Axulus
Veteran Member
Um, last I checked, the CEO is an employee who does things for the company.
Are you confusing the passive shareholders for the CEO?
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
- Thread starter lpetrich
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Um, last I checked, the CEO is an employee who does things for the company.
Are you confusing the passive shareholders for the CEO?
lpetrich
Contributor
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "
Surprise! I know more about West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky & Appalachian communities than they think I do, in no small part bc it’s a valued perspective to me & for coalition-building, so I have it *in my staff!* I suspect underestimating women is the GOP’s kryptonite.… https://t.co/ar0jsE7m8O" noting Waleed Shahid on Twitter: "Some minds about to be blown when people find out about @AOC’s communications director! Great conversation between @corbintrent and @chrislhayes. https://t.co/le3miUtQzr"
NowThis on Twitter: "‘Some things should not be for sale in this country.’ — @AOC is not about to let our veterans' health care be privatized by for-profit corporations… https://t.co/bYnfGCLfya"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "If Congress wants to #ProtectTheVA, we shouldn’t starve it + then sell it off for parts, forcing vets into for-profit emergency rooms + to providers who aren’t used to working w/their unique medical needs. We should fight to fully fund the VA + hire to fill its 49,000 vacancies.… https://t.co/eQXPxKEMkc" noting Christopher Shay on Twitter: "Last night, @AOC broke with most of the Democratic Party and offered a fierce defense of the VA, which is being chipped away by privatization: https://t.co/OtCO2wHNep"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Many know I take no pleasure in discussions of impeachment. I didn’t campaign on it, & rarely discuss it unprompted. We all prefer working on our priorities: pushing Medicare for All, tackling student loans, & a Green New Deal. But the report squarely puts this on our doorstep."
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The #GreenNewDeal is already changing the country. Here’s what folks didn’t see coming: just by *offering* the resolution to Congress, the ambitious text was made available to organizers+officials across the country. Now, local govs are taking action. First: LA. Today, NYC
… https://t.co/GTSIInYJDU"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Words cannot describe how proud I am of the grassroots organizers & officials (including Queens’ own @Costa4NY!) behind this momentous passage by the @NYCCouncil. (Upgrading our buildings to be cleaner and healthier creates a ton of dignified jobs, too.) https://t.co/tat8KTLUxL" noting New York City Council passes bill to cut building emissions
It's the Climate Mobilization Act
Surprise! I know more about West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky & Appalachian communities than they think I do, in no small part bc it’s a valued perspective to me & for coalition-building, so I have it *in my staff!* I suspect underestimating women is the GOP’s kryptonite.… https://t.co/ar0jsE7m8O" noting Waleed Shahid on Twitter: "Some minds about to be blown when people find out about @AOC’s communications director! Great conversation between @corbintrent and @chrislhayes. https://t.co/le3miUtQzr"NowThis on Twitter: "‘Some things should not be for sale in this country.’ — @AOC is not about to let our veterans' health care be privatized by for-profit corporations… https://t.co/bYnfGCLfya"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "If Congress wants to #ProtectTheVA, we shouldn’t starve it + then sell it off for parts, forcing vets into for-profit emergency rooms + to providers who aren’t used to working w/their unique medical needs. We should fight to fully fund the VA + hire to fill its 49,000 vacancies.… https://t.co/eQXPxKEMkc" noting Christopher Shay on Twitter: "Last night, @AOC broke with most of the Democratic Party and offered a fierce defense of the VA, which is being chipped away by privatization: https://t.co/OtCO2wHNep"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Many know I take no pleasure in discussions of impeachment. I didn’t campaign on it, & rarely discuss it unprompted. We all prefer working on our priorities: pushing Medicare for All, tackling student loans, & a Green New Deal. But the report squarely puts this on our doorstep."
