage adoption. You could make this same argument for customers, i.e., they would do better to promote OS choice. However, the end-user, like the OEM, would face a bunch of up-front costs for their trouble (e.g., learn new UI, find/buy new apps, convert documents, no sharing docs, lack of browser compatibility, etc) and would likely never benefit enough personally to offset the costs of being the early-adopter (even if they alone could cause the eventual adoption...which is very unlikely). If customers and other entities could coordinate their interests so well in the first place, Microsoft and most other monopolies would generally not exist or would be much weaker.
Both these contracts amount to the same thing. Monopoly abuse is judged by its affect on the market and use of the monopoly power. It doesn't matter if the contract bans an dual boot installs, or only dual boot installs with a given OS, as the anti-competitive affect is still the same.
First, you haven't shown that Microsoft actually prevented single-boot installations in any way (and you'd have to ignore various OEM offering, say, Linux around that time). Second, the ends achieved by Microsoft's illegal actions are what I'm questioning here, even the means by which Microsoft pursued them might be legally identical.
Did you ever use BeOS back in the day? It was about 10 times as fast as Windows for the same tasks and had a better group of pre-installed applications, including most of those users were actually using, and it was stable (which Windows 98 was not). It had editable metadata and smart folders and several other features just now making their way into mainstream OS's. I was never a big fan myself, but it certainly was more than competitive with other OS's in use at the time based upon the feature set.
Yes, I installed it and used it for brief time. Yes, I thought it was "cool" and "fast". No, I did not keep on using it -- like yourself. If you, a presumably skilled computer user, managed to successfully install and use BeOS and still found it wanting in value at the end of the day, then why do you assume others would? What features are so compelling, especially to the "mainstream user", so as to make up for all the relative deficiencies when compared to Windows or Mac? BeOS may have had brilliant engineering and some innovative features, but it takes a whole lot more than that to succeed. History is littered with such examples both with and without a monopoly presence.
MS's monopoly abuse in this area has been pretty well established by now, and MS has settled a whole lot of court cases for a lot of money for an "innocent" party. Given their multiple convictions for antitrust abuse and the fact that they are constantly in court for new violations I don't think this is an unreasonable opinion.
OP Said: It really isn't Microsoft's fault that the market isn't interested in BeOS
What!?! It is directly MS's fault as MS threatened to destroy any company that shipped BeOS pre-installed and even forced one company that had already announced they were shipping systems with a dual-install to cancel that. That is a clear case of monopoly abuse and is a direct action... MS misusing their monopoly.
I agree with you that MS has monopoly powers and that they have abused them repeatedly (moreso in the past). That said, it is an over-simplification to say that just because MS flexed its monopoly muscle that that was either a major cause or even a significant contributor of their competition's demise. There are other explanations, perhaps even more probable ones.
Although Microsoft should be punished if they twisted OEMs arms to not install BeOS, I have little doubt that BeOS would have failed regardless. It is very difficult for any OS company to gain traction given all of their disadvantages (e.g., customer familiarity with windows OS and applications, cross-compatibility, hardware support, economies of scale, lack of good software for platform (again, economies of scale), etc). Furthermore, it is unlikely that BeOS's users, those that would want to single-boot a brand new computer into BeOS (almost certainly all hobbyist types), would be swayed by the added time and effort involved in self-installing or would not be willing to pay the small added cost of using a lesser known OEMs (those that do not enjoy significant OEM discounts). What's more, you have the question of lack-of incentive for major OEMs to install and potentially added costs/risk for them (MS' actions aside).
As a side note, I think you may be confusing Microsoft's actions as they relate to BeOS. Microsoft's contract with the OEMs presumably prevented them from shipping dual-boot computers, however this is not the same as preventing the OEMs from shipping computers exclusively with just one alternative-OS (e.g., Linux). Do you have evidence of this? The lack of a pre-installed dual-boot option may have reduced the number of people that would even try BeOS significantly (and is arguably the biggest potential impact MS could have had between the two, imho), but even there I wonder if BeOS could have succeeded. Your average PC user can barely handle it when you change their windows settings ever-so slightly... most do not respond well when you give them something completely new. The advantages BeOS would have given the average user would have been few and far between and the disadvantages many.... so why would they continue to use it?
I was all anti-Xbox when that thing first came out. In my eyes it was so much worse than the GCN that I couldn't understand purchasing one. PS2 sale numbers owned it hard, and were I a Sony guy I would have been talking the same talk as Apple folks are today. And now the Xbox family is doing just fine, all things considered. Maybe MS will actually turn a profit on those things within the next couple of years. After all, they do know something about running a competitive business, and with consoles they have the experience of trying to break into a market with an already-dominant product out there.
I fail to see how you can argue that their "success" with xbox is a reason to believe they can succeed with the Zune. Virtually any large company can buy their way into a market if they're determined and have enough cash. The real question is whether or not the company can actually profit from it and earn a decent rate of return. Xbox by all accounts has been a money loser and that is unlikely to change. You might argue that the xbox (ver 1) put them in a position to better sell the 360, but that jury is still out on that one. Though it seems like it has been well recieved, they enjoyed a huge edge by being first to market. This, however, will also work against them now that Sony has arguably better and faster hardware out and Nintendo is likely to dominate the lower end.
I suspect that if Microsoft Xbox division were its own company (i.e., if you removed the other concerns in their entertainment division) investors would be extremely sour on it. The competition today in the high-end console market is apt to be financially ruinuous to both Sony's and Microsoft's console business, i.e., they will be one-upping each other enough that neither can sell enough games (and collect other fees) per platform that they'll never make a real business of it (until one decides to drop out at least...). Anyone want to wager?:-)
As for the Zune business, you should also realize that it is a very different business. Many, if not most, of the Zune's potential customers already have purchased a significant number of tracks on iTunes' Music Store. The forseeable inability of the Zune to readily play this music for the end-user is going to be a major strike against it. This is different than, say, consumers that own console-games because the next generation player (console) don't really make the older material seem less worthwhile. What's more, Microsoft must convince the major labels to licensing their music under terms at least as good as Apples. Apple may be a quasi-monopoly here, but I could see the labels having serious doubts about Microsoft's intentions...
Microsoft is obviously a huge company. However, almost all of their profits have come from their traditional businesses (e.g., Windows and Office.... the biggest exception to this being SQL). The competition that they've successfully beat have have largely been much smaller and have competed in areas where they were able to leverage their monopoly powers to tremendous advantage (e.g., Netscape). I simply don't see their "success" as being an all encompasing reason to believe that they'll succeed financially at any business they want simply because they're cash flush and presumably "smart".
3% of Swedish 10th graders report using illicit drugs other than cannabis in their lifetime vs 24% in the US. Just 8% of the Swedes reported using cannabis vs 41% in the US.
Besides the well established causal relationship between drug use and criminal activity, this also suggests either significantly different cultural values (e.g., greater propensity to obey authority figures) or better enforcement methods.
The other factor you're not addressing, is the simple correlation between progressive taxes on the high end and quality of living, especially violent crime. You seem fond of bringing up small, anecdotal cases. Do explain to me Sweden, with high gun ownership rates and low wealth disparity managed not by an estate tax now, but by a direct, flat tax on total wealth every year. Why is it that they have one of the lowest rates of violent crime and one of the best standards of living? Note, their unemployment rate is about the same as the US.
Ahhh, does little baby want to pack up his toys and go home? Regardless of whether or not you'll respond to me (and risk getting destroyed, again), here is some more information for your edification.
Who knows, maybe you'll think twice before blindly spouting off the miracle that is Sweden...
Sweden's poorest 10% actually does slightly worse than their counterpart in the US in real dollar terms (PPP adjusted) even after taxes and most subsidies are taken into account. What's more, virtually every economic group above it, especially at the median and above, does significantly better.
