The End of Michael Moore

[RobinFinderson]

Back up the truck. The government should not be funding medical research AT ALL, and the president should worry about building up our military and cutting off pretty much every other government tentacle - not promoting private causes.

Building up the biggest socialist program in the world? Wow, you freaking commie.

[Colly Wolly]

Building up the biggest socialist program in the world? Wow, you freaking commie.

I have neither the time, nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I fund through military protection, and then questions the logic with which I fund it. I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you get a job, and start pitching in with your own taxes. Either way, I don't GIVE A DAMN WHETHER YOU THINK IT'S SOCIALST OR NOT!!!!

[RobinFinderson]

I have neither the time, nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I fund through military protection, and then questions the logic with which I fund it. I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you get a job, and start pitching in with your own taxes. Either way, I don't GIVE A DAMN WHETHER YOU THINK IT'S SOCIALST OR NOT!!!!

LOL! You are quite the student of history and reason.

[Jarid in Cedar]

NPO's are corporations? I can't say if that is technically true (anyone?), but they don't seek profit (as you implied before when you said that polio vaccine was developed to be profitable), and any surplus can not profit stakeholders. You are seriously stretching here, Jarid. And the March of Dimes did NOT discover the polio vaccine.

No they didn't, but they provided a substantial amount of the funding for Salk's research.

[Jarid in Cedar]

The real question for those who think this is an example of corporations doing right by the public, do you think this is the ideal way to fund this sort of research? In other words, would you prefer that the Federal government stop funding scientific research, and instead we should have president start private charities and use the position of the presidency to advocate for their causes?

Medical research is funding through multiple avenues. Private funding, public funding, donations to University endowments, donations from non profit and for profit organizations. The rights to much of the products of that research is then purchased by a private corporation for manufacture, marketing, and distribution. Much of the proceeds from these "patent purchases" are then recycled back into the reasearch institution to fuel further research.

But ultimately, the financial risks of new medical breakthroughs are burdened by private corporations that either initially sponsored the research or bought the rights to the end product of research. The Salk vaccine was manufactured, distributed, and ultimately sold by several private corporations. They ultimately took the financial risk if it was to be a failure or worse harmful.

Ultimately, the University of Pittsburg, the federal government, and public funding had little to do with the manufacture and distribution of the end product of Salk's research. By this end, it would not have happened if it was not for the private sector taking risks on a product that absolutely had to be financially viable to reach the marketplace or it would not have happened.

[SeattleUte]

So, what was the corporation that developed the Polio vaccine? What percent of the research was subsidized by tax dollars? I honestly don't know the history of how the polio vaccine was developed. I should know it. So lets chase this rabbit together and see where it goes. SU claims that corporations cured polio. SU claims that corporations are responsible for the green revolution. Lets test those claims. We can start by letting SU tell us what corporations are responsible for the green revolution and the polio vaccine. Since he brought up these two examples off the top of his head, I expect that he can direct us to the history of the development of these two breakthrough based in corporations. SU?

Good grief. Most pharmaceuticals are developed because capital is behind them and they have huge profit potential. Do you deny that?

The "green revolution" is made possible because we are a wealthy country. Where is your Green Revolution in the only remainging semblence of a Socialist country, China?

Corporations are resonsive to consumers and shareholders. Hence, they initiate conservationist initiatives and trumpet them to their shareholders and consumers. That's where it comes from. Corporations have been ahead of the government on this. It's corporations that on their own initiative develop fuel efficent cares, use recycled napkins, etc. Because they are representative institutions.

[cowboy]

Back up the truck. The government should not be funding medical research AT ALL, and the president should worry about building up our military and cutting off pretty much every other government tentacle - not promoting private causes.

This hurts more than you'll ever know, but I actually side with Robin on this one. Research is one of the few areas that I believe government backing is appropriate, because in many cases, the government is the only entity large enough to bear the risk. Granted, a lot of research is funded by for-profit groups, but a lot of useful research would never take place were it not for the backing of the government.

The reason for this is that the risk premium in a capitalist system is too high for some areas of research to ever get off the ground either because the potential economic benefit is too small or the probability of success is too low. But just because the market doesn't value the research doesn't mean society won't. Most university research in all disciplines, and a large portion of the private economic and scientific research taking place is funded partially or completely with federal dollars.

[Jarid in Cedar]

This hurts more than you'll ever know, but I actually side with Robin on this one. Research is one of the few areas that I believe government backing is appropriate, because in many cases, the government is the only entity large enough to bear the risk. Granted, a lot of research is funded by for-profit groups, but a lot of useful research would never take place were it not for the backing of the government.

The reason for this is that the risk premium in a capitalist system is too high for some areas of research to ever get off the ground either because the potential economic benefit is too small or the probability of success is too low. But just because the market doesn't value the research doesn't mean society won't. Most university research in all disciplines, and a large portion of the private economic and scientific research taking place is funded partially or completely with federal dollars.

Cowboy,

I understand what your new avatar is supposed to represent, but I am lost to the meaning. Care to enlighten a lost soul?

