Trying to compare New Zealand to the United States doesn't really make any sense, though, because New Zealand is, comparatively speaking, a tiny place. If it were admitted to the Union, it would be the twenty-seventh largest state. Monaco probably has a terrific unemployment rate, per-capita income, and economic growth rate as well. Developing a welfare state for a small country is not terribly difficult.
Similarly, the United States has essentially thousands of different tax jurisdictions. Referring to the U. S. "tax rate" is meaningless. Whether your friend lived in Manhattan or in Reno would probably have made a significant difference in his cash in hand.
Earnings per share is a totally useless number, much more telling is profit margin.
EPS will tell you whether revenues are being utterly devoured by marketing expenses, which is the original assertion I was responding to. If you examine the comparative profit margins of these companies, you arrive at the same conclusion.
For comparison, we would need to know what the return on invested capital is.
This, too, is easily available. Return on equity is a good measure of whether investors in drug companies are enjoying disproportionate returns. For Pfizer, RoE is 13.46%; for Eli Lilly 17.06%; for Merck 38.46%. For Home Depot, RoE is 21.71%; for Wal-Mart 22.99%; for Staples 18.45%; for Anheuser-Busch 82.26%. The conclusion is the same.
Oh, were you expecting to get a "gubmint chek"? Sorry, Charlie, we REAL fiscal conservatives and social liberals are down on the old welfare methods and even older class-warfare philosophies. We can well provide for the real unfortunates of society without falling into the welfare trap.
After fifty years, the Left finally discovers that entitlements don't work. Better late than never, I suppose. Pity about the tens of millions of lives and the vital social fabric which was destroyed in the mean time.
What you hard-assed cheap-labour conservatives don't understand is that drug companies spend much more money on marketing (which is basically bullshit), which is the main reason why drug prices are exorbitant in the USA. The drug companies don't have to do that marketing; if they didn't spend so much in marketing, their prices wouldn't be so high as to force States to expropriate their patents in the first place.
Far be it for me to interject any actual information into your rant, but the profit/loss and income/expense statements of pharmaceutical companies are matters of public record. Go onto Yahoo Finance and look at them yourself, for any major drug company. You will see that the majority of expenses for producing pharmaceuticals are manufacturing and R&D.
The reasons why drug prices are so high in the USA, of course, is because research is extremely expensive, production quality is so strictly controlled, and safety trials are so stringent. Most people consider safe pharmaceuticals a good thing; for everyone else, there's always Tijuana.
Your statement that drug companies don't have to do marketing is theoretically true. However, doctors can't find out about new drugs through ESP, or provide samples to their patients out of their own pockets.
Put controls on movement of large amounts of capital....
*chuckle* The Soviets found that that only works when coupled with the other solution - a heavily militarized border to prevent people from escaping. The Left never changes.
does the constituation also not state somewhere(im not american and have little experiance with he document) that you are entitled to healthcare
The United States Constitution does not grant rights. It instead describes rights which everybody already has by virtue of being human, and which the state and federal governments are prohibited from taking away from you.
Consequently, no "right to healthcare" exists in the United States Constitution, just as there is no "right to cable television" or "right to free peanut butter".
Yes. Drug companies definitely need to be prevented from developing new migraine medicines, by taking away their ability to profit from their research investments. That would definitely, er, fix it.
I don't know whether it's true or not, but critics claim that the drug companies spend 10x as much on advertising as they do on research.
There's no need to discuss these things theoretically, when all publicly traded companies have to make SEC filings of their financial statements.
According to Pfizer's most recent 10-Q filing, for instance, they incurred "selling, informational, and administrative expenses" of $4,036 million (or 31.5% of revenues), and "research and development expenses" of $1,888 million (or 14.7% of revenues). The former category includes much more than advertising (administrative expenses include accounting, payroll, facilities maintenance, etc.) Nevertheless, total administrative and marketing expenses were only about twice as much as R&D costs.
People like to talk about the rapacious profits of drug companies. Well, go and look at the numbers for yourself: Pfizer's earnings per share are $1.19; Eli Lilly's are $1.66; Merck's are $2.90. By way of comparison, American Electric Power is $1.51, Wal-Mart is $2.41, Staples is $1.40, Home Depot is $2.26, Anheuser-Busch is $2.77.
Drug companies are not massively more profitable than everything else. People who think that they are should simply invest in them and benefit from the price-gouging which they are supposedly inflicting upon the public.
The BBC and ZDNet are reporting on an RSA poll of 1 about failing confidence in ecommerce among Slashdot user ArsSineArtificio (user 150115). 100% of the respondents were reluctant take legal advice obtained on slashdot.