If you're unconvinced that absolute measures of poverty "matter"..
Evidence of Sweden's declining economic status. The average Swede has lost purchasing power over the past 20 years and this effect is particularly evident when compared against the rest of Europe. They've slipped from #4 to #18 from 1970 to 1998 (an absolute loss of 17 points vs the OED average of 100).
Evidence that Sweden had much less economic disparity before their welfare state was created due to collapse of capital markets (as opposed to the "because" that you want to believe) and that they've, in fact, followed similar economic trends.
A balanced article in the Economist about some not so well known facts about the Swedish economy. For instance, although they report 6% unemployment officially, they have a ton of people that actually long-term unemployed and living off the system (e.g., long term sick leave). Reliable estimates put their true unemployment closer to 15-17%. What's more, 30% of the country works for the government.
They also point out that Sweden has created virtually no new net jobs in private industry since 1950.
Only 1 of Sweden's 50 largest companies was founded after 1970. Entrepreneurship (and even self-employment) are much lower in Sweden than most of the US and even Europe.
For the most part, no they wore not. More importantly, they only had small arms, not larger weapons for the most part. Yet, they provided an effective part of turning the tide of the war.
You are being disingenious and ignorant. You attempted to contradict my assertion that an untrained and under-armed populace is unlikely to stop a vastly better armed, better trained, and better organized modern military by bringing up the French Resistance. The fact is the Resistance did not "stop" the Germans in any meaningful sense. The Germans rolled over France with ease. Nor can the Resistance be claimed to have taken back much territory on their own or to have killed many German soliders (except for after they surrendered). Their sole military function was to cut off communication and slow down the Germans' redeployment for a limited duration at certain choke points during Operation Overlord. Although it may be accurate to say the Resistance in general was lightly armed, only a small proportion of those claiming to be part of the Resistance engaged in real military action, and they were armed by the Allies with weapons equivalent to what Allied soliders carried, not to mention given rudimentary training, and direction by Allied soliders/spies (the Jeds). The Allies dropped roughly 25 million pounds of weapons in 1944 to the Jeds/Resistance alone--this is not a trivial number.
Okay. Do you dispute that the cost of living in a region is relative to the mean income in that region? If not, you've defined poverty as directly linked to wealth disparity, and a functional subset thereof.
They are somewhat related (primarily in the sense that employers tend to adjust for inflation), but correlation is not causation. We can have greater economic disparity AND have more people above any fixed measure of poverty (real goods and services). We have this thing called the CPI that allows us to measure inflation fairly accurately. (Maybe you've heard of it?)
What's more, we don't have many accurate measures of wealth disparity over the long term or even short term (quarter to quarter).
Sure. Take a look at "Inequality and Violent Crime" by Pablo Fajnzylber, Daniel Lederman, and Norman Loayza, or "Explaining Variation in Crime Victimization Across Nations and Within Nations" by Jerome Neapolitan. Unemployment correlates very strongly with violent crime, but many of the aberrations in that correlation are explained when you look instead to wealth disparity as an indicator. Neither of them alone explains all the numbers, but looking at just one correlation, it simply matches up more neatly.
All of these are focused in income inequality. You obviously do not understand the difference between income and wealth. One can easily have an income of $200K/year, but a negative networth if they spend beyond their means (I actually know some people like this).
What's more, they are not even comparing income distribution against any of the things I mentioned, i.e., median real-incomes, absolute measures of poverty, or unemployment rates. At least one of these papers essentially contradicts yours conflated argument (wealth vs income) that income inequality itself is the cause, e.g., "Violent crime rates decrease when economic growth improves; however, the crime-reducing impact of the GDP growth rate is weaker when income inequality is larger..". In other words, GDP growth combined in growth in income inequality still results in significant reductions in crime.
Also note "The crime-inducing effect of inequality falls as the income level of the poor rises.". This is also a critical point. The poor are far more likely to commit crime and it is possible to raise their income while, at the same time, having greater inequality of income.
Sure, statistical analysis is a study of trends, not individual bits of point data. You can
No, the studies I listed compared violent crime statistics in areas with certain gun control laws and without. There is nothing fuzzy about that and they are not addressing some subset, like the number of minors killed.
I was referring to the slashdot comment that you indicated was "evidence". Hence the reason why my comments, 1 - 3, were below the relevant text.
What good would such a study do? Can you magically make people not own guns? Obviously not. You can pass legislation to restrict or ban guns, and that is exactly what was studied in relation to violent crime.
You are being willfully ignorant. Gun laws can be enforced like any other laws (e.g., tax law) and moreso than many others since one usually needs to buy, store, practice, and use them at some point. The effectiveness of the laws may vary greatly though depending on: how long they've been in existence for; the severity of the penalties; the methods of enforcement; and on the particular laws (including the framework of law that supports it, e.g., right of the police to search). The variability of laws and their effectiveness is all the more reason why we should look for alternate measures, especially those that compare the prevalence of what we are trying to regulate. As it happens, we do have fairly reliable data on gun ownership rates (based on anonymous surveys, purchasing data, and other sources). Anyone with an ounce of sense would appreciate that this is a far superior measure for quantitative studies than attempting to compare laws.
Furthermore, there are numerous studies comparing gun ownership rates to gun-related suicidies and homicides and they are very tightly and robustly correlated. I don't think even you would try to refute this. Although you might argue that more gun deaths don't mean more deaths in general, it certainly is a very good indication that our gun ownership data is, in fact, pretty damn accurate.
Actually, while the inverse is not true, the lack of correlation across a statistically significant number of sample studies does indicate that their is a negligible probability of a causative relationship.
Sigh. Are you really this much of an intellectual light-weight? All a statistically insignificant degree of correlation means is that that single test does not prove a relationship. Perhaps if all the scientists have studied the matter extensively, questioned all their assumptions and looked at their numbers, you might conclude that there is probably not relationship, but this is NOT the case here. Even a test that is 100% statistically sound is not necessarily good science.
Do you believe in global warming? Global temperatures between 1940 and 1970 fell by 0.2 degree Celsius while annual average fossil fuel consumption increased to roughly 4 billion metric tonnes of carbon. Any study conducted around this period would either show no correlation or a negative correlation...
Second, it says that gun ownership rates to not have significant effect on crime rates. I don't see how this is supposed to refute my claim that gun control laws do not, in general, correlate to decreased violent cr
Removing the penny would seriously hurt the value of the dollar globally.
Yes, that would all be do to an incorrect perception, but it would still hurt the dollar.
Says who? There is no good economic rationale for keeping it.
1) Other countries have made similar moves without any significant pains (e.g., Australia).
2) The vast majority of transactions are non-cash transactions these days and they can still be computed in cents (or, for that matter, even fractions of a cent).
3) Even amongst cash transactions, the penny is of little use (virtually all vending machines, most customers get rid of them, etc)
4) The nickel is worth about as much today as the penny was in 1970 after inflation is taken into account. If the lack of any currency with a real value of less than 5 cents in 2006 dollars didn't cause huge problems before 1970, why should any sane person believe it will now?
I didn't think I had to since those numbers were presented by several different people already and modded highly in this article. Here is one of the pertinent ones that is also well written http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=210866&cid =17175778 [slashdot.org]. Not one person I saw in the entire discussion presented numbers indicating that violent crime (as opposed to "gun crime") correlates favorably with gun control legislation.
Huh? Nothing he mentioned in any way contradicts anything I've said on the matter. The whole thrust of his argument was to put gun related deaths into prospective. I agree, for instance, that the average citizen is far more likely to killed by a car than by a gun. I simply believe that society would be better off if more and better gun laws were put in place (esp. those that would reduce concealed weapons, readily available/loaded weapons, etc).
Several points:
First, the data does not compare gun ownership, frequency of use, and method of use to the deaths and injuries so it tells us little about the risks on a marginal basis. By this same fuzzy rationale I might come to conclude that Russian Rulette is relatively safe because only 3 minors died of it last year (or whatever the exact # would be... certainly very small).
