Maybe the trick is not to extend hyperloop into cities. Locate the terminals in the suburbs or boonies, the way newer airports are. Then buy up all the rail companies so that you have access to all of their existing right of way. Then buy senators/congresscritters/governors so that you can get approval for converting the rail right of way to dual use with hyperloop.
You (and Cargospeed) are leaving out capital expenditures, my friend. A US hyperloop network will cost trillions to build.
The last time I checked California would be money ahead if it just bought airplane tickets for all the hyperloop passengers for the rest of the century instead of actually building a hyperloop. If cargospeed is forced to pay a significant share of the infrastructure cost then the savings disappear.
That doesn't really square with what the state has actually already done: approving utilities' move to pay rooftop solar providers the normal retail rate for the electricity they generate in the afternoon, and then charge them over double the normal rate for the energy they consume in the evening.
Since solar in California (where power costs are high, and sunshine is plentiful) has an ROI of about 8%,
Do you have a source for that that isn't a solar manufacturer/installer? How does that number look when your utility doesn't pay much for the electricity generated by solar residential customers, but doubles the rate residential solar customers pay for electricity in the evening after the sun goes down (SDG&E)? Then consider that many homes in CA are small and don't have high electric bills (mine never gets much above $100 per month, even with central AC on).
What happens if nature comes up with it on its own later.
Say scientists change a few genes in say a corn seed to prevent a pest.
And nature natrually mutates that same gene.
Is that patent infringement?
Actually, that would invalidate the patent. If you can prove that sequence is naturally occurring then you (well, you, and a lot of money) can get that patent kicked.
If you want a square, go to Grolltex. Graphene sheets made by CVD on copper... this actually does sound a lot like their process.
https://grolltex.com/
which implies that there are other causes of Alzheimer's and also implies that having the gene doesn't predict with any certainty that carrier will exhibit symptoms if he or she lives long enough.
Also, a good fraction of Alzheimer's patients don't have APOE4 at all.
Yes, even if "we" refers to "cynical Pharmas only thinking about profit/share price":
1. Not much of the spending on Alzheimers is for drugs, it's home and institutional care. Pharmas would much rather eat the whole pie, not just a slice.
2. A cure would be quicker to bring to market, because trials would show efficacy much more quickly. For conditions where treatments are on the market, a cure would be given higher priority by the FDA than treatments, so that part of the process would be faster too.
.3. Price. A cure would sell at a good multiple of the cost of a year of treatment. This would probably be true for most chronic diseases. Would you rather chare $250K per customer upfront or $50k per year for five years?
4. Market share and marketing costs. For pretty much any chronic disease, a cure would quickly displace treatments from the market. You wouldn't have to hire a fleet of salespeople and fly doctors to resorts to get the word out either: everyone would already know about it. So profit margins would be much higher.
Besides, you're missing the bigger picture here: They patients are all spread across a sea of many competitors.
That's why I brought up the difference in marketing costs. If you had a cure for diabetes you wouldn't have to pay to compete for marketshare - you would just own the market, full stop.
So if a US pharma that is incorporated in Ireland invents a drug in one of its German R&D campuses, does preclinical work in California and New Jersey, and then clinical trials in Asia and the UK, then gets approved by the EMA before the FDA so its first six months of sales are actually in Europe... they're freeloading?
Businesses need a profit. I'm sure there are some conspiracy theorists that will crop up around this point, but the amount of research and spending to get only a short burst of financial gain is impractical.
The tech industry would disagree. Pretty much the only industry that outspends Pharma on R&D are the big silicon chip makers. Intel puts billions into chip designs that will only be competitive for a few years before they are outdated. A short burst is just fine, so long as the ROI is high enough. It's actually much better: would you rather earn $80k in one lump sum now (cure one patient) or $8k per year for ten years (treat a patient)?
They also spend more on R&D as a % of revenue than almost any other industry. Most of the big pharmas are still spending 12-18%, despite investors trying to cut that down.
