Dan Scanlan <[email protected]> wrote: > Pharmaceutical drugs are "illegal", too. Gotta get FDA approval, a doctor, a > pharmacist and an insurance provider to make them legal. Now there's a > cartel for you.
Again, definitions are a matter of convention. Most economists wouldn't call what an individual pharma company has a "cartel." It's a patent-based monopoly. To the extent that the FDA restricts the supply of so-called "ethical drugs," it's usually doing its job, i.e., keeping dangerous drugs off the market. But my impression is that FDA is often _too easy_ in approving them. That is, as part of being in cahoots with Big Pharma, they let stuff get on the market that shouldn't be on the market. That's not what a cartel does (as the vast majority of economists use that word). The pharmacist is simply facilitating the FDA's job, either restricting or distributing pharmaceuticals that should (or shouldn't) be on the market. As far as I know, pharmacists do not get together on a nationwide or world-wide basis to form a cartel (which under the standard economics definition works) to restrict the supply of drugs, conspiring in conjunction with the pharma companies or the FDA. Nor do insurance companies. I think I'll leave them aside, however, since I lack the time. Anyway, I guess I'll drop the idea that the Fed acts like a government-sponsored cartel in this venue. Not because it's wrong, but because people don't seem to agree on what's meant by the word "cartel." A lot of people seem to see it simply as an insult to throw at capitalists. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