Second, it does not mention any study of correlation of gun ownership in general to any of the various bad things (murder, violent crime, robbery, etc).
Three, it particularly does not discuss specific gun laws as it relates to specific crimes. This is absolutely necessary to persuade me. I believe that responsible ownership of rifles is an acceptable risk generally, but that laws that allow most people to carry and own weapons that are readily concealed (including driving around with a loaded weapon at all times--handgun or not) results in a marginal increase in murders and serious injury (I do not believe that it tends to reduce crime across the board). In other words, even if one were to accept that "gun ownership does not cause an increase in violent crime" this says nothing about particular gun laws, murder rates, etc. That argument is kind of like arguing that, because we can prove that modern medicine correlates strongly with people living longer and healither lives, that any specific doctor or medicine is safe (e.g., untested medicines, unlicensed doctors, etc).
"the facts show that there is simply no correlation between gun control laws and murder or suicide rates across a wide spectrum of nations and cultures.
As for these very limited statements you've presented, I disagree with the conclusions you are drawing from them. The mere fact that someone who studied it failed prove correlation in a particular study (or even several) does not mean that there is not a causative impact. There are a lot of other variables involved and the data collection is difficult (different places measure crime and gun ownership different) whether you are comparing two different places or two different times (before and after).
What's more, there are studies that do suggest positive correlation between gun ownership rates and homicide rates...
Maybe you're a little fuzzy on the scientific method. We're not talking about looking at one data point and using it to infer some relationship. We're talking about looking at all available data points from hundreds of different countries, normalized as much as possible to make the most likely prediction of a result. A reasonable person looks at the data and uses that to make a prediction. An unreasonable person decides a gun control measure is good or bad, and then tries to find data to support their illogical opinion. Look at the data around the world and you'll see all levels of gun control with little or no correlation to the level of violent crime. Why then, would a reasonable person, think that gun control is likely to result in decreased crime, especially when their are logical cause and effect relationships by which such legislation can both positively and negatively effect violence? "Intuition" is a pretty lousy answer to that.
This presumes such indisputable numbers exist. I have looked at statistical studies and they suggest that decreased gun ownership means less murder and fewer traumatic injuries overall for society (not just "gun crimes"). You may disagree, but you, yourself, have presented nothing in the way of the analysis you suggest.
And this is why you're wrong. You admit that your decision is made and you won't change your mind, even in light of new facts. This is called "being irrational." My opinion can and does change as I get more and better data because the data is the basis for my opinion. I'm willing to admit my opinion was likely incorrect, in light of new information. Anyone who won't do this has a worthless opinion because they aren't thinking rationally.
I'm not voting for gun control (as I said before, I have bigger fish to fry). I am simply playing devil's advocate. If I felt this issue were truly in play in the elections or if it suddenly were to become more critical, then I'd be more inclined to look at your selected numbers and debate it at length.
And just as soon as I can decide to have back the portion of my federal taxes that go to federal funding for those schools, I'll agree with you. If my federal tax dollars are funding it, however, then it is a federal institution and needs to be treated as such.
I am not advocating school prayer. In fact, I tend to be against it (mandated or demonstrably coercive prayer in public schools that is). However, the point is that it is not necessarily inconsistent with a reasonable reading of the Bill of Rights to be against gun-control (at a Federal Level, mind you) and for school-prayer. It is only inconsistent if you acccept the argument that funding an institution that happens to support something is the same thing as Congress/Fed Gov't mandating it that same action.
This is quite a stretch in my opinion. In other words, it is the right outcome (imho) but for the wrong reasons (tortured reasoning). With this same reasoning, why should it not be against the 1st Amendment to fund schools which prohibit students from the same free speech they are allowed outside the classroom (e.g., pro-Nazi agenda)? And while we're at it, should we also prevent someone on unemployment from going to church because then they'd be using federal funds to pay for gas money? Where do you draw the line?
Perhaps you missed the history class where they mentioned that states rights have been completely gutted and the federal government now collects almost all the taxes which it then gives back to the states bit by bit in exchange for acting as a subservient body to the feds?
Yeah, ad-hominem attack, hello? I know full well that there has been a huge and fundamental shift in the structure of government away from what was originally envisioned by the founders (a federal government with very limited and enumerated powers). This is no way changes my original statement though. Such a person's view may be at odds with the prevailing interpretation of the Constitution (e.g., the affection doctrine), but that does not automatically make it logically inconsistent (even if it is legally irrelevant today).
You description of the French resistance is more than a bit beside the point. It does nothing to refute the principal I presented. The Allies provided them with one shot pistols and the loosely chambered guns I mentioned were the submachine guns you reference. The point was, an armed resistance with weaponry inferior to those of the people they are fighting, can make a difference. You've basically provided zero evidence that small arms like handguns are ineffective in a civil insurrection. Until you do so, you have done nothing to support your opinion. Not that it matters as it is only one, minor point. They might be useful. There is no proof to the contrary, so lacking other reasons, why should they be banned?
The guns the Resistance were armed with were equivalent to what the German soliders had. So, no, The french resistence's use of arms (or lack thereof) does not support your argument that the guns owned by US civilians are likely to make any difference to civil defence. The Resistances' overall victory dependend very much on the overwhelming force brought to bare by the Allied invasion and on the fact that they were armed, supported, directed, and even managed (at a unit level with Allied soldier/spies on the ground) by the Allies. This is not the organic and highly successful civil defence scenario you advocate. If anything, it lends support to the argument that personally owned arms for civil defence are next to useless and that we should wait for a foreign power to airdrop them to us.
Who argued that there should not be training and licensing requirements? This is a strawman.
You, at least, implied as much. mandatory training would be of a benefit to this goal, but I'm unconvinced the benefit of that training outweighs the restriction on people's freedom to run their own lives that it would entail.. You are certainly not arguing for training. Without training-being-linked to gun-ownership I have a hard time swallowing the civil defence rationale at all--especially in the day of the professional army (most of the population knowing damn little about basic combat and the professionals knowing infinitely more--amongst their many other advantages)
How do you define "poverty?" Usually it is a measure of wealth disparity within a country or locality. A person below the poverty level in the US has a higher quality of living and a great deal more wealth than a fairly wealthy person in other parts of the world.
By "poverty" I refer to the state of lacking the means (or purchasing power) to care for oneself according to reasonable standards (e.g., eat a decent meal, live in a safe dwelling, care for their children, etc). Although some people may define poverty relative to, say, median income I do not think this is a particularly useful measure (it may be an easier one to measure, but it's not useful). We can compare poverty by accounting for inflation within the US and relative to purchasing power across the world.
So you're arguing that employment rates correlate more strongly with violent crime levels than wealth disparity does? I've never seen any study that supported this fact and I've read several that disagree.
You must have never studied the issue beyond your pro-gun soundbytes then because there is a mountain of evidence showing high degree of correlation: nationally, regionally, locally, and individually. It has been common knowledge by those on the front-lines (e.g., police, school adminstrators, criminologists, etc) that people that are either employed or in-school are _far_ less likely to commit crime, violent or otherwise.
What if it does? This again, does not matter, not because there is no "plausible argument" to support it, but because stopping abduction by sexual predators to the exclusion of all other violent crimes is not the problem we are trying to solve. It's entirely possible giving 5-year olds guns would reduce abductions, but greatly increase accidental shootings of themselves and others. The fallacy I was pointing out, is only looking at one subset of the problem, when the remedy affects more than one part of the problem. You need to look at the overall results of the action on violent crime, not on "gun crime" which can serve only to mislead.
