"Again, I'm glad you're "in the biz". The rest of us aren't."
While I may not agree with the tone of the parent post, it indeed has a point.
If you are not "in the biz", probably the right answer is "well, don't mess in the biz, then", the corollary being "pay someone in the biz to do the biz". If you think a bit about it, it seems a reasonable answer in basically any other biz but "computers".
A somehow more technical answer may be: in order for you to have the comfortability of an "update" button, the program forcibly has to be able to update itself as a request of an external agent: as soon as there's even a minor bug in the process both your site and your data is open for exploitation, so you will have to choose your shit: you either become someone "in the biz", or pay for someone "in the biz", or you know your site and your data will be cracked from time to time.
For the entire careers of most practicing computer scientists, a fundamental observation has consistently held true... and you won't believe what happens next!!!
"CAs cannot respond fast enough and likely do not have enough information to vet requests for new certificates fully."
They used to. The problem is not that they can't, the problem is that they learned that the end user neither understands nor cares for proper verification, so why they should pay care when that means less business and higher costs?
"There are, as far as I know, no existing bomb which gets more than 50% of its yield from nuclear fusion."
Even if that were true... so what?
Are you denying that the core functionality of a fusion bomb is the fusion part? Or that, now that you name them, the core functionality of a neutron bomb is neutron production (even if it _is_ a kind of thermonuclear bomb)? Given that current designs are quite complex (i.e. physion-fusion-physion designs) the "thermonuclear" nickname looks even more adequate, since it's more generic.
On the other hand and up to my knowledge, on Castle Bravo's case, the most powerful USA probe at about 15Mt, less than 1Mt was assigned to physion.
"Yes, I understand that the majority of them (probably) aren't actively engaged in actual, physical abuse of a child....but still. If it was my child, I admit I'd be all for them doing this even though it almost certainly contravenes some law(s)."
Revenge, while understandable, shouldn't be the basis of a legal or ethical system. Even moreso on a country that claims to be "the land of the free".
Under current moral standards it seems Nick Ut would have been processed because of "the girl in the picture" instead of winning a Pulitzer.
"Does not explain why one is called thermonuclear and the other not."
On an A-Bomb, the core functionality (physion chain reaction) comes from "pure" nuclear physics: you just (for a fairly complicated level of "just") put a critical mass of physible elements together, and the rest happens on its own.
On an H-Bomb, on the other hand, in order for the core functionality (fusion) to work, you first need a stupidly big exothermic reaction to happen since fusion won't happen on its own, therefore the two-staged name: thermo (first stage) nuclear (second stage). In fact, the "stupidly big exothermic reaction" required to trigger the fusion is so "stupidly big" that we can't produce it but with an A-Bomb, but that's conceptually secondary.
That may be the case. Nevertheless it is the way it's called. Adam Smith even suggests it being more or less twice the current rate of interest. In general terms, it depends on ROI time and perceived risk.
"That's simply the profit level under which the investor will find something else to invest in."
No, that's a different concept. On a perfect market, an investor wouldn't go for an investment that is perceived just "fair enough": he would go for the best investment among all those he could choose from (it's only if no one returns above the fair level, he'd better buy bonds instead of investing in a bussiness). Of course, in the real world, risk spreading, reinvesting frictions, cost of entry, or just partial or wrong information would make things a bit more complex.
"Assuming competitors can provide the same products for the same cost. In this case they cannot."
Markets are not as simple as that. You are right in that Apple bases its marketing on brand recognition, because it makes more difficult to find a substitute, but it is not a matter or providing the same product (it just makes things easier) but a product the customer is willing to expend his money just the same: it doesn't even need to be in the same niche: as you say, Apple is somehow a luxury brand so they are in competition with other luxury brands: I may just expend my money the same on a new iPhone... or a bottle of wine, or a brand watch, or whatever. Anyway, you are fixating in a word, "fair", which happens to have a different meaning within this context than the one you give it.
"I think you underestimate how many people this sort of thing stops [...] That's sufficient for their purposes, really. They can't stop everyone, no system is perfect, its enough for them to minimize it."
Probably you are right, and that's a problem on its own: most users don't know how to bypass these kind of measures... but most providers seem not to know what they are doing either.
A naive example: I was looking for a second hand car and I was taking notes on candidates: some sites didn't allow me to copy&paste data like vendor's telephone number or car's plate number (well, it wouldn't avoid it, just making it absurdly cumbersome). How this benefits anyone, either prospective buyers or sellers!?