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The #GreenNewDeal is already changing the country. Here’s what folks didn’t see coming: just by *offering* the resolution to Congress, the ambitious text was made available to organizers+officials across the country. Now, local govs are taking action. First: LA. Today, NYC
… https://t.co/GTSIInYJDU"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Words cannot describe how proud I am of the grassroots organizers & officials (including Queens’ own @Costa4NY!) behind this momentous passage by the @NYCCouncil. (Upgrading our buildings to be cleaner and healthier creates a ton of dignified jobs, too.) https://t.co/tat8KTLUxL" noting New York City Council passes bill to cut building emissions
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Buildings account for 70% of carbon emissions in NYC. 70%. Today the city embarked on an ambitious, aggressive plan to change that and create a ton of jobs doing so. This exactly the kind of economic + climate action we need.… https://t.co/DOYouimELM" noting NYCC on Twitter: "VICTORY!! We won on #DirtyBuildings!! Buildings account for 70% of New York City's carbon emissions. This bill is a huge victory for working families and those suffering from asthma. Plus, it will create thousands of green jobs. #GreenNewDeal4NY… https://t.co/iaNa1Ru1Wg"
It's the Climate Mobilization Act
lpetrich
Contributor
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "As it turns out, Rep. Barr has the same amount of coal mines in his district as I do in mine! Who says Dems and GOP can’t find things in common? 
… https://t.co/AXQJi0fTl1" -- zero
Elizabeth Warren profiles Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for "Time 100" list: "She’s just getting started" | Salon.com referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is on the 2019 TIME 100 List | Time.com
… https://t.co/AXQJi0fTl1" -- zeroElizabeth Warren profiles Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for "Time 100" list: "She’s just getting started" | Salon.com referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is on the 2019 TIME 100 List | Time.com
Bomb#20
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You don't have a reason to believe that. It's just an article of faith in your ideology.
They all did the thing that made or provided whatever was sold for a profit. The workers, the CEO, the board, and the shareholders all helped. It's a cooperative production recipe. Bigoted ideologues irrationally insisting their outgroups are parasites because they want an excuse for hate doesn't magically enable recipes to still work when ingredients are left out.
He didn't "appropriate" it. The profit belongs to the shareholders, not to the CEO. And the shareholders didn't "appropriate" it either, any more than a child "appropriated" the bicycle her parents bought for her birthday. Profit belongs to the shareholders because the customers gave it to them voluntarily.
...and along with the subset of workers you're willing to call "workers", who will strike or quit if they decide they're getting too small a fraction. The circumstance that whatever fraction those workers negotiate for themselves, you will immediately relabel "expense" or "wages" or whatever in order to allege that the workers get none of the "profit", is an arbitrary terminology choice that doesn't change the reality that the split of the income given by the customers is a decision negotiated among all the producers: workers, managers and shareholders alike.
Indeed he is.
I don't think he is -- it's part of the dogma that since a CEO is hired to represent the shareholders' interests, therefore to the ideologues whatever he does doesn't get to count as work, no matter how many sleepless nights he puts in making the decisions it takes to keep production going.
But even if he were confusing them, what he said about the CEO is no more true of the shareholders than it is of the CEO. PyramidHead has no reason, only ideological prejudice, to believe the shareholders didn't earn a cut of the income too. He has no reason, only ideological prejudice, to believe the shareholders didn't do a thing that made or provided whatever was sold for a profit. He has no reason, only ideological prejudice, to believe the shareholders "appropriated" the profit. Marxism is a tissue of lies.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
?? Of course the main duties of a CEO (formulating and maintaining strategic direction, hiring key managers and personnel, creating and developing and maintaining the culture of the company, growing company capitalization, representing the company in the community, creating a learning culture, and etc. and etc. are not very important. I also learned from this forum that companies don't need the HR department, the marketing department, M&A, and in-house legal counsel!! This forum has saved my company a lot of money!
