If a company is aware that a new drug could cure a previously managed disease, it’s pretty obvious that you’d like to be the one pocketing any available profits before a competitor does. The conspiracy only works to the extent that nobody else in the world could create the same drug, and that every person aware of its existence is prepared to keep it secret and lose out on the money to be made selling it.
> that nobody else in the world could create the same drug
Could create it and make a profit selling it.
If the cure generates less profit than current treatment, and if you’re currently selling treatment, then that’s not going to be worth it for you.
If you don’t, well you still need to get it to market, which requires substantial investment.
My point is that the described scenario is not entirely unlikely. For example, type 1 diabetics in the US need something like $600 worth of insulin, every single month for the rest of their lives. Say that’s 60 years, you’re looking at $430k, not even counting needles, sensors, and other stuff they might need (or absolutely need). Average patients won’t be able to cough up nearly as much for a cure.
Pharma has just been way faster than tech in realizing that the subscription model has far better yields.
In reality, a company will look at the cure and know that it will end the market in management. They will also understand that whoever brings the cure to market first will take the majority of the profits, and the other will just lose. A company will not refrain from selling a cure to protect the market share of its competitors.
Your idea only works if you believe there is a global conspiracy of businesses and scientists who all agree to embargo research into cures, and who are all willing to forgo any profits on the cure while also recognizing any scientist and company not in their conspiracy could wipe out their profits at any time.
Let me repeat. If treatment brings in more profit than cure, and you and your competitors have a treatment, then it is in none of your interests to bring out the cure, since anyone who does it would reduce their own profit besides killing that of their competitors.
There is no "global conspiracy" required at all. Not actively doing research towards reducing your own profit is enough.
Outsiders could theoretically come in, yes. But the hurdles are huge for biotech startups, and of course the established players are lobbying to keep it this way, so I won't be holding my breath. It's different from the tech world.
Any business who followed your logic would be then vulnerable to the first competitor who was willing to sell the cure instead. To prevent that from happening, it would take a global conspiracy of every company who could develop said drug, along with the complicity of every scientist who knew about said research and who would be tempted to develop or leak its it themselves.
Established players have no incentive to fund the research and every incentive to keep the difficulty of curing illnesses at scale high to keep new players out.
There is no need for a global conspiracy. Just a little lobbying.
Short selling doesn’t actually help with price discovery as it can artificially inflate or deflate the stock price in ways that buying and selling doesn’t. Knowing something is 55.54$ not 55.55$ isn’t nearly as important as knowing it’s around 55$ not 155$, thus if anything short selling is harmful to price discovery.
We show that stock prices are more accurate when short sellers are more active. First, in a large panel of NYSE-listed stocks, intraday informational efficiency of prices improves with greater shorting flow. Second, at monthly and annual horizons, more shorting flow accelerates the incorporation of public information into prices. Third, greater shorting flow reduces post-earnings-announcement drift for negative earnings surprises. Fourth, short sellers change their trading around extreme return events in a way that aids price discovery and reduces divergence from fundamental values. These results are robust to various econometric specifications, and their magnitude is economically meaningful.
I was making a different point, yes on most days it’s a net positive. But, it’s also introducing new black swan events like a short squeeze where the price becomes wildly disconnected from the underlying economic reality.
It’s often argued that a small increase on most days is more important than large but rare inaccuracies, however it’s a question of how you’re measuring things. If you use a direct average vs square root of the sum of inaccuracies squared etc.
The stock market is inflated by an abundance of capital which very much represents the underlying economic reality. It’s not representative of the broader economy simply because many industries like higher education is massively underrepresented.
However, once you accept those exceptions I think it’s surprisingly accurate.
I saw a picture on Reddit of a wall stacked high with 3060’s. In the comments, the poster mentioned he placed a bulk order, the downside was it took a while.
It probably took a while for the person on Reddit to get their order because they got it from a distributor who was filling all of their higher priority customers first. I bet Dell isn't even getting theirs from a distributor, I'd guess they get them directly from the manufacturer. There's a hierarchy to retail sales, and I'm sure even large miners aren't near the top of it.