The "plausible argument" I was referring to includes both reasons of how it might be a positive and reasons why it would not negative (e.g., kids shooting themselves). Regardless, the point is the same. We don't, nor should we, go about are daily lives only if there is an absolute ironclad argument or overwhelming "proof". We must exercise a certain degree of intuition in our daily lives and in our laws.
We certainly should be willing to entertain a point if a more convincing argument to the contrary can be made or actual facts brought to the table to support it. The suggestion, however, that we do nothing because there in some uncertainty is absurdity. Yes, we must protect peoples' enumerated rights (defining these, of course, can be tricky) and carefully weigh the pros and the cons when our changes might have a substantively negative impact on legitimate activities.
Again, you are just speculating. Drive by attacks in places with lower gun ownership tend to be worse, not better. In south america there is a high rate of drive by pipe bomb and Molotov cocktail attacks that hit more people at once and are more likely to hit lots of innocent bystanders. Columbine could have been much, much worse if instead of guns they mixed up a batch of poisonous gas or blocked the exits and lit the place on fire.
I disagree. No two countries are exactly the same and it's virtually impossible to "compare" a policy all things being equal. If crime goes down after a gun control law is passed, someone can almost always identify something else that changed and assert that that is the real reason. So the arguments will almost always boil down to just that: reasoned arguments.
You can argue that Columbine would have still happened without guns, but this requires:
A) More Planning B) Better Execution C) Obtaining something that is not readily available to most people (certainly not in the back of their truck normally), i.e., explosives, gas, and/or poison.
I don't think it is any accident that the US has experienced several similar incidents and Europe, which generally has significantly tigher controls around guns, with fairly similar groups of people, and a larger overall population has also experienced far fewer incidents. What's more, those similar incidents in Europe have generally been perpetrated by gun owners with their own guns.
For the record, I am _not_ demonizing guns. I grew up with them in my house; I have been hunting a number of times; and I enjoy target pratice. I think they _can_ be used safely, but I also think that the laws are overly permissive with respect to gun ownership, storage, and use.
As for laws with respect to penalizing criminals for carrying guns, I have not heard you make a credible argument or bring any facts to bear as to why we should want our criminals carrying guns.
As for gun control in general, I'm far more moderate and I don't see it as the most presssing issue of the day. I don't want to live in a society that coddles the individual to excess--I can accept that there is some inherent risk in doing virtually anything worth doing. I accept laws that allow hunters to own and use hunting rifles as being an acceptable risk for society. I can even accept that people that can demonstrate a particular ne
It's equally reasonable to believe criminals are more likely to violently attack and kill others if laws prevent those others from having guns. That is why it is important to look at the overall result of gun bans on violent crime, not the number of crimes with guns under the unsupported assumption that one factor outweighs another.
That is not the point that I was debating and the argument is significantly different. I am talking about laws which increase penalties for those that commit crimes with a gun in their possession; the original poster may have been talking about reducing gun ownership in general (I did not get that from the message I read)--it was a little unclear from his message.
What if criminals having guns means people physically resist less often and as a result there is less overall death due to violence? The point is, we need to look at the relevant data, not a subset of the data that does not address the problem we're trying to solve.
What if giving a five-year old a loaded handgun would reduce his likelyhood of getting abducted by sexual predators? We don't need to look at every statistic when there isn't a plausible argument to support it and many solid intuitive reasons to not to.
I certainly can rationally argue that the availability of guns legally to people not known to be criminals reduces violent crime and death because that is exactly what the statistics imply. Your assumption that not using a gun will result in less death is not a useful fact because even if fewer incidents result in death, there are more overall incidents due to the easier targets. Whatever the mechanism, gun bans in general statistically do not decrease violent crime, which is the reasonable stated goal.
I am talking about increased penalties for those that carry guns during the commission of a crime, NOT the right of citizens to bear arms. They are two different arguments and they can easily be seperated from each other. Even if you accept that all law-abiding citizens should be allowed to own or even carry arms, this does not mean you should support the right of criminals to commit crimes with guns in their hands.
Yup, and most criminals don't commit a violent crime because they have a gun at their disposal. What part of this analogy are you failing to grasp?
Even if you accept that the propensity of criminals to commit specific crimes is exactly the same ("let's rob this old lady's house") regardless of whether they're carrying, that does not mean that there cannot be significant differences in the actual crimes committed (e.g., robbery vs robbery + 2nd degree murder). The robber with a gun may have exactly the same plan as the one without it, but the gun in his hand can make all the difference in the world in the terms potential outcomes (e.g., accidently shooting some kid"). My argument is largely based on my perceptions of the probability of different outcomes and on society right to choose NOT to have crimes committed against them (and thus vary the penalties depending on the circumstances).
If nothing else, the presence of a gun-wielding criminal may be sufficiently traumatizing so as to merit increased penalties.
That said, I do think it can make a real difference in the types of crimes that are committed themselves. For instance, without guns you're not going to see drive by shootings, at the very least, and far fewer bystanders are apt to die as a result. You're not going to see a Columbine-type attack... and so on.
I'll save my energies though as changing gun laws has never been a major issue for me, for or against. We have far bigger fish to fry. Most of the country is far more likely to die in a car accident than to get murdered... though in Washington DC, Camden NJ, and other such places it is a much bigger concern.
One, you are obviously not a student of history. In a civil conflict, some portion of said military will be on the side of the rebels. More importantly, within a civil engagement, you only need a weapon good enough to allow you to acquire a better weapon. The French resistance in WW2 were given one shot pistols and machine guns chambered to fire a huge array of bullets, very inaccurately. They may well have changed the course of that war.
To the contrary, I am a student of history and I've actually read a great deal on the resistance in occupied France (even first hand accounts). Your naive view shows that you know very little about it.
First, you can hardly argue that the resistance stopped the occupation of France--the Germans brutally occupied the entire country and enjoyed virtually unlimited freedom of movement for most of the occupation.
Second, the "resistance" was basically entirely ineffectual militarily speaking until they were organized by the allied spies and soliders towards the end of the war. Yes, the "resistance" helped before with intelligence and quite a few of them were shot for disobeying the Germans (and the vichy government) -- but they truly could claim almost nothing in the way of direct military victory (e.g., taking a town back, preventing it from being taken, preventing the many massacres, etc).
Third, the resistance's military activity was almost entirely conducted in the countryside--not in the big cities. When they operated in the cities at all, they did not carry weapons because it made them obvious targets.
Fourth, the military activities of the "resistance" were heavily and almost exclusively benefited by the allied forces (Operation Jedburg) parachuting in large amounts of guns, grenades, radios and explosives. These guns, where available, were roughly equivalent to what the German foot soldiers were carrying (Bren light machine guns, Sten submachine guns, Enfield rifles, grenades, etc). They sure as hell weren't fighting largely with shotguns and pistols and irregular weapons that would be difficult to obtain ammo for.
Fifth, the primary military function of the resistance was to slow down and distract the Germans during the invasion (especially the invasion of normandy). They accomplished this almost entirely by knocking down trees, laying mines, collapsing bridges, blowing up train tracks, etc. In other words, they accomplished most of this with explosives and tools and not armed confrontations. Rarely did they ever overwhelm German forces with rifles or even directly take German lives with other tools. When the reistance forces engaged the Germans with arms at all it was almost always harrassing fire to distract the advancing troops and force them to engage instead of mobilizing where they were most needed (at the front). However, without the Allied Forces' thousands of troops and armor rolling across France most of this activity would have been for naught--the German forces would have inflicted far more damage and the benefits would have been negligible.
In short, although the resistance made unique and hugely critical contributions at the end of the war (and demonstrated real courage and lost many lives), it hardly bolsters your argument for an untrained civilian populace to keep weapons on them (especially lighter weapons like handguns). If anything, it supports the argument that an un-focused, un-trained, and disorganized civilian populace without significant outside support is unlikely to make a significant military difference merely by owning the kinds of guns most American gun owners actually own.
