tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post8529636222140255829..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Rah Rah EconomicsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-49197786854649566562018-12-18T11:46:12.206-05:002018-12-18T11:46:12.206-05:00“If the Chinese government wants a more competitiv...“If the Chinese government wants a more competitive drug market, perhaps we should emulate their policies not object to them.”<br /><br />From something I am writing this week:<br /><br />[cut-and-paste]<br />Some countries reserve the moral right to ignore patents in the face of widespread epidemics, such as AIDS. They call the practice “compulsory licensing.” Thailand is taking it one step further licensing a heart drug.<br />https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0131/p07s02-woap.html<br /><br />US drug monopolies add up to tariffs for other countries — and at 1,000 percent or 10,000 percent rates, not 25 percent. In India Gilead prices Harvoni at $999 a treatment — maybe because the company is afraid of what India might do if it tried to price sky high.<br />* * * * * *<br /><br />If India and or China or wherever would like to break the American drug monopolies (a.k.a., drug patents) they can offer to wipe out Hep C in here by the immediate future for a cool $1 billion (not $300 billion!)) — but US drug patent laws would have to double-reverse their incentives to allow it.<br /><br />One possible deal: replace the system of drug patents with government funded research on drugs and medical devices — all new drugs become generic. For already patented drugs, erect a regulated monopoly setup (like our electric power companies). Harvoni, for example having long since,paid off Gilead’s (not very chancy) $11 billion dollar gamble could be immediately designated generic.<br /><br />What could American politicians explain to voters for refusing an offer to wipe out — and not revamping pharma pirate laws? Would Americans be willing to go on paying Gilead $15 billion a year waiting for Gilead’s 20 year patent to run out — while more sufferers come down with Hepatitis all the time and 20,000 a year die?<br />https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/p0504-hepc-mortality.htmlDenis Drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11833367196756465896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-52670105956017326802018-12-16T04:30:59.105-05:002018-12-16T04:30:59.105-05:00It is even worse than that, thinking about it. Eco...It is even worse than that, thinking about it. Economic rents flowing to the United states might have the effect of pushing up the USD reducing the demand for many us products in a sort of Dutch disease.reasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09488435543492412991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-43422729963274153952018-12-16T04:27:38.671-05:002018-12-16T04:27:38.671-05:00.. constitutes a loss to the United States ... Ina..... constitutes a loss to the United States ... Inappropriate collective again - some American registered companies is not the same as the United States.<br /><br />reasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09488435543492412991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-35841216882617074242018-12-16T00:58:03.176-05:002018-12-16T00:58:03.176-05:00"The Congressional Budget Office estimates th..."The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Trump tax cuts will increase growth rates by 0.2 percentage points per year over the first five years."<br /><br /><i>It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.</i> Actually, predictions are bullshit. They give those who make them an illusion of control over something they have no control over. The future is uncertain. There is a better than even chance that "next year" will be somewhat like this year. But that isn't really a prediction. That's just inertia.<br /><br />It has occurred to me that the whole point of "growth" is to have something whose trend relatively "predictable" over time that economists can make predictions about. Other than facilitating predictions, ignoring the components of growth make those predictions utterly meaningless. Utterly! Growth is bullshit because the most important thing it does is facilitate bullshit.<br /><br />I don't expect to get a thoughtful answer to my argument. Economists are too wedded to their fantasy of prediction to risk questioning it. But all critique is self criticism. I just made a prediction about the reception of my argument. I'm committing the same error that I accuse economists of making. What else does my argument do, then, if I'm pretty sure that it won't persuade anyone?<br /><br />It is beginning to seem to me that the debate over what should be done to mitigate climate change is framed by a contest of predictions. Lurking behind those predictions is the solipsism of "man's triumph over nature." The classical version of the triumph of man identified the accumulation of wealth as the "trophy" of that triumph: <br /><br />"The wealth of the civilized world, after all, is only the trophy of man's triumph over nature. It measures what, from barbarism to the highest civilization he has rescued from the forces of his environment," said Judge P. S. Grosscup in 1893. <br /><br />"Industry, I repeat it with pleasure, is the triumph of man over nature," wrote Victor Cousin in 1828, "whose tendency was to encroach upon and destroy him, but which retreats before him, and is metamorphosed in his hands: this is truly nothing less than the creation of a new world by man."<br /><br />"The crux, the fulcrum over which the argument chiefly rests," said chemical industry spokesman Robert White Stevens in 1963, "is that Miss Carson maintains that the balance of nature is a major force in the survival of man, whereas the modern chemist, the modern biologist and scientist, believes that man is steadily controlling nature."<br /><br />O.K. so much for the troglodyte view, but what about ecological modernizers or even "degrowth"? It's still all about finding a way for "man" to "triumph" over nature. In this case to triumph over the bad consequences of two centuries of triumphalist hubris. I'm sorry to say that the pooch has been screwed. The game seems now to be about how to "unscrew the pooch" (to use Dan Savage's graphic phrase). <br /><br />But there are no take backs. The pooch will not be unscrewed. There is no feasible, technocratic "just transition" from fossil fuels on the horizon, just as there is no "constitutional" remedy for the Trump/GOP cleptocracy. The only remedy available now is to kick out the jams. Pull the emergency brake cord and bring out the pitchforks. <br /><br />Predictions? We don't have to show you any stinking predictions.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-90006668798505009822018-12-15T15:58:58.765-05:002018-12-15T15:58:58.765-05:00From Mankiw:
The Congressional Budget Office estim...From Mankiw:<br /><i>The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Trump tax cuts will increase growth rates by 0.2 percentage points per year over the first five years. A study by Robert Barro (a conservative economist at Harvard) and Furman (a liberal economist at Harvard) published in 2018 estimates that the tax bill will increase annual growth by 0.13 percentage points over a decade</i><br /><br />It's actually worse than that. Even those pitifully small increases in growth rates only reflect changes in GDP, not changes in GNP. That's important because GNP (or better yet, NNP) is what generates our standard of living. If the tax cuts are financed with overseas investment into the US, that might raise GDP, but if the income from that investment leaves our shores, then workers are no better off. Basically they find themselves working longer hours for no more real income. 2slugbaitshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14763897441056512506noreply@blogger.com