Yup. I imagine it's similar to the inventory shortfalls ledger experienced a few years ago during the cryptocurrency price runup. I made a nice chunk of change placing bulk orders from Ledger, waiting a month for them to ship, and forwarding them to Amazon to resell.
If you cannot see the conflict interest here then there is a big problem.
You cannot have people responsible for policy also being paid by organisations that they are meant to oversee. The biggest thing that keeps a democracy a democracy is trust in institutions. The last two decades we have lost an immense amount of trust in our institutions, and it is going to be very difficult to get it back. Speaking fees of $800 000 for former public servants and public servants to be anointed does not help.
I have a hard time reconciling the fact you claim to be making a dispassionate analysis, and yet cannot find a single accomplishment of Janet Yellen that would merit her being an in-demand speaker, except her ability to ‘direct government largesse’. If you were trying to make a sincere argument, I suspect you’d find a few reasons people would value her ideas.
> being an in-demand speaker, except her ability to ‘direct government largesse’
She was a decent economist. Her work not associated with politics ended as the 20th century was in the rearview mirror. Take a look at her bibliography[1]. The interesting non-proceedings/non-Fed papers end in the 90s.
There are many other economists who are just as good (i.e. capable of talking at length in sleep inducing tone without providing any deep insight but making general statements about topics that sound like they should be interesting). No one pays them a bazigillion bucks to read their policy papers out loud.
What evidence do you have that she gets paid the bucks due to her attributes as a speaker?
That’s not the only reason to hear her opinions, but among the group that can afford to pay those fees, her ability to direct largess is their most important reason.
African-American culture is most certainly not Anglo-Saxon. It’s actual roots in the African diaspora and the Caribbean, and there are entire communities, like the Gullah of the Carolinian coasts, that have preserved their culture and language since the diaspora began. The most noticeable elements of African-American culture have been adopted into Anglo-Saxon culture, they don’t come from it. American culture predominantly descends from Anglo-Saxon culture, but it’s distinct.
Well, I was born in the Caribbean and much of my family is actually culturally Caribbean, and I much disagree with that.
The African-American does not eat Caribbean food; he does not listen to Caribbean music; he does not practice Caribbean traditional festivals, does not dress in Caribbean clothes.
I definitely feel that you draw this association purely because you think of Caribbeans as dark-skinned; it is a very different culture.
The African-American in general eats Anglo-Saxon food; he listens to Anglo-Saxon music; he celebrates Christmas and Easter; and he dresses in Anglo-Saxon clothing.
I know expat Jamaican and Dominican communities in New York that celebrate festivals yearly. I ate jerk chicken with red beans and rice last week, I don’t think that was an Anglo-Saxon invention, nor was chitlins, collard greens or other dishes. And we don’t listen to Anglo-Saxon music, as African American music isn’t descended from anglo-Saxon music at all. The fact that it’s been widely adopted in Anglo-Saxon culture doesn’t mean that they claim it’s origins at all. Gospel music and hymns do not come from Anglo-Saxon culture at all, nor does jazz, rap or blues. Gullah culture isn’t Anglo-Saxon, nor is the creole language and culture practiced around New Orleans and Louisiana. Trying to label African-American culture as Anglo-Saxon erases most of the actual history, which again comes from the African diaspora. Mexican-American culture doesn’t become ‘Anglo-saxon’ just because they now live in America and can speak English.
>I ate jerk chicken with red beans and rice last week, I don’t think that was an Anglo-Saxon invention, nor was chitlins, collard greens or other dishes.
No, but those latter aren't carribean or african either. They are african-american, created in the US (and for specific historical circumstances, including food price concerns, and local food availability).
As for "jerk chicken" that's just an imported popular dish. Carribeans do eat it, but you aren't carribean for eating it any more than you're Mexican for eating mexican..
> I know expat Jamaican and Dominican communities in New York that celebrate festivals yearly.
And I would not call those Anglo-Saxon as they are actual expats of a different ethnicity and recent-generation immigrants?
That you even consider those comparable to Anglo-Saxon African-Americans that are not recent immigrants but have lived in the U.S.A.. from six generations back is baffling to me.