Two, I do believe some modern weapons should be restricted in ownership, but most should be available to private citizens. That, however, is not necessary for the points I made above.
Three, mandatory training would be of a benefit to this goal, but I'm unconvinced the benefit of that training outweighs the restriction on peop
That is not the point. You single out "gun crime" as a category to address. Why not crime by people with red hair? Or violent crime that damages the abdomen? Why is crime with guns a useful subcategory of crime to address instead of addressing violent crime as a whole? Shaving the heads of all people with red hair would entirely eliminate most redhair crimes. Does this make it useful in some way? If we can do this and stop all redhair crimes, while increasing crime in general since red haired people are pissed off and feel discriminated against should we do it?
Are you kidding me? The two arguments are completely different. It is reasonable to believe that a person committing the same crime with a gun (e.g., burglarly) is likely to be more aggressive if confronted and that that person is also more likely to kill the victim or a bystander if they panic. There is no good reason why we should want criminals to be carrying guns during the commission of their crimes.
Yes, the criminal may already be committing a crime, but that does not mean that the rational criminal (some of them are) are ignorant of the fact that the simple act of choosing to carry a gun during the crime brings significantly higher sentencing and that the prosecutor is apt to be more aggressive in pressing for a conviction. Yes, the criminal may find another weapon or even use his fists, but that is much less likely to result in fatal or permanent injury to the victim (and even moreso for bystanders); You cannot reasonably argue against this and also simultaneously assert that guns are useful or necessary for upstanding members of society to defend themselves.
As for...Red hair crimes? Pfft. Most reasonable people understand that victims of crime with red hair are probably not being chosen because they have redhair on their heads. The only way you might argue that case is if, say, you really believe that there are bands of serial killers, robbers, or what have you out there that will exclusively or preferentially attack people with redhair (or if red hair on someone's head causes them to behave in a way that would increase their exposure to crime)... not plausible and no evidence to support it.
Slashdot Mirror
In any event, this is flawed analysis.
First, the drug industry only do line-extensions because they are very low hanging fruit. In other words, the costs and risks involved in creating a line-extension are orders of magnitude lower than they are for the rest of their drugs (they pretty much _KNOW_ that it will work and the regulatory hurdles are lower) and because they can be reasonably sure that they will be received fairly well.
Second, the revenue dollars generated by the line-extensions (that are of little utility) are much lower than they are for the original drug. Managed care, savvy consumers, and most socialized-medicine countries know that the marginal benefits of these drugs are low--and they DO push back significantly (just look at the financial statements)--and that the cost differential compared to the generics are HUGE.
Third, competition is often around the corner with better alternatives so their window of opportunity is lower and price competition grows dramatically.
Lastly, this opinion rests on the false belief that the drug companies either can't walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time or that they'll just kind of give up because they have "enough money" (forgetting for a minute that the generic status of their blockbuster is almost always a HUGE hit). These line-extensions basically become limited-cash-cows of sorts. The line-extensions generate net revenue quickly for the drug companies and it is almost always in their own best interest to plow that money back into R&D (they're in the business of making money, after all). Even if the resulting drug (2nd generation) is a drug that might compete directly against their own successful line-extension, the drug companies stand to benefit in general because they're able to charge a lot more for it (not competing against generics to the same extent) and because there is almost always significant marketshare to be taken (back) from the competition (both generics and otherwise).
As for the big pharmas themselves, they loose billions of dollars a year on drugs that don't pan out. For instance, Pfizer alone lost an estimated 1 billion dollars this year with the failure of torcetrapib. Please read: http://www.pharmaceutical-business-review.com/art
You may also want to look at how investors have faired in these supposedly highly lucrative businesses. Between 2000 and today Pfizer has lost almost 50% of its market value. Too lucrative? Hardly.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PFE&t=5y&l=on&z=l
In any event, the big pharma companies do their best to diversify their risks so that one or even several losses are offset by their gains in other areas (usually with the handful of hit drugs). Arguing that pharma companies should go bankrupt more often is like arguing that insurance companies should go bankrupt more often or that consumers shouldn't be obligated to pay their premiums... It's just plain idiotic.
And this is based on your experience
Also, you might want to compare, say, Pfizer's current margins of 24% (volatile and likely to plummet soon) against, say, Redhat's margins of 22%... Yeah, you might argue it's because they're spending it a lot of money on marketing, but these companies are spending to maximize their profits (because they can't generate enough sales to recoup their losses otherwise)....not because they all like to throw that kind money out the window continuously.
Wrong. The Democrats simply distorted this GAO report. The Dems just pulled comments that the GAO merely cited (those of "consumer-advocates"). What's more those assertions were just based on the beliefs of the "advocates" and were not cited as being in any way more authoritive that comments to the contrary. Just because the GAO quotes a Democratic activist does not mean that they're supporting their beliefs or backing them up in any shape, way, or form.
Please read my response here
Emphasis is mine... but this is the GAO's summary.
This is definitely contrary to the original poster's assertion that patent's are having a net negative effect on the drug industry right now.
Please read GAO Report for yourselves.
Please read the damn GAO publication before parroting crap about how bad the drug industry is. This was not the conclusion reached by the GAO. All the GAO did was publish select comments made by "consumer-advocates" (as well as comments by other parties which contradicted these statements). There was no real analysis presented on the patent/line-extension issue. What's more, the focus was on all the various factors that are believed to be contributing to the decline in drug approvals. In other words, this is definitely not a detailed study by the GAO concluding that patents (or even patents on line-extensions) hurt innovation.
Here are the most relevant quotes for those too lazy to read the actual document:
No where did the GAO state that any of these comments were even based on actual detailed analysis. You should also note that only "some" of these advocates concluded that these line-extensions play some role in redirecting resources away from other more innovative drugs.
You should also note the next paragraph:
Please read the article for yourself. It is hardly the damning indictment of patents in the drug industry that the poster or the Democrats imply. The article identifies many other problems (e.g., flawed scientific understanding, inability of academia to transition, etc), most of which I'd be willing to bet the average slashdot reader is ignorant of. If anything, a careful reading of this document suggests that patents are very critical to innovation in the drug industry and that, at most, some tweaking might be in order.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Your understanding of law, like your understanding of economic theory and many important economic facts, leaves much to be desired. The test has traditionally been for "market powers". One need not be a monopoly in the industry -- they only need to be judged to have "market powers" in the relevant market (and this can be defined in various ways). There are several different tests that the court has used to establish this (e.g., HHI, Market Share, and the Lerner index). What's more, traditionally copyright and especially patent holders are presumed to be market powers (the courts have since backed off from the presumption). So, no, this is test far from simple and Apple and similar technology companies are not, a priori, free to leverage their strength in one market to gain in another.
First, you are ignoring the actual tests (as mentioned above). Second, the "relevant market" can be defined much more narrowly then you imagine, e.g., Macintosh computer market. Third, all of these products are arguably competing in existing markets as almost none of them lack competition on their respect platforms (both at the time of launch and currently).
Yet more sloppy thinking. Both the courts and economists examine the specifics of the situation these days, they don't just look at the fact that something is tied together. Where do you draw the line? Your same over-simplified argument can be made for Apple, Redhat, Palm, and other OS purveyors. And while we're at it what about, say, calc.exe, notepad, wordpad, solitaire...? Hell you could even make the argument for the various shells and applets. Most agree that Microsoft's actions with Netscape were illegal, but this is based on thoughtful analysis and not the simplistic test which you suggest.
Here is the relevant finding of fact:
You might also note that the court found that Microsoft spent upwards of 100 million per year from 1995 onwards to develop IE...
