Economics Questions

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Andy Wessel — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:45:26 GMT

This is perhaps the best (and only) reason to engage the "enemy".

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Justin Spahr-Summers — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:50:27 GMT

Giant_Joe:
Andrew Cain:

Facebook discussion is nothing more then a cramped space of self-appointed know it alls who like breathing their hot breath in your face.

Pretty much why I stick to people who have known to have had an open mind from time to time. I usually ignore the rest, and the noise goes away. :)

I even find it beneficial to debate with closed-minded people sometimes, as long as you can keep your cool and stick to sound, logical arguments. Staying away from ad hominems (especially when your opponent is using them) and debating effectively goes a long way toward igniting curiosity and thought in anyone who happens to be caught reading it. In other words, don't consider just who you're debating, but also who may end up reading the debate.

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Giant_Joe — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:34:31 GMT

Andrew Cain:

Facebook discussion is nothing more then a cramped space of self-appointed know it alls who like breathing their hot breath in your face.

Pretty much why I stick to people who have known to have had an open mind from time to time. I usually ignore the rest, and the noise goes away. :)

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Andrew Cain — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:22:27 GMT

Facebook discussion is nothing more then a cramped space of self-appointed know it alls who like breathing their hot breath in your face.

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Giant_Joe — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:11:39 GMT

Jason:

I'm reading all these Facebook comments, and it's cracking me up. Great job Steve.

I decided to read it to.

People don't realize taxation is theft. Knowing this fact, the cries of people asking for the government funding to fund research on a disease they have is akin to saying "I want X, and I'll have Y steal it for me"

Why does one person or group's suffering take precedence over the suffering of some people who are silent, or who don't have the political power to steal for their own ends?

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Jason — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:58:59 GMT

I'm reading all these Facebook comments, and it's cracking me up. Great job Steve.

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Giant_Joe — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:33:25 GMT

McDuffie:

ama gi:
Which brings me to question two, or why the hell you feel the need to debate people on facebook, of all places. Personally, I have a facebook account, but I have NEVER once used it to promote some variety of market liberalism or engage in a tirade like the one I just did. My facebook account, after all, has my real name and photograph, and friends who know me personally. Mises.org is a much safer place to have this kind of discussion, away from the prying eyes of girlfriends or potential employers.

????

I take the opposite approach. What's the point in believing in something if you won't stick to it? I have many people on my facebook account and I'm always bashing statism and interventionism. It's probably lost me a few "Friends" but it's been worth it. I've gathered the attention of a few people from time to time and got them to think or be skeptical here and there. I'm not embarrassed or afraid to be who I am.

So I'm not the only one who has been called names by people I personally know. ;) They usually back down and concede things when you show you've put much more thought into the subject than they have. Although there are a couple marxists who I just can't knock any sense into... they use phrases like "unemployed worker" lol.

LoyalistRevolt:

Again in this realm of research you can't use and economic analogy.

Most research has been performed and has progressed through a capitalist process. Namely: find a solution to a problem and provide the solution at a benefit to yourself. How much of our tax dollars should go to X? 10%? 100%? Oh? Less than 100%? You're heartless. QED

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

McDuffie — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:01:27 GMT

LoyalistRevolt:

McDuffie:

LoyalistRevolt:

McDuffie:

LoyalistRevolt:

Ever heard of march of dimes? It was an an agency created when Roosevelt was in office to find a polio vaccination for children. Funded Jonas Salk who was the creator of the vaccinations.

The March of Dimes is not an agency. It is a charity. Politicians, including FDR, encouraged their constituents to donate to the March of Dimes. This does not, in any sense, amount to government funding.

but who helps support march of dimes?

http://www.marchofdimes.com/855_8891.asp

That the March of Dimes is funded by government today is irrelevant to the point being discussed here.

http://www.amazon.com/First-Vaccine-Milestones-Modern-Science/dp/083685862X

I can't find my copy so I can't really quote any of it but I can paraphrase, describes how the polio vaccine was so obviously funded by the government not entirely though, which is what I said in my original post. I'll look for it some more and see If I can get you some facts.

If I am wrong, I want to know. I appreciate your effort.

Don't you think that there would have been at least one single news story on google news archives between 1938 and 1951 about the government subsidizing March of Dimes if it had actually happened? I would say yes, yet I turned up no such story, and I read all of them.

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

LoyalistRevolt — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:33:39 GMT

McDuffie:

LoyalistRevolt:

McDuffie:

LoyalistRevolt:

Ever heard of march of dimes? It was an an agency created when Roosevelt was in office to find a polio vaccination for children. Funded Jonas Salk who was the creator of the vaccinations.

The March of Dimes is not an agency. It is a charity. Politicians, including FDR, encouraged their constituents to donate to the March of Dimes. This does not, in any sense, amount to government funding.

but who helps support march of dimes?

http://www.marchofdimes.com/855_8891.asp

That the March of Dimes is funded by government today is irrelevant to the point being discussed here.

http://www.amazon.com/First-Vaccine-Milestones-Modern-Science/dp/083685862X

I can't find my copy so I can't really quote any of it but I can paraphrase, describes how the polio vaccine was so obviously funded by the government not entirely though, which is what I said in my original post. I'll look for it some more and see If I can get you some facts.