A dangerous example: working for an important company, I had to use their ill-thought "vpn" system, which made very difficult to make my legit work but still wouldn't stop me damaging the systems I was working on (which I was tempted to, out of frustration). Trying to explain security people both why this was a problem and how they could change their configuration to better fit their intended purpose, even within the letter of their security policies, would be answered with a bland looking like "what the heck is this guy talking about?"
How is it? The paycheck comes from my employer considering my work's worth it. And my employer considers it's worth it because money flows his way more when I chase for ratings than when I go for scientific precision.
How can be a problem following the path the market rewards the most? Unless you consider capitalism itself being the problem, that is.
"Banks with funds on deposit do not simply leave them there in a digital vault"
Of course not, but regarding the fund owner is just as if that would be the case since no further benefit is returned to his hands.
"so the idea that money sits idle there is a fallacy."
OK. More on that later.
"Corporate taxes however are passed on to consumers, employees and owners in the form of increased prices for goods or services, decreased benefits or wages, and decreased profits."
Which is no novelty since it's basically the same I already said. Good you used the "or" disjunctive: yes, taxes can be passed to this, that, that other... or decreased profits.
"The key point is that a company is a fictitious legal entity which only exits on paper...no matter how convoluted the process is, people, and only people, pay taxes."
And that's why Apple has such a big interest in having 181.1 billions sitting on a bank. Errr... nope.
And then again, it's like you implicitly supported that, while money sitting in a bank is not really "sitting in a bank", taxed money somehow disappears from the system has if government just took the bank notes and fired them. No sir: taxed money is also returned to the citizenship in the form of services and wages to public and private employees so, from that point of view, it's a zero sum game. And given that -if even from a theoretical point of view, money ends up into the system one way or another, it is a matter of the clever citizen/government to choose the way for that money to re-enter the system in the most beneficial way, on the premise that, while money in private hands is directed to the capitalist's own benefit (not that that's a bad thing), money in public hands is directed to the benefit of society as a whole (knowing that while depending on individual's egotism gets quite far, can't offer a perfect balance).
Yes, there is. And there has been since Adam Smith's days. It is the expectable profit the average investor would consider good enough. Perfect investors never go into business which render less-than-fair profit; perfect providers enter the market as soon as competition is detected making more than fair profit; that's what guarantees that perfect markets offer their goods at the lowest possible price. Yes, there's a lot of "perfects" here, but still makes sense knowing the definitions and the expected responses from an ideal market to understand the real ones.
"The price of a good or service is what people are willing to pay."
Which, while being true, has little to nothing to do about profit expectations per se.
"How much it costs a company to provide what the consumer is paying for isn't even relevant."
"No, if corporations could do that in any meaningful way then no corporation would ever fail... [...] Apple does not charge in Asia what it charges in the US"
Making my point moreso: Apple charges more in USA because they can, but the fact they sell cheaper in Asia and still make business overthere is obvious proof that they could run in USA at lower profit if pressed enough, be it by competition, taxes (specially taxes since they would press exactly the same themselves and their competition), or whatever.
"Some people actually seem to believe that "Corporations run at whatever profit, period""
That's because that's exactly what happen: as you already said, companies are strictly amoral. Another discussion should be that people are *not* amoral, so this probably means CEOs are, in fact, immoral and the fact that immoral people are praised as "successful achievers" says quite a lot more about our society than about the companies they run.
It also happens that such an assertion works both ways: corporations in fact run at whatever profit, period. Which means that, as long as profit is enough for somebody to find it a worthy investment, there's no problem at all on reducing their profit margin, i.e. by taxes.
"Taxing them more simply means higher prices for all the customers. That would be us, not them. If they keep prices the same, it means less investment by them in jobs, or higher prices for us, period. "
Euhhh... nope, this isn't the case, you can read it in the topic's brief: "Apple holds $181.1 billion in offshore profits". That is, Apple holds $181.1 billion that neither goes to jobs, nor R&D, nor nothing: it's just money sitting in a bank, which means you just could tax Apple $181.1 billion and they still shouldn't need to fire any employee, nor close any R&D program, nor rise its products' prices in the least.
Of course, I'm not saying we should tax any company for whatever their net profits are, nor that my "plain" explanation is quite naive, just that doing so wouldn't be the hell you are purporting. You also say "At any rate, a tax on them is simply a tax on the customers in the end" which, in fact, it isn't: any company making more than "fair" profit can indeed lower it (i.e. because of increased taxes) without touching their price tags. All they need is having competition which feels comfortable with that lower profit level.
