Good Morning America, how are you ...

[Highlander]

WOW...! I wonder how may lawyers that kept employed...?

Ken, the singer that I've been working with recently is living proof that even Auto Tune cant make some things right. 

(chuckles from the UK)

Let's please stay away from foreign policy. Thanks.

I wantsa to staya away from the Foreign Politzia, too... 

[Freuds_Cat]

One thing I wonder about; U.S. based companies seem to develop a dis-proportionately large amount of helpful drugs and medical advances that are used worldwide (note: I didn't claim all). What happens when the profit incentive (which pays for those developments) is removed from the equation?

Interestingly (or not) countries like Aust and NZ constantly complain because our best and brightest head off to the US due to the lure of the big bucks offered by the US Pharma co's rather than staying here and working doing the same jobs but for less. Thats not to say these are low paid jobs just not in the same ballpark as whats on offer in the US.

I guess paying the bigger bucks means passing that expense ultimately back down to the consumer.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Just to put things in perspective in the order of profitability, not necessarily overall revenue, the top three in the US are as follows: pharmaceuticals, oil, and financial services. See a pattern?

BTW, in regards to the US leaving its agrarian past behind prior to FDR, before WWII, 80% of the country lived on farms.

Edit: one day I may learn to type and spell properly

Doh!!

[Pilgrim]

TheWWII GI Bill was a major factor in transforming this country.  The returning GIs went to college or otherwise shifted their goals from the farm to the city.  I'm not familiar with FDRs role in that particular legislation, but I doubt that he was solely responsible for it.

I was pleased to see educational benefits for our current soldiers - I teach some of them in my online course. My own opinion is that service to the country fully justifies support in gaining a better education.

[Lightyear]

TheWWII GI Bill was a major factor in transforming this country.  The returning GIs went to college or otherwise shifted their goals from the farm to the city.  I'm not familiar with FDRs role in that particular legislation, but I doubt that he was solely responsible for it.

I was pleased to see educational benefits for our current soldiers - I teach some of them in my online course. My own opinion is that service to the country fully justifies support in gaining a better education.

I would have thought that the GI bill would have been Truman's baby being as he was in office when the war ended.  Regardless, the GI bill was a good thing then and it's a good thing now - it's the least we can do for our vets.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

More important to departing from agriculture than the GI Bill was the industrial development that accompanied things like CCC's and TVA, programs instituted under the New Deal. Even in the Manhattan Project's workers, the vast majority were not college graduates. It was foresight into developing then-untapped or ignored resources and investing in raising the quality of life for the population in general that led to America's postwar prosperity.

For the past thirty years, the average American worker has been seeing a steady decline in quality of life to the point that "Generation X" will be the first in US history to have a lower standard of living than its Boomer parents. This has occurred for various reasons, but most of them were results of federal deregulation of industry, anti-union labor laws, and a rising disparity between taxation of middle-class workers versus that of the affluent. My personal view is that the health care law, however flawed it may be, is an attempt to stem that tide somewhat in a manner similar to civil rights legislation, incrementally.

[drbassman]

If the government tries to control drug prices, new drug innovation will dwindle and nothing significant will be developed after awhile.  It's just the way the world works.  Ninety percent of all drug and technological advances in medicine ceom from researchers here in the US.  Why?  The development is driven by profit incentives.  It's that simple, like the free market or not.

If there's no incentive to make money, why would companies develop any product?  And don't expect that government will step in and develop new drugs.  They can't even run the Post Office or Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac without billion dollar losses.  For all you folks with kids getting ready for college, expect more government efficiencies when you apply for student loans.  Another impending government loan disaster.......................

[Lightyear]

Well said Doc!

For all of it warts capitalism is the engine that drives the American economy, or should I say was the engine tha........

[Pilgrim]

If the government tries to control drug prices, new drug innovation will dwindle and nothing significant will be developed after awhile.  It's just the way the world works.  Ninety percent of all drug and technological advances in medicine ceom from researchers here in the US.  Why?  The development is driven by profit incentives.  It's that simple, like the free market or not.

I think you're right on target.  Somewhere in the product sales chain, there has to be enough profit generated to fund the development of new products.  In the case of drugs, that's an incredibly expensive development process that can take many years and require multi-stage clinical trials with many participants.  Although I griped earlier about the fact that some less in-demand drugs don't get developed, it still seems to me that the US pharma industry is doing a pretty decent job of generating new drugs.  The new system can't afford to remove those commercial incentives.

[Chaser001]

Since people are saying so much about the pharma companies, I thought I would post this article.  I have a relative who has been in that industry for years and the layoffs have been brutal.

http://industry.bnet.com/pharma/10007022/pharma-layoff-stats-show-the-glory-days-of-drugs-wont-be-coming-back/

[Dave W]

The pharma companies' lobbyists wrote large portions of the health care bill relating to pharma companies. They aren't losing any sleep over it. They own the congressmen who voted for it.

The layoffs in the industry aren't due to this bill. Period.

[Chaser001]

The pharma companies' lobbyists wrote large portions of the health care bill relating to pharma companies. They aren't losing any sleep over it. They own the congressmen who voted for it.

The layoffs in the industry aren't due to this bill. Period.

Based on the incidental info I have encountered, I'd say the layoffs are due to the recession itself. 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

And don't expect that government will step in and develop new drugs.  They can't even run the Post Office or Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac without billion dollar losses.

No one expects the gubmint to make their pills for them. The fact of the matter is that drug companies make enormous profits and exaggerate their development costs whenever questioned for them. Their layoffs were profit-shoring, not survival, actions. Check the stock price of any of those companies.

As to the Post Office and Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac, you just provided fine examples of the problems of private enterprise underwritten, but very loosely overseen by the government; neither entity is under direct federal control. Had their loans been more closely scrutinized, Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac would have not have gotten into the mess they were in, but they followed the market instead of leading it and US taxpayers footed the bill. The Post Office is in a unique situation brought on more by an evolving market and slow response to challenges such as e-communication. UPS and FedEx also had tough years, but they have much more flexibility to innovate and as such, are doing fine. The Post Office is too monolithic to alter its practices that fast, though it should have forseen most of them and planned ahead.

Instead of making a case against government management, you just made a very strong one FOR it.

[Denis]

Man, I just read one of the craziest statements ever. In response to an exchange on another forum about the US economy, debt, deficit and the fact that a recent estimate claimed that around 47% of Americans will pay no federal income taxes for tax year 2009, a friend of mine just wrote, "The good thing (if there is such a thing) is that this is just all on paper and those numbers can change drastically through fiduciary changes and changes in the economy.  All without us actually having to pay money into that debt."

I'm nearly stunned into silence.

After reading it a few times I see now that statement is EXACTLY why and how so many people got in debt with credit cards; they failed to realize ore refused to believe it's actually money and that they WOULD be responsible for it, sooner or later. It also goes far to explain why Congress won't take a stand on some hard decisions and figure out ways to pay off our debt and work on our deficit.

[lowend1]

Long before the economy tanked, we were hearing how the top 5% of wage earners paid 75% of the income taxes or something like that -- so the 47% number doesn't surprise me.