> nor is the creole language and culture practiced around New Orleans and Louisiana.
Nor would I call those Anglo-Saxon.
You seem to cast very different populations, that speak very different languages and have very different cultural practices, in the same bucket, simply because of a shared skin color.
There are indeed populations of any color in the U.S.A. that are decidedly not Anglo-Saxon. I would no more call recent black Jamaican immigrants Anglo-Saxon than I would recent white Italian immigrants, but the vast majority of population of any color in the U.S.A. is decidedly Anglo-Saxon and has been nurtured within an Anglo-Saxon milieu for generations.
I’m telling you that black people in America have a culture that is descended from a lot of sources, and you cannot just simplify it as Anglo-Saxon, again because such a wide swath comes from the African diaspora that ignoring that means ignoring its most noticeable aspects. Gospel, jazz, blues, and rap are not descended from any Anglo-Saxon musical tradition, nor are our dances, or many of our foods.
American culture is largely descended from Anglo-Saxon culture, but that doesn’t transitively mean that all American culture is now Anglo-Saxon. The pockets of non Anglo-Saxon culture are not recent additions to black culture, they’ve been intact and distinct throughout their history. The Gullah people are American, not an expat community.
> I’m telling you that black people in America have a culture that is descended from a lot of sources, and you cannot just simplify it as Anglo-Saxon, again because such a wide swath comes from the African diaspora that ignoring that means ignoring its most noticeable aspects. Gospel, jazz, blues, and rap are not descended from any Anglo-Saxon musical tradition, nor are our dances, or many of our foods.
I looked up the origin of Gospel on Wikipedia; it seems to stem from Gaelic sources and the first composers thereof were white.
As for Jazz: “Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century as interpretations of American and European classical music entwined with African and slave folk songs and the influences of West African culture.[32] Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre.”
Perhaps there are some West-African elements to it, but I find the music to sound very European in terms of structure, also using mostly European instruments.
Jazz at the end of the day is played with the piano, the European drum kit characterized by the cymbal, the guitar, the cello, and the tuba. — whatever West-African elements it has seem to be played up, again for racial reasons.
This is one of the make disappointing comments I’ve read on HN in awhile. You are literally admitting to being ignorant on the issues being discussed (“I looked up”) and justifying incorrect conclusions based on the results of immature, inaccurate research.
Do you realize the depth of the topics you’re making these claims about?
>This is one of the make disappointing comments I’ve read on HN in awhile. You are literally admitting to being ignorant on the issues being discussed (“I looked up”) and justifying incorrect conclusions based on the results of immature, inaccurate research.
Do you have better sources? Because I'm quite well informed in those areas, and I mostly agree with the parent, as do all scholars.
I detest this attempt to deny historical people of their creative capacity. You are acting as if the cultures of modern times are simple antecedents of cultures from the fall of the Roman Empire.
To back up your claim of jazz being "European", please source a European that composed with blues scale, jazz chords, and swing before African Americans.
>To back up your claim of jazz being "European", please source a European that composed with blues scale, jazz chords, and swing before African Americans.
Those jazz chords are descended and altered from traditional european harmony though, themselves, not sole descendants some African musical tradition (which didn't use such harmonies).
As were the instruments themselves (trumpets, trombones, saxophones, pianos, etc.)
Jazz was a mix of African-American vocal music and musical idioms (with a US-localized trhough over African origin) with european harmony, marching band music, and other forms.
>African-American culture is most certainly not Anglo-Saxon. It’s actual roots in the African diaspora and the Caribbean
Roots lost in time and declining though. In modern times it's Anglo-saxon, or African-American-Anglo-Saxon, but have little to nothing to do with Africa or the Caribbean.
If you put an African or Carribean and a African-American there are little cultural traits they share (cultural as in everyday life, outlook, worldview, etc. - African-Americans might still carry some traces of e.g. African music in the modern music they produce). But even eg. food is totally different.
One possible candidate drug I’ve read quite a bit about but have not seen anything on HN about is high-dose melatonin, and even typical melatonin use is associated with a lower chance of testing positive. There’s a bunch of papers discussing how it _could_ be useful, there are several studies underway but none have been completed yet.