[cowboy]

Cowboy,

I understand what your new avatar is supposed to represent, but I am lost to the meaning. Care to enlighten a lost soul?

It's a picture of me through my wife's eyes.

And, it's the time of year for me to begin using my former avatar with Rice's famous four horsemen line, and I didn't want to be redundant.

[Jarid in Cedar]

It's a picture of me through my wife's eyes.

And, it's the time of year for me to begin using my former avatar with Rice's famous four horseman line, and I didn't want to be redundant.

I think many of us can relate with that....

[Katy Lied]

A couple of minor comments on some of the more interesting posts in this thread:

How much real liberty does a poor, uneducated man or woman with dependent children really have in America?

SU's (and apparently Nietsche's; see my comment below) opinion aside, classical descriptions of capitalism really only require freedom of opportunity, rather than freedom of speech, or any other freedoms Americans embrace in their society. It is important to the mechanics of capitalism that there be relatively low barriers to entry into the market. In fact, this is probably the defining aspect of capitalism. Once you place barriers to entry, the model does not work as efficiently, and it can be called something else.

Some of the most interesting, uninhibited artwork being made in the world today is coming out of communist China. Why?

Orson Welles answers this in the famous "cuckoo clock" scene from The Third Man, when Harry Lime says:

"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly."

I agree with Welles; it seems great art comes from suffering, and we see throughout history great art emanating from deprivation, either of freedom or want. We see great art coming from Tzarist Russia, from the Peredvizhniki (the Wanderers), but less great art from Stalinist Russia; I believe this is due to the Stalinist government's utter annihilation of dissenting artists; you cant create great art when you have no paints or canvas or pencils.

We need not even start comparing levels of infant mortality, pollution, deforestation, etc., in captialist vs. non-capitalist countries. But this analysis would favor capitalist countries as well.

Im not sure how much this has to do with capitalism, and how much it has to do with mature societies, which capitalism requires. Capitalist countries have already gone through their periods of high infant mortality, deforestation, etc.

That said, there is nothing as effective as a Command Economy's ability to destroy the environment. (See below)

BOOOOO! So what about democratic socialist countries where the vote, freedom of speech and freedom of religion are paramount, but which have far more socialized services than countries like the U.S.? You make it seem like more capitalism = more civil liberty, but that simply isn't the case.

Most of the countries you are probably referring to are small, highly homogeneous societies with similar religious backgrounds, similar history, and very similar population characteristics, like Scandinavia. There is less incentive to free ride on public monies in these countries, for several reasons. This cannot be replicated in the diverse, racquous, heterogeneous populations found in the US and the USSR.

Whatever other evil might be put at capitalism's feet--polution, deforestation, whatever--are ampliphied in a socialist system.

Capitalism pollutes rivers and streams; Communism killed off an entire sea in 20 years:


This it did because the USSR wanted to grow wheat in the desert. In a capitalist economy, when the benefits from fishing and farming the Aral Sea became scare enough, the price of fish etc would have grown high enough that it would be more efficient to keep fishing, and import wheat from the US. In the absence of these price mechanisms, the Soviet government simply did what it wanted; continued to grow wheat in the desert to decrease reliance on the US.

Robin, certainly a Nietsche scholar such as yourself is aware that Nietzche called capitalism the apotheosis of Christianity, the destination of its historical progression.

Fascinating. I'd be willing to read up on this quote for an afternoon.

Polio Vaccine: Discovered by Jonas Salk while working at the University of Pittsburgh (state research school) while funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (state funded research). I declare myself and idiot for not remembering this important bit of scientific history and I declare SU a <redacted> idiot for claiming the cure to polio was the result of corporations.

The green revolution: The 'father of the green revolution,' Norman Borlaug, took a state funded research position in Mexico to help develop high-yield strains of wheat. The Mexican research institution where Borlaug worked was also funded by the Rockefeller Foundation (not a corporation, but definitely private largesse).

It is not merely the discovery of a technology that aids mankind; it is the spread and distribution of that technology. It is also the application of that technology to novel uses that aids in making the technology cheaper and more readily available to people. This is where capitalism comes in.

I dont know how expensive the anti-glaucoma drug Lumigan is, but I know when capitalist company Allergan started rebranding it and selling it as Latisse, an eyelash lengthener, production ramped up, and is bound to bring the price of Lumigan down.

This hurts more than you'll ever know, but I actually side with Robin on this one. Research is one of the few areas that I believe government backing is appropriate, because in many cases, the government is the only entity large enough to bear the risk.

In the case of a National health emergency, I agree that only the government has the resources to mount a research attack. Also, in easily transmissable diseases, only the Feds have the power to compel compliance in taking the drugs to prevent outbreaks...

But Cowboy, ask youself how much the risk has been amplified by the inordinate amount of research and testing the federal government demands from the pharmaceutical companies; demands that other governments dont require. Less regulation = less cost risk.


