Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Wed Oct 15, 2014 6:41 pm

Thad wrote:mostly it points out that Koch now complies with laws and regulations, which, you know, is something you're SUPPOSED to do, not something you should be bragging about


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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Sat Oct 18, 2014 2:57 pm

How New York real estate Is becoming the new Swiss bank account

I suspect many other large cities are facing similar situations, albeit on a much smaller scale, but NY's financial climate and regulations are making this particularly pronounced in that city.

EDIT: And in case you were curious about the views from some of these tax shelters...
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Mon Nov 10, 2014 10:34 pm

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Thad » Thu Nov 13, 2014 4:58 pm

Amazon and Hachette come to an agreement. Details are unknown but apparently Hachette gets to set its own ebook prices.

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Wed Dec 10, 2014 9:38 pm

New spending bill sneaks in a wonderful change in campaign finance rules. The individual campaign limits are being raised from $97k to $770k (with some halfhearted and irrelevant restrictions).

But the best part?

Neither party’s leaders in Congress would claim responsibility for inserting the new provision, which was tucked into the final pages of the more than 1,600-page spending bill on Tuesday evening.


Jesus Christ you guys.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Büge » Wed Dec 10, 2014 10:03 pm

Nobody owns up to it, but nobody abolishes it either? Sounds like business as usual.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Wed Nov 25, 2015 9:33 pm

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mothra » Wed Nov 25, 2015 11:26 pm

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Thad » Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:45 am

Ars: $1 pill alternative to Turing’s $750 pill gets boost from drug manager

It's not perfect (it's a compound drug, which comes with a few inconveniences in getting it, as described in the article) but it's definitely good news.

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Wed Dec 09, 2015 12:37 am

BoingBoing: Prominent climate 'skeptic' scientists in "Definitely not for sale, no sir, not us!" shock.

Posing as representatives of oil and coal companies, reporters from Greenpeace UK asked academics from Princeton and Penn State to write papers promoting the benefits of CO2 and the use of coal in developing countries.

The professors agreed to write the reports and said they did not need to disclose the source of the funding.

Citing industry-funded documents – including testimony to state hearings and newspaper articles – Professor Frank Clemente of Penn State said: “In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is published as an independent scholar.” Leading climate-sceptic academic, Professor William Happer, agreed to write a report for a Middle Eastern oil company on the benefits of CO2 and to allow the firm to keep the source of the funding secret.

...

• US coal giant Peabody Energy also paid tens of thousands of dollars to an academic who produced coal-friendly research and provided testimony at state and federal climate hearings, the amount of which was never revealed.
• The Donors Trust, an organisation that has been described as the “dark money ATM” of the US conservative movement, confirmed in a taped conversation with an undercover reporter that it could anonymously channel money from a fictional Middle Eastern oil and gas company to US climate sceptic organisations.
• Princeton professor William Happer laid out details of an unofficial peer review process run by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK climate sceptic think tank, and said he could ask to put an oil-funded report through a similar review process, after admitting that it would struggle to be published in an academic journal.
• A recent report by the GWPF that had been through the same unofficial peer review process, was promoted as “thoroughly peer-reviewed” by influential columnist Matt Ridley - a senior figure in the organisation.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Thad » Thu Dec 10, 2015 4:27 pm

The Senate is looking into Turing.

The best way to solve the pricing problem is to have competition, said Merritt, the pharmaceutical association president, and the fourth witness, Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Anderson recommended having expediting approval pathways in the Food and Drug Administration for generic drugs. Speedy approvals of generics that could bring drugs to the market in months instead of years would lower the incentives for companies like Valeant and Turing to raise prices so excessively in the first place—they might only have a few months before competition comes up with a cheaper alternative.

The idea seemed to have weight with the committee. After the hearing, Sen. Collins told Ars that she looked forward to future hearings to explore ideas of how the FDA can help. Those hearings will likely be held in early 2016.


This sounds like a good idea. I'm wary of the FDA relaxing its already-questionable oversight in most instances, but what we're talking about is approving generic versions of drugs that have already been approved. That sounds low-risk to me (and certainly lower-risk than making life-saving drugs prohibitively expensive).

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Thu Dec 10, 2015 4:41 pm

(Later in the hearing, she simply referred to Shkreli as “Mr. Wu-Tang.”)

im dying
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Smiler » Fri Dec 11, 2015 1:48 pm

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby pacobird » Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:20 pm

Because this is the world we live in, they will actually go ahead with the wacky hijinx attempt and Bill Murray will fall from a ladder or something and die.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Blossom » Fri Dec 11, 2015 6:30 pm

After raising the prices on his life saving drugs to outrageous heights, notorious “Pharma Bro” Marky Sharky has come to terms with his title as the most hated man in America. At least he still has his one-of-a-kind, two million dollar album from dinosaur rap group, The Tu-Wang Clan.
But when Marky receives a frantic call from his lawyer about a wild gay stipulation in the album’s fine print, things take a turn for the unexpected.
Soon Marky is being seduced by T-Rex comedian Bill Murky, as well as the whole Tu-Wang Clan, and the ownership of his favorite album hangs in the balance. With all of these hot dinosaur celebs around, can Marky resist his own hardcore anal urges?
This erotic tale is 4,500 words of sizzling human on gay dinosaur entertainer action, including anal, double anal, blowjobs, rough sex, cream pies, gangbangs, bukkake, and prehistoric celebrity love.


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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Sat Dec 12, 2015 12:55 am

Shkreli just can't stay out of the news, with new plans to raise the price of a drug by an insane amount.

The drug in question is typically used in South America to treat a parasitic infection which can cause heart failure if left untreated and currently costs approximately from $50-$100 for a course of treatment in South America. The problem occurs rarely in the US as the parasite is not native to North America (patients are almost always recent immigrants who were infected in South or Central America) and is provided free in the US as it has never been approved by the FDA. Shkreli plans to get FDA approval and then sell the drug in the US for $60,000 to $100,000 per course of treatment. The article points out that this may not materialize (the drug needs to be approved for use in the US) and may just be something of a dodge to re-sell the drug permits to another company, but lol, oh man, this guy.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby McDohl » Sun Dec 13, 2015 4:54 am


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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby zaratustra » Mon Dec 14, 2015 5:48 am

Yeah, good luck for him. Brazil, at least, doesn't give a fuck about breaking patents for life-saving medicine.

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:14 pm

I don't think he's trying it down there. This new scheme only applies to the US (or presumably other countries outside of South America, but I can only imagine that as rare as this condition in in the US, it's far rarer in say, Norway).
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Thad » Wed Dec 16, 2015 7:19 pm

Thad wrote:Well, yes, but "Oh come on, I was just messin' with you guys, and you fell for it" is also something stupid people say when they get caught saying and doing stupid things.


Case in point: Turing’s Shkreli on drug price-hike: “It gets people talking… that’s what art is”

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