I only trust Netcraft's opinions on whether things are thriving.
I'm not liable for any $$ amount on my credit card or my debit. I'll say, though, I use debit card rather than my credit card. Why? Cause the bank doesn't have as much to lose as the CC company. With the bank it's all your money, with the CC company, it's their's until you pay it back, which means you have one more person in your corner - and with better lawyers, probably;).
Ladies and gentlemen: this is why you shouldn't trust any legal advice obtained from Slashdot.
My friend's analysis of the situation fits with some of the studies done on the NASA disasters; NASA should be allowed to do its job without budget or political pressure, for without this they can assure the safety of the people sent into space on their vehicles.
If NASA cannot do its job under budget pressure, then it cannot do its job as well as private industry would. If it cannot do its job under political pressure, then it is a failure as a public agency, and is unaccountable to the public.
I suppose there are a great many of us in the US who do understand, but don't really care, what the rest of the world thinks.
It probably stems from our unfashionable failure to support monarchy in the eighteenth century, imperialism in the 1910s, fascism in the 1930s, communism in the 1940s-1980s, or socialism in the present day. Poor clueless America - always on the wrong side of world opinion. If only we'd listened to Lord North, Talleyrand, Jefferson Davis, Otto von Bismarck, Charles Lindbergh, Alger Hiss, Nikita Kruschev, Jimmy Carter, Jacques Chirac, or Saddam Hussein. Sigh.
Can you back up that comment, that the USA is a net carbon sink ?
I didn't make the comment, but have a look at this, from the United States Department of Energy:
"The regrowth of U.S. forests has had important impacts on net U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. Overall, U.S. forests have been a net carbon sink since 1952. According to Birdsey and Heath, between 1952 and 1992, carbon stored on U.S. forest land increased by a net of 11.3 billion metric tons, an average net increase of 281 million metric tons per year, and an amount that offset approximately 25 percent of U.S. emissions of carbon for the period.(118) In addition to reforestation associated with the abandonment of agriculture in the East, more than 4 million acres of marginal cropland have been reforested since 1974 under such Federal programs as the Conservation Reserve Program, Agricultural Conservation Program, and Forestry Incentives Program.(119) Birdsey and Heath estimated that U.S. forests will continue to be net carbon sinks well into the future, sequestering carbon at an average net annual rate of 178 million metric tons between 1992 and 2040 (not including sequestration into wood products and landfills), for a total increase in stored carbon of 8.5 billion metric tons."
As the report mentions, massive reforestation has occurred in America since 1920, as marginal agricultural land has been abandoned. Some parts of the eastern United States, such as southern Ohio, would unrecognizable today to an observer of a hundred years ago, because they are now almost completely covered with trees.
How about if I wait until next time I go to Nevada and dump it out there, in the middle of nowhere where no one (and nothing) lives? What if everyone did this?
Well, theoretically, no one and nothing would notice.
Even better, make lawyers who file claims determined frivilous subject to disbarment. To make it "fair," create civil grand juries to assess case merits before it ever sees a court room.
Lawyers who file frivolous lawsuits are already subject to sanctions, up to and including disbarment. For instance, the federal courts have Civil Rule 11, which provides that every attorney who prepares a lawsuit certifies that it's brought in good faith and not merely to harass; if this is violated, the other side can move to impose a fine, which may even be a refund of all the defense expenses.
As for civil grand juries: it's a fundamental precept of our legal system that judges decide points of law, and juries decide points of fact. Whether or not a lawsuit has a reasonable legal basis is, by definition, a legal question, and so a judge would have to decide it. This is essentially what already happens. (The defendant files a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, claiming that the plaintiff doesn't have a legally valid claim.)
Of course you can. Somebody can buy the rights to make "Sid Meier's Civilization". Somebody can buy the rights to manufacture "Nike Air Jordans". Somebody can buy the rights to "NFL Football '06 Featuring Brett Favre".
Anyway, this is illegal on the part of the NFL.
Perhaps you could state your basis for this assertion.
Slashdot Mirror
Trying to compare New Zealand to the United States doesn't really make any sense, though, because New Zealand is, comparatively speaking, a tiny place. If it were admitted to the Union, it would be the twenty-seventh largest state. Monaco probably has a terrific unemployment rate, per-capita income, and economic growth rate as well. Developing a welfare state for a small country is not terribly difficult.
