Obama Approval Ratings Dip in New Poll

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

That is true - there's no incentive to develop commercial drug treatments or therapies that affect a few hundred (or a few thousand) people world wide. It isn't cost effective to spend millions of dollars developing cures for degenerative nerve or genetic diseases when there is no profitable return on the therapies.

Matt should be aware of this - apparently being a fan of Fight Club (which actually is less about libertarianism or anarchy, as pure nihilism). When Ed Norton's character explains that his job for a major auto manufacturer is essentially to assess whether a product recall is cost effective (or whether more money can be saved by eating lawsuits) that really isn't far from the truth.

Similarly Microsoft - who rush versions of windows to market without leaving enough time for code testing and with full knowledge that the products they are selling have huge security vulnerabilities. So we have Windows Vista which was cracked at the root level (there is no fix for that), not long after its intial release, necessitating a revised version in Windows 7, that you'll have to pay for yet again. Similar thing happened with the original iteration of Windows XP, which was notoriously unstable and prone to driver conflicts.

And yet - short of Linux (which a lot of commercial software applications don't support), and Apple - there is no viable alternative for computer operating systems. You essentially have little choice but to use Microsoft products.

Edited July 22, 2009 by Private Pike

[mRx 16]

I've never once taken the position that I thought the market economy was perfect. It's absolutely not.

I understand the vast capital it must take to develop a cure (or a start-up of anything, for that matter). But capital accumulation among many voluntary indivuduals lessens the cost on each individual. It's a sort of non-profit investment.

The non-profit movement for finding a cure for breast cancer is huge, and has invested over $1 Billion in the search for a cure.

I don't know what the US Government is doing with plundered tax dollars to find a cure for breast cancer, but I'd bet that this foundation is doing far more considering they're completely voluntary.

But you're right, I'm sure they're rare diseases that affect a miniscule portion of the population, in which resources cannot currently be diverted to. Isolating time, there's only a finite amount of resources on the planet. And there's an opportunity cost to each resource. This fact exists whether or not the government forcefully pools your money, or you voluntarily donate it. An entirely feasible scenario would be that say the US government decrees that 1,000 scientists be funded to search for a cure for Kuru.

These 1,000 scientists aren't just sprung into existence. They must be diverted from what they're currently studying. It's entirely possible that the work that they were doing, possibly on a disease that effects millions of people, was far more productive. In which case, we are led to a choice: work towards saving millions or saving hundreds.

But the point is, you must never forget what is forgone when resources are diverted.

The market's only constraint is the ability of human action. Human's are rather imperfect, therefore the market is not perfect. But until aliens with IQs in the thousands invade earth, and elevate our economy, it's the best economic structure available.