::::Whew::::

[cowboy]

But Cowboy, ask youself how much the risk has been amplified by the inordinate amount of research and testing the federal government demands from the pharmaceutical companies; demands that other governments dont require. Less regulation = less cost risk.

While all your comments are interesting, and I agree with the points you make, I'll address the comment that was pointed my way. I'm all for reducing regulation to help lower costs and risk premiums. In that much we will agree. But I think that relying on for profit companies to provide all our medical research will leave gaps that we don't want to leave.

Regulation isn't the only risk driver in research. The size of the market and the difficulty of the research also affect the NPV of a project (I know you know this, but I'm speaking to attorneys here too, remember.) With obscure diseases, the size of the market for any treatment that is developed may still be too small to attract for-profit research without grant funding. The same can be said for disease research that has an infinitesimally small probability of success.

Because I'm too lazy to look up specifics, let's consider a hypothetical fatal disease that strikes young males at a rate of .6 per million, and let's suppose the estimated cost of finding a cure is $50 million. Few companies would be interested in developing a treatment because the five year payback at 20% would have to be over $1.6 million per patient, making the total cost of treatment with marketing, provider and facility costs, etc., over $2 million per patient, which would exceed most patients' lifetime insurance indemnity limit.

Now consider that the NPV of a young male's federal tax revenue is around $260K (roughly 10k per year, 30 years, 3%) and that this treatment could save 10 lives per year if developed. Using a 3% federal discount rate, the present value of saving 10 lives per year is $87 million. The federal cost-benefit is clearly on the side of developing the treatment, even though it is not profitable for private industry. In this case, federal funding is justified from an economic perspective, but even without an economic justification, society benefits when research advances our knowledge and understanding.

I understand this is hastily written and a simplistic hypothetical, but you see where I'm headed. Since much of my time is spent sponging your tax dollars to perform economic research and development, I will also admit that I have a vested interest in federally funded research initiatives. Like all of my ideas, however, I stole this one. The justification of federal research funding was published in the Wall Street Journal a few years back.

[RobinFinderson]

Well Faith and I went and saw Moore's film yesterday. It isn't his best work. The subject seemed simply too vast and too complicated to really address in Moore's typical fashion of gotcha stunts, stories of personal tragedy, and creative use of archival footage. By the end of the film the viewer is no better informed about the problems that led up to the current recession. We are simply left with the vague sense that we have been screwed by corporations whose interests are better represented by politicians than the interests of rank and file citizens, and corporate interests are often not aligned with human/citizen interests.

Moore plays pretty loose with definitions too, which only further muddies the waters. He is against 'capitalism' which isn't what we typically think of when we talk about 'capitalism,' but can be better understood by what he considers its opposite, which is 'democracy.' So Moore doesn't advocate for 'socialism' so much as he advocates for 'democracy.' His ideal business model would be one that was owned not by the public at large (socialism) but rather by the workers, who would personally elect the board of directors, and would be paid equally, based on the time they spent on the job.

Moore provides an example of this form of business operation in a bread factory some place in California, where the average assembly line worker making and packaging bread has a take-home income of about $60k. The CEO of the bread company makes an appearance on the film and has a nice quote where he says, "How much money does a person really need? How many nice cars does a person need?" The CEO makes a modest wage very much comparable to that of the assembly workers. This is a company that is still privately owned, but it is democratically run.

Moore provides a second example of this form of business with a robotics company that is very similar in how the workers vote on the directions to take the company.

The film has fewer laugh out loud moments than others. The funniest moment for me was personal -- Moore calls up the example of Jonas Salk and his discovery of the Polio Vaccine as an example of a great human accomplishment that took place outside of the corporate world. Salk, whose discovery could have made him filthy rich, gave up the patent to the world, for free, believing that financially benefit from the eradication of polio would be wrong. Good call on that one SU, you student of history!

[BlueHair]

I watched Moore on Bill Maher last night. Even Maher doesn't buy his ideas on capitalism.

Moore made a good point. We engage in Crony Capitalism. The rich are not allowed to fail. The heads of mega-corporations gamble and lose big, but are bailed out by the government. They make over 400 times what the average worker makes. He also said that Obama is just as bad as Bush. His connections with Goldman Sachs are dispicable. Maher spent quite a bit of time saying Bush and Obama are the same.

[RobinFinderson]

I watched Moore on Bill Maher last night. Even Maher doesn't buy his ideas on capitalism.

Moore made a good point. We engage in Crony Capitalism. The rich are not allowed to fail. The heads of mega-corporations gamble and lose big, but are bailed out by the government. They make over 400 times what the average worker makes. He also said that Obama is just as bad as Bush. His connections with Goldman Sachs are dispicable. Maher spent quite a bit of time saying Bush and Obama are the same.

I saw that too. It is one of the muddy points in the film, and seeing that it is the title of the film (Capitalism) it is pretty ridiculous that Moore doesn't make his point more clear.

Moore is against Crony Capitalism, but how about capitalism in the abstract? Who knows. Can we tell from his calling 'democracy' the opposite of 'capitalism?' Who knows. It isn't Moore's best work.