"Lamarck might be right when you look at epigenetics."
Which is something basically irrelevant to this: epigenetics can only work at the germinal line level or, indirectly, by allowing higher mutation rates on a part of the genome (as it has been suggested to happen on the immune system). As gravity-induced illness can't be prevented neither at the germinal line level nor at specific locations, it has nothing to do here.
"the lack of a magnetosphere will mean that eventually any atmosphere we add will get stripped away by solar winds."
So what? Provided lamarckianism were true, as you seem to believe, the losing atmosphere would happen slow enough for the species to adapt *and* (and that was my point) lack of magnetosphere would increase mutations, therefore adaptability.
"I'm normally a proponent of free-markets. But they obviously don't work when it comes to healthcare"
Why is it then that it works for basically anyone else but USA (or, at least, it works better than for USA)?
"people have to pay no matter what"
Only, of course, no, they don't have to.
On one hand, there usually is more than one effective treatment for most illnesses (even if some treatments are liminary better than others) so, it's up to the buyer which one to subsidize.
On the other hand, in those cases where there's only one sensible treatment for an illness, it usually comes from a lab that produces more than one product, which means the buyer can leverage over the whole portfolio, thanks to the first point ("oh! so you don't want to sell me X at a fair price? OK, I'll put your A, B and C out of the subsidized list and will introduce those from a competing lab instead. Please, make your numbers and come back with a new offer").
Finally, a prescription not being in the subsidized list doesn't mean it can't be prescripted, only that the patient will pay for it in full. For the lab that means that if its product has any reasonable competition that it is in the subsidized list, it probably won't sell a single dose, and even if it manages to sell something, it will be only to those affluent enough to indulgence themselves the expenditure instead of reaching the target population in full; again, a matter for the lab to make its numbers and reach a conclusion.
"a third way is to restrict marketing to consumers so that the medical doctors can select medication without pressure from people insisting on a certain type of drug just because they saw a nice ad on TV"
Yes: since I (the government) pay for these prescriptions, it will be under my rules (prescription drugs can't be advertised at all except on specialists' media). And then, as I already told in a different message, in a socialized health care system, government controls the whole value chain, not only part of it so, even if a patient really, really wants a branded drug, he has no power over the doctor: he can't really vote the doctor out of business with his pocket, all he can do is choose a different doctor from the government-payed system which will behave exactly the same or go to a private doctor, which he will have to pay in full instead of getting it for free, to see if he's luckier there. Since the vast majority of doctor-patient relationships are within the system, most patients are sufficiently exposed to its results as for common sense to impose.
"Help me out because I don't understand how it works with socialized healthcare..."
It basically comes from the fact that just like in any other free market, big customers have stronger leverage power than short ones. Goverments are big customers. Another purely market-driven advantage is that governments don't only buy one prescription from a lab, but whole parts of their catalogues: you don't want to sell me [miracolous medicine only your lab has] at a fair price? OK then, your [much more common remedy for pimples but that still is a cash cow] gets out from the payed-for prescription list and we'll use the one from [competing lab] instead.
"Seems like if only one company was making a drug, they could charge a price and choose not to sell it if someone wanted it cheaper."
Socialized healthcare means that government controls the whole value chain of healthcare, not just prescriptions. Controlling the whole value chain means that you can leverage expensive treatments from cheaper ones as long as epidemiologically makes sense and you have the money. It's very unusual that there's exactly one prescription for an illness, you usually have an spectrum and you can decide which one you are going to pay for -and leverage this to get better pricing.
Another advantage of controlling the value chain in whole is that, i.e. you can control your doctors to preferentially prescript a generic instead of a branded one when it makes sense -and be tracked by government for that, and be questioned by patients if they don't follow the rule because, in the end, they'll know that [expensively branded amoxycillin they'll have to pay in full] is no better than [generic amoxycillin they can get at zero cost for their pockets].
Slashdot Mirror
"More corporate welfare"
Not even corporate welfare: "federal dollars are the only way to advance the technology [per president's mandate]". That's plain communism!
"I don't think there is a DCMP (drone-CMP) protocol that will report "shot down" to the source host."
Of course not: this kind of protocol is point-to-point, so there're no hops. Obviously you didn't pay attention to RFC-1149 and related!
"Again, I'm glad you're "in the biz". The rest of us aren't."
While I may not agree with the tone of the parent post, it indeed has a point.
