CraigM
4722
All I can say to the person positing that the Japanese internment camps of WWII were a good thing, and not a grave national embarrasment, you’re an idiot.
One of the most unconstitutional actions ever done, a great shame on our nation, and they think it was a good idea. Christ.
We had to do something with those people! We couldn’t just have them walking around free and contributing to the war effort or the economy like everyone else, right?
Scuzz
4724
My father grew up near Santa Barbara. He enlisted in the Navy when WW2 started. One of his best friends ended up in an internment camp, his family basic lost everything. Anyway, his mother, my grandmother never forgave the “Japanese” for WW2. He hated them, but she had no trouble being friends with the Japanese family that owned the local store in the 70’s or the Japanese vet who for 20 years took care of her dogs.
I never asked her how she felt about the internment camps. I have no idea how she would have felt about them.
What? For one thing, Apple is legendarily profitable and a massive outlier. For another, you’re comparing Apple’s gross to pharma net.
What’s weird is that the guy applauding the camps is 45, not 75 or 85. He’s my age. He doesn’t have some holdover memory of “The Japs” in WWII as an excuse. How the fuck do you come out in 2016 saying the US internment caps were a good thing?
And some of the other people they interviewed? What the fuck? Just be openly bigoted! Stop tiptoeing around and saying “but” when you condemn a whole race or religion. “I’m not saying all Muslims are bad, but…” Yeah, yeah. We get it. You’re an asshole. Just admit it.
Ugh. I remind myself that 1/2 the population has IQs under 100, but this still doesn’t explain it. I can understand why people are frustrated with political correctness and generally pissed of at politicians. However, these aren’t young people, even if you aren;t the sharpest tool in the shed, I would think just life experience, people would have met plenty of the blowhard braggart types who talk a good game, but actually don’t do shit. I am just astonished that older people don’t see through Tump’s BS.
This is depressing. I’m hoping the polls will be wrong.
Not sure where 71b comes from, but Apple earns a bit more than the pharma companies net.
https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/q4fy15_1.jpg
Scuzz
4729
It’s like any of the “man on the street” type interviews where they can find people who will say just about any stupid thing they want them to. My local conservative talk station loves to start segments with some guy getting “crazy liberals” to say stupid things. Most the time they are just stupid people.
Scuzz
4730
Some people respect wealth. Add that to a guy running for office “from the outside” who actually says what he means and he becomes attractive. That still doesn’t explain why after repeatedly saying stupid things his bubble hasn’t burst yet though.
I had predicted he would be gone shortly after the first primaries, if not just before. Now…I see him winning the nomination.
Timex
4731
Honestly, I’ve been seeing that older people are the MOST susceptible to this bullshit.
I think part of it stems from not being able to as easily use the internet for access to information, and a greater willingness to believe what folks on TV tell them. I tend to believe virtually nothing, and can trivially fact check stuff on the internet. I search the internet a billion times a day for stuff. But my parents don’t.
If someone doesn’t know how to fact check stuff, you can lie to them. And that’s what Trump has based his stuff on.
a guy running for office “from the outside” who actually says what he means
That’s the thing that just continually blows my mind though.
Donald Trump clearly doesn’t say what he means, as the only consistent aspect of his message is that it’s totally inconsistent. If he actually meant what he said, presumably he wouldn’t say stuff that directly contradicts stuff he previously said.
(i.e. Megyn Kelly is a great moderator. Megyn Kelly is a lightweight bimbo.)
kedaha
4732
The top15 spend $66bn on r&d (which includes clinical trials) and $100bn on sales and marketing. It’s been well known in the industry that pure marketing spend overtook r&d spending over a decade ago. In most countries drug prices are agreed with a central agency, the vast majority of the sales&marketing is being spent in the US where the culture of legal kickbacks is well entrenched. There are countless cases of pharma companies hiring Doctors to give symposiums and talks on why their expensive prescription drug is clinically better than inexpensive generic competitor, or unmarketed cheaper competitor. Indeed, there have been many research studies on the psychology of Doctors who take these bribes and who in the face of clinical evidence that they aren’t superior, are able to convince themselves that they are better and that they aren’t simply shilling.
Pharma companies didn’t always spend 150% of the R&D cost on sales & marketing. In a Sanders style US healthcare system, they would spend far far less. That’s a saving that can be passed on to consumers without hurting the Pharma’s bottom line.
Again, you’re using “need” to bolster your argument. In a publicly traded company things you “need” aren’t the same as in a private company.
Note that I’m not against a single-payer system. I just think Sanders’ plan is unrealistically optimistic about the numbers.
Timex
4734
The top15 spend $66bn on r&d (which includes clinical trials) and $100bn on sales and marketing. It’s been well known in the industry that pure marketing spend overtook r&d spending over a decade ago.
But you say this like it matters, and that somehow if you just give them less money that the money will just come out of their marketing.
The reason they spend money on marketing is because they get more money back than they put into it. It’s not like it’s charity for advertising agencies.
If those companies stopped spending money on marketing tomorrow, their revenue would drop by MORE than that amount. That’s why they spend that money.
kedaha
4735
Need to bolster what argument?
That a new healthcare system in the US could negotiate cheaper prescription prices partly by pointing out that they would be able to significantly reduce their sales expenses as a result?
I wasn’t aware that businesses couldn’t negotiate.
kedaha
4736
Right. Because spending more on marketing = making a higher return. Right. That’s how it works. You seem to be desperately unaware that one of the key issues with marketing is finding it almost impossible to quantify return on marketing spend, and that the majority of businesses aren’t really sure of how to treat marketing spending.
Go do some basic googling before trying to lecture someone.
Timex
4737
You should tell all those guys that they are totally doing it wrong, and that their expenditures on marketing are in fact losing them money every year.
Because, clearly, your opinion is in fact more well informed than theirs. I’m sure they choose to invest their resources based on randomness.
Seriously, go tell them this. You could singlehandedly solve the entire problem. Why have you been keeping this wisdom to yourself?
A new shiny unicorn health care system could make puppies live forever and give everyone a real working time machine. Unfortunately, I think Bernie Sanders’ laughable “plan” is just as practical. Sure, in the fantasy land in which all of Bernie’s ideas become laws and all the numbers work out the way he thinks they will, Medicare could negotiate cheaper prescription prices by pointing out to the manufacturers that they don’t have to spend as much on sales. In this utopia, those companies would agree and reduce their prices to what everyone thinks is fair.
You do know that the first step would be that we need to make it legal for Medicare Part D to negotiate pricing, right? That even that first step is currently against the law?
He is simply parroting back something that Trump himself said. Ignorant of history and lacking the context to understand that the internment camps were both unconstitutional and morally wrong, he simply accepts them as a good idea because that’s what Trump has told him. It’s also worth noting that it’s an example of Nationalism. Anything the US has done is just because we are the US.
ShivaX
4740
Nationalism is the foundation of Fascism. We are the best, so whatever we do or have done was the right thing to do.
If Trump is elected President, then we will know that time travel is impossible.