Similarly, the United States has essentially thousands of different tax jurisdictions. Referring to the U. S. "tax rate" is meaningless. Whether your friend lived in Manhattan or in Reno would probably have made a significant difference in his cash in hand.
Earnings per share is a totally useless number, much more telling is profit margin.
EPS will tell you whether revenues are being utterly devoured by marketing expenses, which is the original assertion I was responding to. If you examine the comparative profit margins of these companies, you arrive at the same conclusion.
For comparison, we would need to know what the return on invested capital is.
This, too, is easily available. Return on equity is a good measure of whether investors in drug companies are enjoying disproportionate returns. For Pfizer, RoE is 13.46%; for Eli Lilly 17.06%; for Merck 38.46%. For Home Depot, RoE is 21.71%; for Wal-Mart 22.99%; for Staples 18.45%; for Anheuser-Busch 82.26%. The conclusion is the same.
Oh, were you expecting to get a "gubmint chek"? Sorry, Charlie, we REAL fiscal conservatives and social liberals are down on the old welfare methods and even older class-warfare philosophies. We can well provide for the real unfortunates of society without falling into the welfare trap.
After fifty years, the Left finally discovers that entitlements don't work. Better late than never, I suppose. Pity about the tens of millions of lives and the vital social fabric which was destroyed in the mean time.
What you hard-assed cheap-labour conservatives don't understand is that drug companies spend much more money on marketing (which is basically bullshit), which is the main reason why drug prices are exorbitant in the USA. The drug companies don't have to do that marketing; if they didn't spend so much in marketing, their prices wouldn't be so high as to force States to expropriate their patents in the first place.
Far be it for me to interject any actual information into your rant, but the profit/loss and income/expense statements of pharmaceutical companies are matters of public record. Go onto Yahoo Finance and look at them yourself, for any major drug company. You will see that the majority of expenses for producing pharmaceuticals are manufacturing and R&D.
The reasons why drug prices are so high in the USA, of course, is because research is extremely expensive, production quality is so strictly controlled, and safety trials are so stringent. Most people consider safe pharmaceuticals a good thing; for everyone else, there's always Tijuana.
Your statement that drug companies don't have to do marketing is theoretically true. However, doctors can't find out about new drugs through ESP, or provide samples to their patients out of their own pockets.
Put controls on movement of large amounts of capital....
*chuckle* The Soviets found that that only works when coupled with the other solution - a heavily militarized border to prevent people from escaping. The Left never changes.
does the constituation also not state somewhere(im not american and have little experiance with he document) that you are entitled to healthcare
The United States Constitution does not grant rights. It instead describes rights which everybody already has by virtue of being human, and which the state and federal governments are prohibited from taking away from you.
Consequently, no "right to healthcare" exists in the United States Constitution, just as there is no "right to cable television" or "right to free peanut butter".
Something has to be done.
Yes. Drug companies definitely need to be prevented from developing new migraine medicines, by taking away their ability to profit from their research investments. That would definitely, er, fix it.
THat way the states can start their own mini-IRS's
Uh... your state probably already has a department of revenue.
and go ahead with universal healthcare, long term unemployment, low cost broadband, and other progressive/leftist quality of life improvement
Nothing is stopping states from attempting such programs now.
I don't know whether it's true or not, but critics claim that the drug companies spend 10x as much on advertising as they do on research.
There's no need to discuss these things theoretically, when all publicly traded companies have to make SEC filings of their financial statements.
According to Pfizer's most recent 10-Q filing, for instance, they incurred "selling, informational, and administrative expenses" of $4,036 million (or 31.5% of revenues), and "research and development expenses" of $1,888 million (or 14.7% of revenues). The former category includes much more than advertising (administrative expenses include accounting, payroll, facilities maintenance, etc.) Nevertheless, total administrative and marketing expenses were only about twice as much as R&D costs.
People like to talk about the rapacious profits of drug companies. Well, go and look at the numbers for yourself: Pfizer's earnings per share are $1.19; Eli Lilly's are $1.66; Merck's are $2.90. By way of comparison, American Electric Power is $1.51, Wal-Mart is $2.41, Staples is $1.40, Home Depot is $2.26, Anheuser-Busch is $2.77.
Drug companies are not massively more profitable than everything else. People who think that they are should simply invest in them and benefit from the price-gouging which they are supposedly inflicting upon the public.
Um... Apple depends upon the Power of Marketing, not the Power of Love.
The BBC and ZDNet are reporting on an RSA poll of 1 about failing confidence in ecommerce among Slashdot user ArsSineArtificio (user 150115). 100% of the respondents were reluctant take legal advice obtained on slashdot.