You can always argue that we should penalize Microsoft as-if their actions might have made a real difference, but that does not mean we have to be willfully ignorant and ignore all the evidence and economic theory to the contrary. I, for one, do not believe that we will see a mainstream competitor in the OS market, even with a fully restrained Microsoft, until the bulk of Windows' critical applications can be readily run on the competing platform or alternatives are available that are every bit as good and fully compatible with the Windows' versions. This might be starting to happen with "web 2.0" applications emerging... but it certainly was not the case when BeOS was making a go of it.
...and Microsoft should be punished for it. That, however, does not mean that every company that Microsoft ever acted exercised their monopoly powers against would have succeeded but for their actions. I can totally accept the argument with, say, Netscape -- however there is a strong argument to be made for it (unlike this example).
OEMs may well do better in a competitive OS marketplace, however that does not mean that it is in their own best interest marginally speaking when: 1) there is no established user-base to recieve it 2) The OS itself is still very immature 3) a real lack of software titles to even begin to encourage adoption. You could make this same argument for customers, i.e., they would do better to promote OS choice. However, the end-user, like the OEM, would face a bunch of up-front costs for their trouble (e.g., learn new UI, find/buy new apps, convert documents, no sharing docs, lack of browser compatibility, etc) and would likely never benefit enough personally to offset the costs of being the early-adopter (even if they alone could cause the eventual adoption...which is very unlikely). If customers and other entities could coordinate their interests so well in the first place, Microsoft and most other monopolies would generally not exist or would be much weaker.
First, you haven't shown that Microsoft actually prevented single-boot installations in any way (and you'd have to ignore various OEM offering, say, Linux around that time). Second, the ends achieved by Microsoft's illegal actions are what I'm questioning here, even the means by which Microsoft pursued them might be legally identical.
Yes, I installed it and used it for brief time. Yes, I thought it was "cool" and "fast". No, I did not keep on using it -- like yourself. If you, a presumably skilled computer user, managed to successfully install and use BeOS and still found it wanting in value at the end of the day, then why do you assume others would? What features are so compelling, especially to the "mainstream user", so as to make up for all the relative deficiencies when compared to Windows or Mac? BeOS may have had brilliant engineering and some innovative features, but it takes a whole lot more than that to succeed. History is littered with such examples both with and without a monopoly presence.
Although Microsoft should be punished if they twisted OEMs arms to not install BeOS, I have little doubt that BeOS would have failed regardless. It is very difficult for any OS company to gain traction given all of their disadvantages (e.g., customer familiarity with windows OS and applications, cross-compatibility, hardware support, economies of scale, lack of good software for platform (again, economies of scale), etc). Furthermore, it is unlikely that BeOS's users, those that would want to single-boot a brand new computer into BeOS (almost certainly all hobbyist types), would be swayed by the added time and effort involved in self-installing or would not be willing to pay the small added cost of using a lesser known OEMs (those that do not enjoy significant OEM discounts). What's more, you have the question of lack-of incentive for major OEMs to install and potentially added costs/risk for them (MS' actions aside).
As a side note, I think you may be confusing Microsoft's actions as they relate to BeOS. Microsoft's contract with the OEMs presumably prevented them from shipping dual-boot computers, however this is not the same as preventing the OEMs from shipping computers exclusively with just one alternative-OS (e.g., Linux). Do you have evidence of this? The lack of a pre-installed dual-boot option may have reduced the number of people that would even try BeOS significantly (and is arguably the biggest potential impact MS could have had between the two, imho), but even there I wonder if BeOS could have succeeded. Your average PC user can barely handle it when you change their windows settings ever-so slightly... most do not respond well when you give them something completely new. The advantages BeOS would have given the average user would have been few and far between and the disadvantages many.... so why would they continue to use it?
I suspect that if Microsoft Xbox division were its own company (i.e., if you removed the other concerns in their entertainment division) investors would be extremely sour on it. The competition today in the high-end console market is apt to be financially ruinuous to both Sony's and Microsoft's console business, i.e., they will be one-upping each other enough that neither can sell enough games (and collect other fees) per platform that they'll never make a real business of it (until one decides to drop out at least...). Anyone want to wager?
As for the Zune business, you should also realize that it is a very different business. Many, if not most, of the Zune's potential customers already have purchased a significant number of tracks on iTunes' Music Store. The forseeable inability of the Zune to readily play this music for the end-user is going to be a major strike against it. This is different than, say, consumers that own console-games because the next generation player (console) don't really make the older material seem less worthwhile. What's more, Microsoft must convince the major labels to licensing their music under terms at least as good as Apples. Apple may be a quasi-monopoly here, but I could see the labels having serious doubts about Microsoft's intentions...
Microsoft is obviously a huge company. However, almost all of their profits have come from their traditional businesses (e.g., Windows and Office.... the biggest exception to this being SQL). The competition that they've successfully beat have have largely been much smaller and have competed in areas where they were able to leverage their monopoly powers to tremendous advantage (e.g., Netscape). I simply don't see their "success" as being an all encompasing reason to believe that they'll succeed financially at any business they want simply because they're cash flush and presumably "smart".
3% of Swedish 10th graders report using illicit drugs other than cannabis in their lifetime vs 24% in the US. Just 8% of the Swedes reported using cannabis vs 41% in the US.
Besides the well established causal relationship between drug use and criminal activity, this also suggests either significantly different cultural values (e.g., greater propensity to obey authority figures) or better enforcement methods.
Ahhh, does little baby want to pack up his toys and go home? Regardless of whether or not you'll respond to me (and risk getting destroyed, again), here is some more information for your edification.
Who knows, maybe you'll think twice before blindly spouting off the miracle that is Sweden...
An absolute comparison of income
Sweden's poorest 10% actually does slightly worse than their counterpart in the US in real dollar terms (PPP adjusted) even after taxes and most subsidies are taken into account. What's more, virtually every economic group above it, especially at the median and above, does significantly better.
If you're unconvinced that absolute measures of poverty "matter"..
Read Page 22
See page 17
Evidence of Sweden's declining economic status. The average Swede has lost purchasing power over the past 20 years and this effect is particularly evident when compared against the rest of Europe. They've slipped from #4 to #18 from 1970 to 1998 (an absolute loss of 17 points vs the OED average of 100).
Swedish Egalitarianism between 1903 and 2004
Evidence that Sweden had much less economic disparity before their welfare state was created due to collapse of capital markets (as opposed to the "because" that you want to believe) and that they've, in fact, followed similar economic trends.
Economist overview of Swedish economy and growing discontent amongst Swedes
A balanced article in the Economist about some not so well known facts about the Swedish economy. For instance, although they report 6% unemployment officially, they have a ton of people that actually long-term unemployed and living off the system (e.g., long term sick leave). Reliable estimates put their true unemployment closer to 15-17%. What's more, 30% of the country works for the government.
They also point out that Sweden has created virtually no new net jobs in private industry since 1950.
Only 1 of Sweden's 50 largest companies was founded after 1970. Entrepreneurship (and even self-employment) are much lower in Sweden than most of the US and even Europe.
Sweden's problem with entrepreneurship
An article discussing some of the problems and statisics relating to Swedish entrepreneu
You are being disingenious and ignorant. You attempted to contradict my assertion that an untrained and under-armed populace is unlikely to stop a vastly better armed, better trained, and better organized modern military by bringing up the French Resistance. The fact is the Resistance did not "stop" the Germans in any meaningful sense. The Germans rolled over France with ease. Nor can the Resistance be claimed to have taken back much territory on their own or to have killed many German soliders (except for after they surrendered). Their sole military function was to cut off communication and slow down the Germans' redeployment for a limited duration at certain choke points during Operation Overlord. Although it may be accurate to say the Resistance in general was lightly armed, only a small proportion of those claiming to be part of the Resistance engaged in real military action, and they were armed by the Allies with weapons equivalent to what Allied soliders carried, not to mention given rudimentary training, and direction by Allied soliders/spies (the Jeds). The Allies dropped roughly 25 million pounds of weapons in 1944 to the Jeds/Resistance alone--this is not a trivial number.
