Just in case you were referring to me, you don't know whether everyone engaging you is a man or a woman. Also, nobody makes me drop any weapons, crude or otherwise, especially you.

 

You would have a good point if it had been the corn growers who had imposed the tariff. It was, however, the government.

I am not saying that agriculture generally, or the sweetener industry specifically, was somehow unregulated prior to sugar tariffs in the 1970s. I am saying that a bad regulatory decision by the government made things worse.

A free market does not imply that there is no government involved. But the taxes, regulations, and other impositions by the gov't should be set at the beginning and not constantly changed. The ability by regulators to rig the game--through inefficiency, stupidity, or corruption--is what screws up the market.

WW

 

I don't think that is quite as much of a slam dunk as you might. The government was already regulating drugs prior to thalidomide--at least since the new deal and I think back to the progressive era in the early 20th century. The drug industry was neither free nor unregulated when thalidomide was brought to market.

After thalidomide, the FDA got more money, more power. There are still FDA approved drugs that turn out badly--there was just an Avandia commercial on ESPN trolling for litigants. The FDA resticts or bans use of some cancer therapies because they haven't gone through the paperwork mill.

I'm not sure we are getting anything from the FDA that we couldn't get from a healthy tort industry (which we have) and a medical system that has good access to information.

WW

 

On July 16, 1998, the FDA approved the use of thalidomide for the treatment of lesions associated with Erythema Nodosum Leprosum (ENL). Because of thalidomide's potential for causing birth defects, the drug may be distributed only under tightly controlled conditions. The FDA required that Celgene Corporation, which planned to market thalidomide under the brand name Thalomid, establish a System for Thalidomide Education and Prescribing Safety (S.T.E.P.S.) oversight program. The conditions required under the program include limiting prescription and dispensing rights only to authorized prescribers and pharmacies, keeping a registry of all patients prescribed thalidomide, providing extensive patient education about the risks associated with the drug, and providing periodic pregnancy tests for women who take the drug.[34] On May 26, 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval for thalidomide (Thalomid, Celgene Corporation) in combination with dexamethasone for the treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (MM) patients.[35] The FDA approval came seven years after the first reports of efficacy in the medical literature[36] and Celgene took advantage of "off-label" marketing opportunities to promote the drug in advance of its FDA approval for the myeloma indication. Thalomid, as the drug is commercially known, sold over $300 million per year, while only approved for leprosy.

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There is virtually no possible way to predict all effects of any drug. That is why TV has a host of legal action commercials for the scourge of unknown drug effects and the scourge of the IRS.

The choice we have is not perfection through an all-knowing state or total failure of free markets.

No solution can ever get it completely right, the examples provided show the state more often gets it completly wrong.

 

An entire political movement born by violating the 10th Commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods".

This is not to say that those who hurt people while manipulating markets to acquire wealth are guiltless. Bottom line is two wrongs don't make a right.

 

My mistake, you never had any weapons, just a sad faith based belief system completely devoid of facts or logic.


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The Food and Drug Administration of the United States never licensed thalidomide for general use; according to Time Magazine, "In the half dozen reported U.S. cases of birth malformations due to thalidomide, the drug was obtained from abroad."[14] However, samples had been distributed to a number of physicians as part of a clinical trial, in which 20,000 patients in the U.S. received thalidomide. [15]

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Another failure by the rulemakers, sold as a great work for public safety.

Everyone makes mistakes, the sooner we stop thinking some group has all the answers and stop allowing ourselves to be coerced in our freedom of economic choice, the sooner we will all be better off.

 

 

Interesting graph ,save a few dollars now and pay later in higher medical costs due to the risks associated with obesity,etc.



Ally

 

It is a sad fantasy many believe that some group of people is capable of fixing all of our problems by denial of our economic freedom of choice. Won't work, never has and never will.




If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ~Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849

 

Of course the corn growers did not directly impose the tariff. However, the government doesn't act alone in such industry matters without the big money influence of said industry. Lobbying 101. Thanks again for making my point.


Again, regulators "rig the game" not without the influence of money.