If you are not "in the biz", probably the right answer is "well, don't mess in the biz, then", the corollary being "pay someone in the biz to do the biz". If you think a bit about it, it seems a reasonable answer in basically any other biz but "computers".
A somehow more technical answer may be: in order for you to have the comfortability of an "update" button, the program forcibly has to be able to update itself as a request of an external agent: as soon as there's even a minor bug in the process both your site and your data is open for exploitation, so you will have to choose your shit: you either become someone "in the biz", or pay for someone "in the biz", or you know your site and your data will be cracked from time to time.
Yes!
For the entire careers of most practicing computer scientists, a fundamental observation has consistently held true... and you won't believe what happens next!!!
"CAs cannot respond fast enough and likely do not have enough information to vet requests for new certificates fully."
They used to. The problem is not that they can't, the problem is that they learned that the end user neither understands nor cares for proper verification, so why they should pay care when that means less business and higher costs?
"You would be surprised to learn that other countries with their own language even have a different word than "Moon" to refer to the Moon!"
So, after all, that's no moon!
"There are, as far as I know, no existing bomb which gets more than 50% of its yield from nuclear fusion."
Even if that were true... so what?
Are you denying that the core functionality of a fusion bomb is the fusion part? Or that, now that you name them, the core functionality of a neutron bomb is neutron production (even if it _is_ a kind of thermonuclear bomb)? Given that current designs are quite complex (i.e. physion-fusion-physion designs) the "thermonuclear" nickname looks even more adequate, since it's more generic.
On the other hand and up to my knowledge, on Castle Bravo's case, the most powerful USA probe at about 15Mt, less than 1Mt was assigned to physion.
"Yes, I understand that the majority of them (probably) aren't actively engaged in actual, physical abuse of a child....but still. If it was my child, I admit I'd be all for them doing this even though it almost certainly contravenes some law(s)."
Revenge, while understandable, shouldn't be the basis of a legal or ethical system. Even moreso on a country that claims to be "the land of the free".
Under current moral standards it seems Nick Ut would have been processed because of "the girl in the picture" instead of winning a Pulitzer.
"Does not explain why one is called thermonuclear and the other not."
On an A-Bomb, the core functionality (physion chain reaction) comes from "pure" nuclear physics: you just (for a fairly complicated level of "just") put a critical mass of physible elements together, and the rest happens on its own.
On an H-Bomb, on the other hand, in order for the core functionality (fusion) to work, you first need a stupidly big exothermic reaction to happen since fusion won't happen on its own, therefore the two-staged name: thermo (first stage) nuclear (second stage). In fact, the "stupidly big exothermic reaction" required to trigger the fusion is so "stupidly big" that we can't produce it but with an A-Bomb, but that's conceptually secondary.
"But that has nothing to do with "fair"."
That may be the case. Nevertheless it is the way it's called. Adam Smith even suggests it being more or less twice the current rate of interest. In general terms, it depends on ROI time and perceived risk.
"That's simply the profit level under which the investor will find something else to invest in."
No, that's a different concept. On a perfect market, an investor wouldn't go for an investment that is perceived just "fair enough": he would go for the best investment among all those he could choose from (it's only if no one returns above the fair level, he'd better buy bonds instead of investing in a bussiness). Of course, in the real world, risk spreading, reinvesting frictions, cost of entry, or just partial or wrong information would make things a bit more complex.
"Assuming competitors can provide the same products for the same cost. In this case they cannot."
Markets are not as simple as that. You are right in that Apple bases its marketing on brand recognition, because it makes more difficult to find a substitute, but it is not a matter or providing the same product (it just makes things easier) but a product the customer is willing to expend his money just the same: it doesn't even need to be in the same niche: as you say, Apple is somehow a luxury brand so they are in competition with other luxury brands: I may just expend my money the same on a new iPhone... or a bottle of wine, or a brand watch, or whatever. Anyway, you are fixating in a word, "fair", which happens to have a different meaning within this context than the one you give it.
"I think you underestimate how many people this sort of thing stops [...] That's sufficient for their purposes, really. They can't stop everyone, no system is perfect, its enough for them to minimize it."
Probably you are right, and that's a problem on its own: most users don't know how to bypass these kind of measures... but most providers seem not to know what they are doing either.
A naive example: I was looking for a second hand car and I was taking notes on candidates: some sites didn't allow me to copy&paste data like vendor's telephone number or car's plate number (well, it wouldn't avoid it, just making it absurdly cumbersome). How this benefits anyone, either prospective buyers or sellers!?