I think your estimates of % profit are a bit high, but well put. Just to pile on:
1. Ability to charge more for a cure than a treatment. On average, it costs $8k per year to treat someone with diabetes. That isn't the cost of medication - it's the cost of medication, hospitalizations, tests, supplies, etc. Pharma only gets about 20% of that - $1500 per year. But a cure for diabetes could be priced at $70k and still be less expensive than 10 years of treatment. Which business would you rather be in? $1500 per patient per year for 10 years or $70k lump sum up front?
2. Marketing costs. Everyone talks about how much pharmas spend on marketing compared to R&D- while ignoring that large pharmas spend more on R&D as a % of revenue than almost any other industry. But with a cure, a lot of the marketing costs go away. You don't need to tell people how much better a cure is than treatment A or treatment B - they already know. The marketing costs that remain are convincing the payers (insurance companies, government bodies, etc.) to pay.
Insurance companies especially would make the argument (internally) that it makes much more sense to pay $8k per year: the odds are good that a diabetic will be someone else's customer within 3 or 4 years due to a job change, unemployment, etc.
She got special treatment because she was a young woman in tech
I highly doubt that. I think it is much more likely due to two other issues: 1. her using the executive branch of the US government as a candidate pool for her board of directors. Going after those other tycoons did not require having to depose ex Secretary of State George Schultz or going after the current Defense Secretary for trying to get the DOD to contract with Theranos. Shkreli didn't have any important friends/conspirators, so taking him down was painless. 2. The SEC is even more tame now than it used to be. A lot of the cases you mentioned would probably have settled more favorably for the tycoons if they were being decided now.
Once the billyclubs, handcuffs, writs, bailiffs, and judges are in play It's all about applying the law and interpretations of it in an internally consistent manner that makes you fit into a "within the law" category - no matter how round the hole and square the peg.
If they are claiming protection when providing journalistic content, then for the sake of the consistency shouldn't they also be open to libel charges when they provide defamatory content?
Whether not Alphabet wants to protect journalism, they don't get to pick and choose: if they want protections afforded to journalistic content then they will also have to accept penalties for libelous content. I don't think that's a sword they are willing to both live and die by, especially not in England where libel laws are much more severe than the US.
And amazingly we aren't all dead. You guys need to realize that your body has an immune system. Germs aren't going to kill you.
Unless you are elderly or immune compromised. Then they can kill you. If you are in one of those groups and you are lucky the people around you will be vaccinated and practice good hygiene. Even if young healthy people don't care that much about catching the flu themselves, maybe they don't want to accidentally kill their own parents/grandparents?
Gas taxes, vehicle registration, etc., don't come anywhere near covering the cost of construction and maintenance of roads. Humongous state and federal subsidies are what cover those costs.
Those 40 people on the bus or 200 on the train could be packed in bumper to bumper in front of your car during your commute and then taking every parking space near your destination. If you use a car in an urban area you definitely benefit from other people using public transportation. And if you live in a rural area - urbanites are subsidizing your roads a lot more than you are subsidizing their public transportation.
They aren't driving against their will because they haven't quit yet. Only 4% of Uber drivers stay with the program over a year. Mostly they quit as they realize the pay isn't enough.
I am pretty sure the ~$3 figure is wrong, from one simple fact - Uber and Lyft are still in business.
Because the truth is no-one could even afford gas for cars at that kind of wage. No drive would work for more than a few days for that kind of wage. And all of the Uber/Lyft drivers I have had have all been doing it for a while.
96% of Uber drivers quit within one year. I think a median net profit (not wage, this is after gas and other expenses are factored in) of $3 per hour explains that pretty well. Some drivers do earn much more - the study points that out - but most either never learn how or aren't available at the right time or place.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe the trick is not to extend hyperloop into cities. Locate the terminals in the suburbs or boonies, the way newer airports are. Then buy up all the rail companies so that you have access to all of their existing right of way. Then buy senators/congresscritters/governors so that you can get approval for converting the rail right of way to dual use with hyperloop.