They are somewhat related (primarily in the sense that employers tend to adjust for inflation), but correlation is not causation. We can have greater economic disparity AND have more people above any fixed measure of poverty (real goods and services). We have this thing called the CPI that allows us to measure inflation fairly accurately. (Maybe you've heard of it?)
What's more, we don't have many accurate measures of wealth disparity over the long term or even short term (quarter to quarter).
All of these are focused in income inequality. You obviously do not understand the difference between income and wealth. One can easily have an income of $200K/year, but a negative networth if they spend beyond their means (I actually know some people like this).
What's more, they are not even comparing income distribution against any of the things I mentioned, i.e., median real-incomes, absolute measures of poverty, or unemployment rates. At least one of these papers essentially contradicts yours conflated argument (wealth vs income) that income inequality itself is the cause, e.g., "Violent crime rates decrease when economic growth
improves; however, the crime-reducing impact of the GDP growth rate is weaker when income inequality is larger..". In other words, GDP growth combined in growth in income inequality still results in significant reductions in crime.
Also note "The crime-inducing effect of inequality falls as the income level of the poor rises.". This is also a critical point. The poor are far more likely to commit crime and it is possible to raise their income while, at the same time, having greater inequality of income.
I was referring to the slashdot comment that you indicated was "evidence". Hence the reason why my comments, 1 - 3, were below the relevant text.
You are being willfully ignorant. Gun laws can be enforced like any other laws (e.g., tax law) and moreso than many others since one usually needs to buy, store, practice, and use them at some point. The effectiveness of the laws may vary greatly though depending on: how long they've been in existence for; the severity of the penalties; the methods of enforcement; and on the particular laws (including the framework of law that supports it, e.g., right of the police to search). The variability of laws and their effectiveness is all the more reason why we should look for alternate measures, especially those that compare the prevalence of what we are trying to regulate. As it happens, we do have fairly reliable data on gun ownership rates (based on anonymous surveys, purchasing data, and other sources). Anyone with an ounce of sense would appreciate that this is a far superior measure for quantitative studies than attempting to compare laws.
Furthermore, there are numerous studies comparing gun ownership rates to gun-related suicidies and homicides and they are very tightly and robustly correlated. I don't think even you would try to refute this. Although you might argue that more gun deaths don't mean more deaths in general, it certainly is a very good indication that our gun ownership data is, in fact, pretty damn accurate.
Sigh. Are you really this much of an intellectual light-weight? All a statistically insignificant degree of correlation means is that that single test does not prove a relationship. Perhaps if all the scientists have studied the matter extensively, questioned all their assumptions and looked at their numbers, you might conclude that there is probably not relationship, but this is NOT the case here. Even a test that is 100% statistically sound is not necessarily good science.
Do you believe in global warming? Global temperatures between 1940 and 1970 fell by 0.2 degree Celsius while annual average fossil fuel consumption increased to roughly 4 billion metric tonnes of carbon. Any study conducted around this period would either show no correlation or a negative correlation...
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/assets/2006927134 6160.GlobalWarmingLKW.pdf
Uh, wrong. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?a rtid=1485564&pageindex=3 The US is by far the highest in the developed world, even more so if you look at private gun ownership (instead of government/military weapons which many of the guns Switzerland are).
1) Other countries have made similar moves without any significant pains (e.g., Australia).
2) The vast majority of transactions are non-cash transactions these days and they can still be computed in cents (or, for that matter, even fractions of a cent).
3) Even amongst cash transactions, the penny is of little use (virtually all vending machines, most customers get rid of them, etc)
4) The nickel is worth about as much today as the penny was in 1970 after inflation is taken into account. If the lack of any currency with a real value of less than 5 cents in 2006 dollars didn't cause huge problems before 1970, why should any sane person believe it will now?
Huh? Nothing he mentioned in any way contradicts anything I've said on the matter. The whole thrust of his argument was to put gun related deaths into prospective. I agree, for instance, that the average citizen is far more likely to killed by a car than by a gun. I simply believe that society would be better off if more and better gun laws were put in place (esp. those that would reduce concealed weapons, readily available/loaded weapons, etc).
Several points:
First, the data does not compare gun ownership, frequency of use, and method of use to the deaths and injuries so it tells us little about the risks on a marginal basis. By this same fuzzy rationale I might come to conclude that Russian Rulette is relatively safe because only 3 minors died of it last year (or whatever the exact # would be... certainly very small).
Second, it does not mention any study of correlation of gun ownership in general to any of the various bad things (murder, violent crime, robbery, etc).
Three, it particularly does not discuss specific gun laws as it relates to specific crimes. This is absolutely necessary to persuade me. I believe that responsible ownership of rifles is an acceptable risk generally, but that laws that allow most people to carry and own weapons that are readily concealed (including driving around with a loaded weapon at all times--handgun or not) results in a marginal increase in murders and serious injury (I do not believe that it tends to reduce crime across the board). In other words, even if one were to accept that "gun ownership does not cause an increase in violent crime" this says nothing about particular gun laws, murder rates, etc. That argument is kind of like arguing that, because we can prove that modern medicine correlates strongly with people living longer and healither lives, that any specific doctor or medicine is safe (e.g., untested medicines, unlicensed doctors, etc).
As for these very limited statements you've presented, I disagree with the conclusions you are drawing from them. The mere fact that someone who studied it failed prove correlation in a particular study (or even several) does not mean that there is not a causative impact. There are a lot of other variables involved and the data collection is difficult (different places measure crime and gun ownership different) whether you are comparing two different places or two different times (before and after).
What's more, there are studies that do suggest positive correlation between gun ownership rates and homicide rates...
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1359-1789(03)00044-2
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2005.02.003
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11130511&dopt=Citatio n
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/abstract/148/10/172 1
I'm not voting for gun control (as I said before, I have bigger fish to fry). I am simply playing devil's advocate. If I felt this issue were truly in play in the elections or if it suddenly were to become more critical, then I'd be more inclined to look at your selected numbers and debate it at length.
This is quite a stretch in my opinion. In other words, it is the right outcome (imho) but for the wrong reasons (tortured reasoning). With this same reasoning, why should it not be against the 1st Amendment to fund schools which prohibit students from the same free speech they are allowed outside the classroom (e.g., pro-Nazi agenda)? And while we're at it, should we also prevent someone on unemployment from going to church because then they'd be using federal funds to pay for gas money? Where do you draw the line?
Yeah, ad-hominem attack, hello? I know full well that there has been a huge and fundamental shift in the structure of government away from what was originally envisioned by the founders (a federal government with very limited and enumerated powers). This is no way changes my original statement though. Such a person's view may be at odds with the prevailing interpretation of the Constitution (e.g., the affection doctrine), but that does not automatically make it logically inconsistent (even if it is legally irrelevant today).
The guns the Resistance were armed with were equivalent to what the German soliders had. So, no, The french resistence's use of arms (or lack thereof) does not support your argument that the guns owned by US civilians are likely to make any difference to civil defence. The Resistances' overall victory dependend very much on the overwhelming force brought to bare by the Allied invasion and on the fact that they were armed, supported, directed, and even managed (at a unit level with Allied soldier/spies on the ground) by the Allies. This is not the organic and highly successful civil defence scenario you advocate. If anything, it lends support to the argument that personally owned arms for civil defence are next to useless and that we should wait for a foreign power to airdrop them to us.
You, at least, implied as much. mandatory training would be of a benefit to this goal, but I'm unconvinced the benefit of that training outweighs the restriction on people's freedom to run their own lives that it would entail.. You are certainly not arguing for training. Without training-being-linked to gun-ownership I have a hard time swallowing the civil defence rationale at all--especially in the day of the professional army (most of the population knowing damn little about basic combat and the professionals knowing infinitely more--amongst their many other advantages)
By "poverty" I refer to the state of lacking the means (or purchasing power) to care for oneself according to reasonable standards (e.g., eat a decent meal, live in a safe dwelling, care for their children, etc). Although some people may define poverty relative to, say, median income I do not think this is a particularly useful measure (it may be an easier one to measure, but it's not useful). We can compare poverty by accounting for inflation within the US and relative to purchasing power across the world.