I only trust Netcraft's opinions on whether things are thriving.
I'm not liable for any $$ amount on my credit card or my debit. I'll say, though, I use debit card rather than my credit card. Why? Cause the bank doesn't have as much to lose as the CC company. With the bank it's all your money, with the CC company, it's their's until you pay it back, which means you have one more person in your corner - and with better lawyers, probably ;).
Ladies and gentlemen: this is why you shouldn't trust any legal advice obtained from Slashdot.
My friend's analysis of the situation fits with some of the studies done on the NASA disasters; NASA should be allowed to do its job without budget or political pressure, for without this they can assure the safety of the people sent into space on their vehicles.
If NASA cannot do its job under budget pressure, then it cannot do its job as well as private industry would. If it cannot do its job under political pressure, then it is a failure as a public agency, and is unaccountable to the public.
Don't worry. I'm sure Luke wasn't on that thing when it blew.
I suppose there are a great many of us in the US who do understand, but don't really care, what the rest of the world thinks.
It probably stems from our unfashionable failure to support monarchy in the eighteenth century, imperialism in the 1910s, fascism in the 1930s, communism in the 1940s-1980s, or socialism in the present day. Poor clueless America - always on the wrong side of world opinion. If only we'd listened to Lord North, Talleyrand, Jefferson Davis, Otto von Bismarck, Charles Lindbergh, Alger Hiss, Nikita Kruschev, Jimmy Carter, Jacques Chirac, or Saddam Hussein. Sigh.
I didn't make the comment, but have a look at this, from the United States Department of Energy:
"The regrowth of U.S. forests has had important impacts on net U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. Overall, U.S. forests have been a net carbon sink since 1952. According to Birdsey and Heath, between 1952 and 1992, carbon stored on U.S. forest land increased by a net of 11.3 billion metric tons, an average net increase of 281 million metric tons per year, and an amount that offset approximately 25 percent of U.S. emissions of carbon for the period.(118) In addition to reforestation associated with the abandonment of agriculture in the East, more than 4 million acres of marginal cropland have been reforested since 1974 under such Federal programs as the Conservation Reserve Program, Agricultural Conservation Program, and Forestry Incentives Program.(119) Birdsey and Heath estimated that U.S. forests will continue to be net carbon sinks well into the future, sequestering carbon at an average net annual rate of 178 million metric tons between 1992 and 2040 (not including sequestration into wood products and landfills), for a total increase in stored carbon of 8.5 billion metric tons."
As the report mentions, massive reforestation has occurred in America since 1920, as marginal agricultural land has been abandoned. Some parts of the eastern United States, such as southern Ohio, would unrecognizable today to an observer of a hundred years ago, because they are now almost completely covered with trees.
Once the execubots decision has been commited to tape and the write protect tab punched out no force known to man can save a series.
Except Family Guy.
How about if I wait until next time I go to Nevada and dump it out there, in the middle of nowhere where no one (and nothing) lives? What if everyone did this?
Well, theoretically, no one and nothing would notice.
I'm not sure that The Tiresome, Preachy Metaphor Show would be any more successful than The Tired Premise Sci-Fi Western Show.
They have a thing called a "sense of humor" now. Some people find it "attractive", "aesthetically pleasing", and/or "particularly useful".
It'll be region coded. All the real power and functionality you want will be available in another region.
Worse yet, there'll be no way to tell both how fast your system is running and what region you're in, at the same time.
The cast of Trading Spaces is unavailable for comment.
Did you even bother to ask them?
Lawyers who file frivolous lawsuits are already subject to sanctions, up to and including disbarment. For instance, the federal courts have Civil Rule 11, which provides that every attorney who prepares a lawsuit certifies that it's brought in good faith and not merely to harass; if this is violated, the other side can move to impose a fine, which may even be a refund of all the defense expenses.
As for civil grand juries: it's a fundamental precept of our legal system that judges decide points of law, and juries decide points of fact. Whether or not a lawsuit has a reasonable legal basis is, by definition, a legal question, and so a judge would have to decide it. This is essentially what already happens. (The defendant files a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, claiming that the plaintiff doesn't have a legally valid claim.)
This post does not constitute legal advice.
What? You can buy and sell NAMES now?
Of course you can. Somebody can buy the rights to make "Sid Meier's Civilization". Somebody can buy the rights to manufacture "Nike Air Jordans". Somebody can buy the rights to "NFL Football '06 Featuring Brett Favre".
Anyway, this is illegal on the part of the NFL.
Perhaps you could state your basis for this assertion.