You (and Cargospeed) are leaving out capital expenditures, my friend. A US hyperloop network will cost trillions to build. The last time I checked California would be money ahead if it just bought airplane tickets for all the hyperloop passengers for the rest of the century instead of actually building a hyperloop. If cargospeed is forced to pay a significant share of the infrastructure cost then the savings disappear.
That doesn't really square with what the state has actually already done: approving utilities' move to pay rooftop solar providers the normal retail rate for the electricity they generate in the afternoon, and then charge them over double the normal rate for the energy they consume in the evening.
Since solar in California (where power costs are high, and sunshine is plentiful) has an ROI of about 8%,
Do you have a source for that that isn't a solar manufacturer/installer? How does that number look when your utility doesn't pay much for the electricity generated by solar residential customers, but doubles the rate residential solar customers pay for electricity in the evening after the sun goes down (SDG&E)? Then consider that many homes in CA are small and don't have high electric bills (mine never gets much above $100 per month, even with central AC on).
What happens if nature comes up with it on its own later.
Say scientists change a few genes in say a corn seed to prevent a pest.
And nature natrually mutates that same gene.
Is that patent infringement?
Actually, that would invalidate the patent. If you can prove that sequence is naturally occurring then you (well, you, and a lot of money) can get that patent kicked.
That one has already been taken care of. AMP vs Myriad killed the idea that merely isolating DNA doesn't make it patentable.
If you want a square, go to Grolltex. Graphene sheets made by CVD on copper ... this actually does sound a lot like their process.
https://grolltex.com/
which implies that there are other causes of Alzheimer's and also implies that having the gene doesn't predict with any certainty that carrier will exhibit symptoms if he or she lives long enough.
Also, a good fraction of Alzheimer's patients don't have APOE4 at all.
So you don't see any value in staying non-senile for as long as possible or extending lifespan?
1. Not much of the spending on Alzheimers is for drugs, it's home and institutional care. Pharmas would much rather eat the whole pie, not just a slice.
2. A cure would be quicker to bring to market, because trials would show efficacy much more quickly. For conditions where treatments are on the market, a cure would be given higher priority by the FDA than treatments, so that part of the process would be faster too.
.3. Price. A cure would sell at a good multiple of the cost of a year of treatment. This would probably be true for most chronic diseases. Would you rather chare $250K per customer upfront or $50k per year for five years?
4. Market share and marketing costs. For pretty much any chronic disease, a cure would quickly displace treatments from the market. You wouldn't have to hire a fleet of salespeople and fly doctors to resorts to get the word out either: everyone would already know about it. So profit margins would be much higher.
Besides, you're missing the bigger picture here: They patients are all spread across a sea of many competitors.
That's why I brought up the difference in marketing costs. If you had a cure for diabetes you wouldn't have to pay to compete for marketshare - you would just own the market, full stop.
So if a US pharma that is incorporated in Ireland invents a drug in one of its German R&D campuses, does preclinical work in California and New Jersey, and then clinical trials in Asia and the UK, then gets approved by the EMA before the FDA so its first six months of sales are actually in Europe ... they're freeloading?
Businesses need a profit. I'm sure there are some conspiracy theorists that will crop up around this point, but the amount of research and spending to get only a short burst of financial gain is impractical.
The tech industry would disagree. Pretty much the only industry that outspends Pharma on R&D are the big silicon chip makers. Intel puts billions into chip designs that will only be competitive for a few years before they are outdated. A short burst is just fine, so long as the ROI is high enough. It's actually much better: would you rather earn $80k in one lump sum now (cure one patient) or $8k per year for ten years (treat a patient)?
They also spend more on R&D as a % of revenue than almost any other industry. Most of the big pharmas are still spending 12-18%, despite investors trying to cut that down.