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

G8R HED — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:27:27 GMT

Kakugo:
There were even talks of "cancer vaccines" for some particular tumors. Forty years later all that's left is a dubious and potentially harmful vaccine against Human Papilloma Virus (HPV): it's supposed to prevent radically reduce risk of cervical cancer in women if administered at an early age but given the fact medical trials have been run on adult subjects this claim has been often questioned.

Kakugo -

What if complete prevention of most common 'male' and 'female' cancers were as simple as bioidentical hormones? What if that option already exists?

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

G8R HED — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:15:55 GMT

McDuffie -

Rothbard's shoe example is a good illustration of today's medical monopoly. The medical monopoly is hell-bent on manufacturing the means - drugs - to treat diseases. Unfortunately, the misguided results only address the symptoms, not root causes.

In the case of diseases like lupus, root causes could be treatable without doctors or drugs. The body is programmed to heal. Treat the root causes and the body will heal itself.

Point being - drugs do not cure root causes. They only mask physical imbalances in a shroud of empirical opinion to benefit a priviledged monopoly.

As individuals we have lost sight of the difference between those who doctor and those who heal.

The distinction is between one who has accumulated the necessary tools to rescue an injured individual from threat of death or permanent disability and one who is able to empower individuals with the ability to self-heal.

Lupus is an auto-immune disorder. Auto-immune disorders are most often related to allegies like type II food allergies or allegies to persons or objects. A person can even become allergic to their own body or substances it produces. There are effective treatments available to permanently ELIMINATE those allergies by changing diet, balancing body energy, and/or 're-programming' the brain to eliminate the root cause of the allergies.

I refer specifically to those practioners, many of whom are both holistic and AMA PHD"S, who utilize and practice non-conventional health care and preventive medicine. Preventive medicine can cure existing allergies and even some auto-immune disorders. There is also a treatment commonly referred to as "NAET" which reprograms the body to eliminate the cause of auto-immune disorders. "NAET" is an acronym for Namibudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques.

It could be that these alternative treatments would benefit, perhaps even cure the lupus patients you referred to. Have they tried alternative medicine or treatments? If not, they by appealing to a medical monopoly for drugs, perhaps they are simply barking up the wrong tree.

Ultimately, an individual is responsible for seeking, acquiring, and utilizing their own tools to manage their own health. There is no harm or shame in asking for help in the search for these tools or knowledge. The harm occurs when others are forced to pay for your own condition or actions.

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Jon Irenicus — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:41:13 GMT

To be honest there would be no real growth in the medical field out government and you can only get so far just thinking. People don't realize that knowledge is expensive and time consuming and no other entity has the kind of money and time that government has.

To be honest, I don't really care what your opinion is on the matter because it's a hollow assertion.

Again in this realm of research you can't use and economic analogy.

Because?

Nothing many come of research or the next cure for cancer could be found its really up in the air. You should be more worried about free-market companies funding scientists then filling the reports with bogus information in order to sell their product but that another thing entirely, and this does happen often my father is a biologist and is constantly asked by companies to fudge his data so that a product can look better or that a chemical does not look as harmful.

That's nice, but this is anecdotal 'evidence', does not really account for the fact that fudging data is fraud (which should be prosecuted, wonder why it isn't eh?) nor does it account for the fact scientists too are driven by economic motives, given that their jobs largely are contingent on the research they perform, and by this I mean academics. No, I should still be worried about the government as the biggest fraud of them all and no amount of whining you do will change the fact that funding by the government is as if not more susceptible to corruption as research by individuals.

Tell that to robin hood.

Why?

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Praetyre — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:21:49 GMT

LoyalistRevolt:
[Snipped lines about it not being a monetary matter]

It is a monetary matter whether you like it or not. Money does not grow on trees, and funding for scientific research has to come from somewhere. It can either come from private investment and charitable donation, in which case it remains accountable to the donaters/shareholders/customers etc. or it can be doled out by bureaucratic officials entrusted with government money, in which case it will go to whoever these bureaucratic officials believe it should go. The former will result in people being far more careful and competent in their research, given the fact that if they foul up, they run the risk of losing funding. There is a much lower risk of losing funding under government studies, especially if such studies are politically useful to the ruling regime (such as the IPCC, Soviet "science" where scientists were given conclusions and tasked into proving the conclusions and "scientific" studies showing politically conservative people are less intelligent than politically left wing people).

In essence, customers, shareholders and donaters are spending their own money. Bureaucrats are simply alloting out funds arbitrarily distributed to them by other bureaucrats.

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Seph — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:09:27 GMT

LoyalistRevolt:
and this does happen often my father is a biologist and is constantly asked by companies to fudge his data so that a product can look better or that a chemical does not look as harmful.

Ever heard of climate gate?

Re: Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

McDuffie — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:57:30 GMT

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