You must have never studied the issue beyond your pro-gun soundbytes then because there is a mountain of evidence showing high degree of correlation: nationally, regionally, locally, and individually. It has been common knowledge by those on the front-lines (e.g., police, school adminstrators, criminologists, etc) that people that are either employed or in-school are _far_ less likely to commit crime, violent or otherwise.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/reports/CrimeRiseBack grounder6_1606.doc
http://i
The "plausible argument" I was referring to includes both reasons of how it might be a positive and reasons why it would not negative (e.g., kids shooting themselves). Regardless, the point is the same. We don't, nor should we, go about are daily lives only if there is an absolute ironclad argument or overwhelming "proof". We must exercise a certain degree of intuition in our daily lives and in our laws.
We certainly should be willing to entertain a point if a more convincing argument to the contrary can be made or actual facts brought to the table to support it. The suggestion, however, that we do nothing because there in some uncertainty is absurdity. Yes, we must protect peoples' enumerated rights (defining these, of course, can be tricky) and carefully weigh the pros and the cons when our changes might have a substantively negative impact on legitimate activities.
I disagree. No two countries are exactly the same and it's virtually impossible to "compare" a policy all things being equal. If crime goes down after a gun control law is passed, someone can almost always identify something else that changed and assert that that is the real reason. So the arguments will almost always boil down to just that: reasoned arguments.
You can argue that Columbine would have still happened without guns, but this requires:
A) More Planning
B) Better Execution
C) Obtaining something that is not readily available to most people (certainly not in the back of their truck normally), i.e., explosives, gas, and/or poison.
I don't think it is any accident that the US has experienced several similar incidents and Europe, which generally has significantly tigher controls around guns, with fairly similar groups of people, and a larger overall population has also experienced far fewer incidents. What's more, those similar incidents in Europe have generally been perpetrated by gun owners with their own guns.
For the record, I am _not_ demonizing guns. I grew up with them in my house; I have been hunting a number of times; and I enjoy target pratice. I think they _can_ be used safely, but I also think that the laws are overly permissive with respect to gun ownership, storage, and use.
As for laws with respect to penalizing criminals for carrying guns, I have not heard you make a credible argument or bring any facts to bear as to why we should want our criminals carrying guns.
As for gun control in general, I'm far more moderate and I don't see it as the most presssing issue of the day. I don't want to live in a society that coddles the individual to excess--I can accept that there is some inherent risk in doing virtually anything worth doing. I accept laws that allow hunters to own and use hunting rifles as being an acceptable risk for society. I can even accept that people that can demonstrate a particular ne
What if giving a five-year old a loaded handgun would reduce his likelyhood of getting abducted by sexual predators? We don't need to look at every statistic when there isn't a plausible argument to support it and many solid intuitive reasons to not to.
I am talking about increased penalties for those that carry guns during the commission of a crime, NOT the right of citizens to bear arms. They are two different arguments and they can easily be seperated from each other. Even if you accept that all law-abiding citizens should be allowed to own or even carry arms, this does not mean you should support the right of criminals to commit crimes with guns in their hands.
Even if you accept that the propensity of criminals to commit specific crimes is exactly the same ("let's rob this old lady's house") regardless of whether they're carrying, that does not mean that there cannot be significant differences in the actual crimes committed (e.g., robbery vs robbery + 2nd degree murder). The robber with a gun may have exactly the same plan as the one without it, but the gun in his hand can make all the difference in the world in the terms potential outcomes (e.g., accidently shooting some kid"). My argument is largely based on my perceptions of the probability of different outcomes and on society right to choose NOT to have crimes committed against them (and thus vary the penalties depending on the circumstances).
If nothing else, the presence of a gun-wielding criminal may be sufficiently traumatizing so as to merit increased penalties.
That said, I do think it can make a real difference in the types of crimes that are committed themselves. For instance, without guns you're not going to see drive by shootings, at the very least, and far fewer bystanders are apt to die as a result. You're not going to see a Columbine-type attack... and so on.
I'll save my energies though as changing gun laws has never been a major issue for me, for or against. We have far bigger fish to fry. Most of the country is far more likely to die in a car accident than to get murdered... though in Washington DC, Camden NJ, and other such places it is a much bigger concern.
To the contrary, I am a student of history and I've actually read a great deal on the resistance in occupied France (even first hand accounts). Your naive view shows that you know very little about it.
First, you can hardly argue that the resistance stopped the occupation of France--the Germans brutally occupied the entire country and enjoyed virtually unlimited freedom of movement for most of the occupation.
Second, the "resistance" was basically entirely ineffectual militarily speaking until they were organized by the allied spies and soliders towards the end of the war. Yes, the "resistance" helped before with intelligence and quite a few of them were shot for disobeying the Germans (and the vichy government) -- but they truly could claim almost nothing in the way of direct military victory (e.g., taking a town back, preventing it from being taken, preventing the many massacres, etc).
Third, the resistance's military activity was almost entirely conducted in the countryside--not in the big cities. When they operated in the cities at all, they did not carry weapons because it made them obvious targets.
Fourth, the military activities of the "resistance" were heavily and almost exclusively benefited by the allied forces (Operation Jedburg) parachuting in large amounts of guns, grenades, radios and explosives. These guns, where available, were roughly equivalent to what the German foot soldiers were carrying (Bren light machine guns, Sten submachine guns, Enfield rifles, grenades, etc). They sure as hell weren't fighting largely with shotguns and pistols and irregular weapons that would be difficult to obtain ammo for.
Fifth, the primary military function of the resistance was to slow down and distract the Germans during the invasion (especially the invasion of normandy). They accomplished this almost entirely by knocking down trees, laying mines, collapsing bridges, blowing up train tracks, etc. In other words, they accomplished most of this with explosives and tools and not armed confrontations. Rarely did they ever overwhelm German forces with rifles or even directly take German lives with other tools. When the reistance forces engaged the Germans with arms at all it was almost always harrassing fire to distract the advancing troops and force them to engage instead of mobilizing where they were most needed (at the front). However, without the Allied Forces' thousands of troops and armor rolling across France most of this activity would have been for naught--the German forces would have inflicted far more damage and the benefits would have been negligible.
In short, although the resistance made unique and hugely critical contributions at the end of the war (and demonstrated real courage and lost many lives), it hardly bolsters your argument for an untrained civilian populace to keep weapons on them (especially lighter weapons like handguns). If anything, it supports the argument that an un-focused, un-trained, and disorganized civilian populace without significant outside support is unlikely to make a significant military difference merely by owning the kinds of guns most American gun owners actually own.
Yes, the criminal may already be committing a crime, but that does not mean that the rational criminal (some of them are) are ignorant of the fact that the simple act of choosing to carry a gun during the crime brings significantly higher sentencing and that the prosecutor is apt to be more aggressive in pressing for a conviction. Yes, the criminal may find another weapon or even use his fists, but that is much less likely to result in fatal or permanent injury to the victim (and even moreso for bystanders); You cannot reasonably argue against this and also simultaneously assert that guns are useful or necessary for upstanding members of society to defend themselves.
As for...Red hair crimes? Pfft. Most reasonable people understand that victims of crime with red hair are probably not being chosen because they have redhair on their heads. The only way you might argue that case is if, say, you really believe that there are bands of serial killers, robbers, or what have you out there that will exclusively or preferentially attack people with redhair (or if red hair on someone's head causes them to behave in a way that would increase their exposure to crime)... not plausible and no evidence to support it.