1. Ability to charge more for a cure than a treatment. On average, it costs $8k per year to treat someone with diabetes. That isn't the cost of medication - it's the cost of medication, hospitalizations, tests, supplies, etc. Pharma only gets about 20% of that - $1500 per year. But a cure for diabetes could be priced at $70k and still be less expensive than 10 years of treatment. Which business would you rather be in? $1500 per patient per year for 10 years or $70k lump sum up front?
2. Marketing costs. Everyone talks about how much pharmas spend on marketing compared to R&D- while ignoring that large pharmas spend more on R&D as a % of revenue than almost any other industry. But with a cure, a lot of the marketing costs go away. You don't need to tell people how much better a cure is than treatment A or treatment B - they already know. The marketing costs that remain are convincing the payers (insurance companies, government bodies, etc.) to pay. Insurance companies especially would make the argument (internally) that it makes much more sense to pay $8k per year: the odds are good that a diabetic will be someone else's customer within 3 or 4 years due to a job change, unemployment, etc.
She got special treatment because she was a young woman in tech
I highly doubt that. I think it is much more likely due to two other issues: 1. her using the executive branch of the US government as a candidate pool for her board of directors. Going after those other tycoons did not require having to depose ex Secretary of State George Schultz or going after the current Defense Secretary for trying to get the DOD to contract with Theranos. Shkreli didn't have any important friends/conspirators, so taking him down was painless. 2. The SEC is even more tame now than it used to be. A lot of the cases you mentioned would probably have settled more favorably for the tycoons if they were being decided now.
Once the billyclubs, handcuffs, writs, bailiffs, and judges are in play It's all about applying the law and interpretations of it in an internally consistent manner that makes you fit into a "within the law" category - no matter how round the hole and square the peg.
If they are claiming protection when providing journalistic content, then for the sake of the consistency shouldn't they also be open to libel charges when they provide defamatory content?
Whether not Alphabet wants to protect journalism, they don't get to pick and choose: if they want protections afforded to journalistic content then they will also have to accept penalties for libelous content. I don't think that's a sword they are willing to both live and die by, especially not in England where libel laws are much more severe than the US.
And amazingly we aren't all dead. You guys need to realize that your body has an immune system. Germs aren't going to kill you.
Unless you are elderly or immune compromised. Then they can kill you. If you are in one of those groups and you are lucky the people around you will be vaccinated and practice good hygiene. Even if young healthy people don't care that much about catching the flu themselves, maybe they don't want to accidentally kill their own parents/grandparents?
OK. Lets tax ride sharing to cover road construction and maintenance.
Gas taxes, vehicle registration, etc., don't come anywhere near covering the cost of construction and maintenance of roads. Humongous state and federal subsidies are what cover those costs.
Those 40 people on the bus or 200 on the train could be packed in bumper to bumper in front of your car during your commute and then taking every parking space near your destination. If you use a car in an urban area you definitely benefit from other people using public transportation. And if you live in a rural area - urbanites are subsidizing your roads a lot more than you are subsidizing their public transportation.
They aren't driving against their will because they haven't quit yet. Only 4% of Uber drivers stay with the program over a year. Mostly they quit as they realize the pay isn't enough.
I am pretty sure the ~$3 figure is wrong, from one simple fact - Uber and Lyft are still in business.
Because the truth is no-one could even afford gas for cars at that kind of wage. No drive would work for more than a few days for that kind of wage. And all of the Uber/Lyft drivers I have had have all been doing it for a while.
96% of Uber drivers quit within one year. I think a median net profit (not wage, this is after gas and other expenses are factored in) of $3 per hour explains that pretty well. Some drivers do earn much more - the study points that out - but most either never learn how or aren't available at the right time or place.
It is likely that Uber drivers aren't as dumb as you think they are.
96% of Uber drivers quit during their first year. Are those the smart ones?