A dangerous example: working for an important company, I had to use their ill-thought "vpn" system, which made very difficult to make my legit work but still wouldn't stop me damaging the systems I was working on (which I was tempted to, out of frustration). Trying to explain security people both why this was a problem and how they could change their configuration to better fit their intended purpose, even within the letter of their security policies, would be answered with a bland looking like "what the heck is this guy talking about?"
"Exactly the problem."
How is it? The paycheck comes from my employer considering my work's worth it. And my employer considers it's worth it because money flows his way more when I chase for ratings than when I go for scientific precision.
How can be a problem following the path the market rewards the most? Unless you consider capitalism itself being the problem, that is.
"When you chase any story for "ratings", you're doing it wrong"
The paycheck I get by the end of the week begs to differ.
"If you offer people free passage and don't mention the slavery part, you'll get enough slaves."
Maybe, but then you fail point one: "going Mars because there's no people".
"Banks with funds on deposit do not simply leave them there in a digital vault"
Of course not, but regarding the fund owner is just as if that would be the case since no further benefit is returned to his hands.
"so the idea that money sits idle there is a fallacy."
OK. More on that later.
"Corporate taxes however are passed on to consumers, employees and owners in the form of increased prices for goods or services, decreased benefits or wages, and decreased profits."
Which is no novelty since it's basically the same I already said. Good you used the "or" disjunctive: yes, taxes can be passed to this, that, that other... or decreased profits.
"The key point is that a company is a fictitious legal entity which only exits on paper...no matter how convoluted the process is, people, and only people, pay taxes."
And that's why Apple has such a big interest in having 181.1 billions sitting on a bank. Errr... nope.
And then again, it's like you implicitly supported that, while money sitting in a bank is not really "sitting in a bank", taxed money somehow disappears from the system has if government just took the bank notes and fired them. No sir: taxed money is also returned to the citizenship in the form of services and wages to public and private employees so, from that point of view, it's a zero sum game. And given that -if even from a theoretical point of view, money ends up into the system one way or another, it is a matter of the clever citizen/government to choose the way for that money to re-enter the system in the most beneficial way, on the premise that, while money in private hands is directed to the capitalist's own benefit (not that that's a bad thing), money in public hands is directed to the benefit of society as a whole (knowing that while depending on individual's egotism gets quite far, can't offer a perfect balance).
"There's no such thing as a "fair" profit"
Yes, there is. And there has been since Adam Smith's days. It is the expectable profit the average investor would consider good enough. Perfect investors never go into business which render less-than-fair profit; perfect providers enter the market as soon as competition is detected making more than fair profit; that's what guarantees that perfect markets offer their goods at the lowest possible price. Yes, there's a lot of "perfects" here, but still makes sense knowing the definitions and the expected responses from an ideal market to understand the real ones.
"The price of a good or service is what people are willing to pay."
Which, while being true, has little to nothing to do about profit expectations per se.
"How much it costs a company to provide what the consumer is paying for isn't even relevant."
It is, with regards to competition.
"No, if corporations could do that in any meaningful way then no corporation would ever fail... [...] Apple does not charge in Asia what it charges in the US"
Making my point moreso: Apple charges more in USA because they can, but the fact they sell cheaper in Asia and still make business overthere is obvious proof that they could run in USA at lower profit if pressed enough, be it by competition, taxes (specially taxes since they would press exactly the same themselves and their competition), or whatever.
"Some people actually seem to believe that "Corporations run at whatever profit, period""
That's because that's exactly what happen: as you already said, companies are strictly amoral. Another discussion should be that people are *not* amoral, so this probably means CEOs are, in fact, immoral and the fact that immoral people are praised as "successful achievers" says quite a lot more about our society than about the companies they run.
It also happens that such an assertion works both ways: corporations in fact run at whatever profit, period. Which means that, as long as profit is enough for somebody to find it a worthy investment, there's no problem at all on reducing their profit margin, i.e. by taxes.
"Taxing them more simply means higher prices for all the customers. That would be us, not them. If they keep prices the same, it means less investment by them in jobs, or higher prices for us, period. "
Euhhh... nope, this isn't the case, you can read it in the topic's brief: "Apple holds $181.1 billion in offshore profits". That is, Apple holds $181.1 billion that neither goes to jobs, nor R&D, nor nothing: it's just money sitting in a bank, which means you just could tax Apple $181.1 billion and they still shouldn't need to fire any employee, nor close any R&D program, nor rise its products' prices in the least.
