Election 2010: Health

[canveyshrimper]

The free market is the only sensible balance that exists. Once governments and special interests enter the fray, sense goes out of the window.

Isn't that nice Lord Drayson a case in point?

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

The free market is the only sensible balance that exists.

Hmm. Just like the free market did such a great job of the financial markets last year. If it weren't for government intervention, we'd be really screwed.

The free market isn't always the answer, because the free market does not operate perfectly (because it is operated by humans - some of whom will always look for opportunities to subvert / cheat the free market, since the human condition is ultimately defined by limited altruism).

Equally, leaving everything to the state usually sucks as well. There's a balance to be found - something which, in the UK, we've historically not been very good at finding.

Matt

 

[Pubey]

Let's get something in perspective. Pharmas spend cash and time developing drugs. Very few molecules make it to market. Those that do are copied and produced within seven years. Of course they should benefit from the risk they undertake in the R&D stage, and when the patents run out. Maybe an alternative sees them donate a % of the profit to charities etc...

Absolutely. I don't disagree at all.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Hmm. Just like the free market did such a great job of the financial markets last year. If it weren't for government intervention, we'd be really screwed.

The free market isn't always the answer, because the free market does not operate perfectly (because it is operated by humans - some of whom will always look for opportunities to subvert / cheat the free market, since the human condition is ultimately defined by limited altruism).

Equally, leaving everything to the state usually sucks as well. There's a balance to be found - something which, in the UK, we've historically not been very good at finding.

Matt

It wasn't the free market that screwed the economy. Do you really think market forces were responsible for the sub-prime mortgage collapse? No, it was government intervention - pressure from the Clinton administration to lend money to people who were plainly incapable of repaying it.

 

[osymandus]

It wasn't the free market that screwed the economy. Do you really think market forces were responsible for the sub-prime mortgage collapse? No, it was government intervention - pressure from the Clinton administration to lend money to people who were plainly incapable of repaying it.

Well yes. The collected mortgages from bad debtors in the states were sold as fund's to the Japanese markets.

While Clinston's administration paved the way for the morgages to happen , the bank's still had their own say in who to lend to .