Economics Questions

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Autolykos — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 18:30:17 GMT

Why should I listen to you about anything?

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Coase — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:06:08 GMT

Right. Ok. Apparently my tone at the beginning really through everyone off, so I'm redoing this more seriously. Autolykos, please wait until I say or even imply something to infer it. Also, cut with your queer obsession over the word "puny."

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Autolykos — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 15:45:53 GMT

aervew:
the effect of use of antibiotics has massive externalities, as its impossible to enforce property rights over bacteria. hence in a NAP world it is impossible to prevent antibiotics' deterioration.

It may well be impossible to prevent antibiotics' deterioration in a non-NAP world, too. Either way, there's no certainty here.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

aervew — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 15:27:35 GMT

the effect of use of antibiotics has massive externalities, as its impossible to enforce property rights over bacteria. hence in a NAP world it is impossible to prevent antibiotics' deterioration.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Autolykos — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 14:46:36 GMT

Coase:
No. You explain why you care why I called the market "puny", or else drop it.

Let's try this again. Please explain exactly why you decided to use the word "puny" as an adjective before the word "market". I couldn't care less whether you were "totally joking".

Obviously, I'm not following your orders, and I'm also not dropping it. What now?

Coase:
I said nothing of what you attributed to me regarding the argument you think I'm making (I have not made an argument yet).

No, you haven't explicitly said anything. But as far as I can tell, you have said plenty of things implicitly.

Coase:
Frankly, you seem defensive.

And? Is that a crime? Perhaps I'm defensive because you're coming off as incredibly snide and sarcastic. This whole thread seems to be intended by you to make a mockery of free-market advocacy.

Coase:
I appreciate your honest [sic] at the end though. What would you say to a proposal to tax the use of antibiotics?

Are you asking me whether I'd support such a thing? Of course I wouldn't. Do you really even have to ask?

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

vive la insurrection — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 09:01:56 GMT

Tell me, gentlemen, how would your puny free markets handle stuff like this?

The way you phrased the question, it can't - and that is the point. The catagory of "free market handeling something" is a metaphor and can not be applied to scientific thought. To think of capitalism in more scientific terms; it is best to think of it as a word limiter like: atheism, naturalism, materialism, egoism, determinism, etc. It is sort of a univeraly applicable "non thing" that tries to untangle nonsense from sense.

All other "theories" are not universal languages and/or sciences when speaking of market phenomena - they are practiced art (much like law) manegment theories that can not be rationally discussed or thought of; this would not only include things like Keynesianism and Socialism, but "free market solutions" as well. Also behind all these managment theories - and the only reason why any of them could "solve" (to use a generous term) any "problem" is due to an effective free market mechanism that is already in place - without which they would be impotent against the externality.

That stated: it is very important to consider expectsations when bringing up such a problem. People are working and making calculations within a real environment, you wouldn't abolish the apparatus at hand in this type of situation - that is just insane. But the fact still remains, the more affluent the culture the better the odds of dealing with major problems like this (this is probably even inherent in the definition itself)- the only way to achieve affluence is via the market mechanism.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Coase — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 06:14:12 GMT

Thank you for the highly relevant and productive contribution, James.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

James — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 06:02:33 GMT

Every murderer kills so that he and his friends may outnumber his enemies in future.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Coase — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:59:42 GMT

Yeah. Taxing negative externalities. Totally what Hayek was talking about.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

James — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:57:32 GMT

It's more likely that a group of people wrote Shakespeare's plays than one guy =/

Lol, so I've heard. Shakespeare Inc.

Of course the tax will kill people. The whole point is to raise the cost of using antibiotics so that even more people don't die.

I think this is where the term "fatal conceit" comes from.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Coase — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:47:01 GMT

James,

Of course the tax will kill people. The whole point is to raise the cost of using antibiotics so that even more people don't die.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Em_ptySkin — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:27:17 GMT

It's more likely that a group of people wrote Shakespeare's plays than one guy =/

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

James — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:21:41 GMT

If there are people building these things on purpose, then that's a more likely scenario than it happening by accident, even if that's not entirely impossible. It's more likely that Shakespeare wrote his plays than a thousand monkey's at a thousand typewriters.

Why tax antibiotics instead of ban them? You think the rich should be saved? You think it will discourage objectively 'less important' uses of antibiotics, like treating canine acne say, while allowing objectively 'more important' ones, like treating kids with pneumonia? It won't. That's not how economics works. It will kill people. The tax you're proposing would be a form of murder.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

Coase — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 04:56:51 GMT

F. Externality created by antibiotics use.

Re: Superbugs--you know, the ones that eat antibiotics for breakfast

James — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 04:52:45 GMT

Tax, not ban.

What is that going to achieve?

There is another side to this...

There is a 'superbug' - an E. coli strain that is mysteriously mutatated to resist all major commercial applications of antibiotics.

Where did it most likely come from?

A: A head of lettuce in Belgium

B: Al-Qaeda

C: The devil

D: One of the many government bioweapons research labs, where they intentionally expose bugs to antibiotics in a controlled environment, specifically to create things like this...

Maybe we wouldn't have this problem in the first place if the government didn't have so much money to spend on our own good.