Of course, I'm not saying we should tax any company for whatever their net profits are, nor that my "plain" explanation is quite naive, just that doing so wouldn't be the hell you are purporting. You also say "At any rate, a tax on them is simply a tax on the customers in the end" which, in fact, it isn't: any company making more than "fair" profit can indeed lower it (i.e. because of increased taxes) without touching their price tags. All they need is having competition which feels comfortable with that lower profit level.
"Lamarck might be right when you look at epigenetics."
Which is something basically irrelevant to this: epigenetics can only work at the germinal line level or, indirectly, by allowing higher mutation rates on a part of the genome (as it has been suggested to happen on the immune system). As gravity-induced illness can't be prevented neither at the germinal line level nor at specific locations, it has nothing to do here.
"the lack of a magnetosphere will mean that eventually any atmosphere we add will get stripped away by solar winds."
So what? Provided lamarckianism were true, as you seem to believe, the losing atmosphere would happen slow enough for the species to adapt *and* (and that was my point) lack of magnetosphere would increase mutations, therefore adaptability.
"I'm normally a proponent of free-markets. But they obviously don't work when it comes to healthcare"
Why is it then that it works for basically anyone else but USA (or, at least, it works better than for USA)?
"people have to pay no matter what"
Only, of course, no, they don't have to.
On one hand, there usually is more than one effective treatment for most illnesses (even if some treatments are liminary better than others) so, it's up to the buyer which one to subsidize.
On the other hand, in those cases where there's only one sensible treatment for an illness, it usually comes from a lab that produces more than one product, which means the buyer can leverage over the whole portfolio, thanks to the first point ("oh! so you don't want to sell me X at a fair price? OK, I'll put your A, B and C out of the subsidized list and will introduce those from a competing lab instead. Please, make your numbers and come back with a new offer").
Finally, a prescription not being in the subsidized list doesn't mean it can't be prescripted, only that the patient will pay for it in full. For the lab that means that if its product has any reasonable competition that it is in the subsidized list, it probably won't sell a single dose, and even if it manages to sell something, it will be only to those affluent enough to indulgence themselves the expenditure instead of reaching the target population in full; again, a matter for the lab to make its numbers and reach a conclusion.
"a third way is to restrict marketing to consumers so that the medical doctors can select medication without pressure from people insisting on a certain type of drug just because they saw a nice ad on TV"
Yes: since I (the government) pay for these prescriptions, it will be under my rules (prescription drugs can't be advertised at all except on specialists' media). And then, as I already told in a different message, in a socialized health care system, government controls the whole value chain, not only part of it so, even if a patient really, really wants a branded drug, he has no power over the doctor: he can't really vote the doctor out of business with his pocket, all he can do is choose a different doctor from the government-payed system which will behave exactly the same or go to a private doctor, which he will have to pay in full instead of getting it for free, to see if he's luckier there. Since the vast majority of doctor-patient relationships are within the system, most patients are sufficiently exposed to its results as for common sense to impose.
"Help me out because I don't understand how it works with socialized healthcare..."
It basically comes from the fact that just like in any other free market, big customers have stronger leverage power than short ones. Goverments are big customers. Another purely market-driven advantage is that governments don't only buy one prescription from a lab, but whole parts of their catalogues: you don't want to sell me [miracolous medicine only your lab has] at a fair price? OK then, your [much more common remedy for pimples but that still is a cash cow] gets out from the payed-for prescription list and we'll use the one from [competing lab] instead.
"Seems like if only one company was making a drug, they could charge a price and choose not to sell it if someone wanted it cheaper."
Socialized healthcare means that government controls the whole value chain of healthcare, not just prescriptions. Controlling the whole value chain means that you can leverage expensive treatments from cheaper ones as long as epidemiologically makes sense and you have the money. It's very unusual that there's exactly one prescription for an illness, you usually have an spectrum and you can decide which one you are going to pay for -and leverage this to get better pricing.
Another advantage of controlling the value chain in whole is that, i.e. you can control your doctors to preferentially prescript a generic instead of a branded one when it makes sense -and be tracked by government for that, and be questioned by patients if they don't follow the rule because, in the end, they'll know that [expensively branded amoxycillin they'll have to pay in full] is no better than [generic amoxycillin they can get at zero cost for their pockets].
I find your lack of faith disturbing
"ever try negotiating loan terms with a Sith Lord? Not fun, my friend.... not fun."
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.