Goldman Sachs earnings report: Is curing patients a sustainable business model? - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html Where are you gonna get YoY growth on AIDS patients?

Sounds about time to nationalize the pharmaceuticals industry.

The answer isn't necessarily "total privatization" or "full nationalization." And hell, that is a worthwhile concern, whether the R&D costs are sustainable compared to what the returns would be. You could alleviate that with government incentives however.

I mean this is quite literally a conspiracy theory that's manifesting itself in reality. I get that your point of view is to always be calm about these things and I do think there's very little to actually do at the moment, but this is something that's worth talking about in a big way, and with the heavy consideration that if this isn't profitable, people die. It used to be a joke/conspiracy that people floated around that "cures" never come around because there's no money in it. To see that come out of an investment firm that has pull in the industry is something to be wary of, and begs a lot of questions about the shape of the companies we'd like to have in our world. Currently, it's more about how we fit into the world of these banks and conglomerates. It really, really should be the other way around.

It's not like these pharmaceutical companies do shit or dick for their own R&D anyway. They use universities and colleges for that and spend the money on marketing instead. I truly hope they get turned into a government branch and taken away from the private industry because healthcare is not something corporations should deal with.

And I suppose the billions of dollars Big Pharma has used on trying to find treatments for Alzheimers with nothing to show for it is just for shits and giggles?

Right, just because the industry has grown to insane sizes and paid some peanuts out of their overall profits to some random disease it somehow makes them good. Big pharma needs to go as it is right now and I don't think you would disagree with that.

This is not how research works.

That's not the point.

Companies have gone under due to spending all of their "peanuts" on "random diseases". I'm not so sure you understand the basics of of the pharmaceutical business at all.

Companies go under in every industry.

And many other companies directly affect the health of the population from utilities to food providers. We don't appeal for the government to run every aspect of these companies. Instead with have regulations and audits. And Big Pharma is one of the most heavily regulated industries and for good reason. Big Pharma can make poor business decisions and can try to push too far with their pricing strategy but the idea that having the government run these companies will help fix these issues is beyond optimistic.

Right, just like farms, and grocery stores, and car producers, and home builders, etc. There are TONS of industries that are "directly affecting the health of the population."

The main issue is that the government is fucking horrible and auditing and regulating industries, let alone individual companies or facilities. The food industry for example still have places that are right out of The Jungle and pass their government audits. Government doesnt hold these companies accontable, third party audits dont, the masses cant, and they wont hold themselves accountable. Its why we see 1,000% price increases while material and labor costs remain the same. The industrys are crooked and nationalization sure as shit wont fix it.

Funnily enough, the FDA is pretty thorough. They even send people out to manufacturers in India and China to make sure they're up to standard. But I concur with your point. The one thing that the government can be sure to regulate badly is itself.

eh the government does a pretty good job with industries that aren't given any wiggle room or and don't have the money or drive to push for deregulation like aerospace, its just the culture of the banking industry that they are above the law that the rest of the world bows to them and that's how we get too big to fail, too big to regulate

The difference is this is a case where, theoretically, an industry is considering whether or not it should let an infinite number of poor people die of diseases they could cure, because saving these people may not be profitable in the long run. It's the same train of thought that lead to planned obsolescence, only this time they could be debating the value of human life itself. I wouldn't say it's time to nationalize yet, but if this train of thought continues and becomes something of substance, then their existence becomes detrimental to society at large. Arguably they already are, but at least they're a detriment that is still working on medicines and cures, even though these are already financially infeasible for many as it is.

this is the point where we bring out the "CYBERPUNK DYSTOPIA ALERT" button...