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
All of these things are necessary and more than necessary, i.e. important, but these positions of power consolidate power, play politics, and have a hand in their own salary and benefits. Therefore, they become overpaid. BUT I am probably taking part in changing the exact nature of ZiprHead's point. That should be reviewed. ZiprHead was referencing a news article:
https://arstechnica.com/science/201...pfizer-ceo-gets-61-pay-raise-to-27-9-million/
While I might be interested in whether it's rational that a CEO gets ~28 million salary in the first place, ZiprHead seems to have been discussing healthcare in context and a pay raise. So, the CEO got a 61% pay raise while Pfizer hiked up drug prices. I am not 100% sure in context what point ZiprHead was making. Is it about the wealth redistribution from all the people out there to big pockets? Is it that medicine, at least NEEDED medicine, ought not be a commodity in the first place. So, merely upping the price of necessary medicine where people are on medicare etc getting medicine through that (or even paying with insurance) is one reason the cost of health insurance goes up for everyone.
I think ZiprHead asked a question about this and maybe it wasn't answered properly.
Regardless, this healthcare model is not sustainable. Ordinary people go bankrupt for sake of profits of the wealthy.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
Well, I'll try to answer the question. I don't know very much about the health care industry. But I do know this: it's extremely difficult to raise prices. I can tell you that companies spend enormous amounts of time trying to decide how much market share will be lost after increases are implemented. We recently raised our prices to our distributors and customers and it kept me up all night many times. But after margins are increased, companies have more money to spend on R&D, pay their employees, catch up on payables, and etc.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
Healthcare is different, though. You have a captive audience, or at least, you have consumers who must have medication to live. For example, I have to take my blood pressure medicine. The next thing you might consider is that there is competition which should drive down prices. But that isn't really what is at the heart of capitalism. What is at the heart is winning and monopolies and market barriers and price fixing and patenting and IP in order to block competition because that guarantees profit. Only through regulation is that nature of capitalism somewhat mitigated, and I say somewhat, because regulation thus far hasn't stopped market barriers. Much of Big Pharma, too, hasn't produced new drugs recently and so they acquire smaller companies which is another way of crushing competition. Maybe take a look at this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli
angelo
Deleted
Have any idea what it costs to create, test, then get a new drug into the market? The producer of any new drug needs to have a certain period of time with a monopoly on the new drug just to recuperate the development costs of the said new drug.
Source is Wiki..................................Developing a new prescription medicine that gains marketing approval is estimated to cost drugmakers $2.6 billion according to a recent study by Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development and published in the Journal of Health Economics.
PyramidHead
Contributor
Is the system that makes it so expensive to get life-saving medication to patients something we should preserve and try to accommodate with our policies, or overthrow and replace with something that works better?
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
None of which has to do with the question of raising profits to ridiculous levels on the backs of people by bleeding them to death. The context is upping profits, not operational or development cost. But since you brought up development cost, much of that cost is due to marketing. You know...for example, all those commercials where they tell you that you might have restless leg syndrome...and you should talk to your doctor about it...who they are "educating" on this new syndrome and giving kickbacks from good-looking salespeople. Yes, that's very expensive but the profits are still through the roof. When you do it well and optimize the bleeding of people as much as possible so that you get profits but minimize the deaths of people because that would mean less profits, then that's good so the CEO gets to make a gazillion dollars. Right?
Jimmy Higgins
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He's like a right-wing madlib. Yes, medical stuff costs money. No one is questioning that equipment, procedural innovation, drug development costs money. But so does advertising of drugs. How many billions spent doing that? Around $30 billion to doctors and television.
The point is:
- Americans already pay a lot for health insurance
- Americans pay even more for actual health care services
- Americans pay more per capita than other first-world nations
- Americans have no choice when it comes to cost of services because we don't know what a procedure will cost until about 4 to 6 months after it happens and you get the bill
- Insurance companies game the system (such making backroom deals with drug companies to authorize coverage of more expensive drugs via using rebates, and making those with the insurance have to pay higher rates due to the ballooning cost of medicines) to maximize income
- UHC isn't going to be free, and Americans are used to paying a lot for health care insurance and services so there isn't going to be a massive sticker shock
- UHC will provide a few efficiencies as well stopping insurance companies from skimming 5% off the top for profit
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
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AOC signs on to impeachment proceedings.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/18/politics/ocasio-cortez-impeachment-resolution/index.html
"Mueller's report is clear in pointing to Congress' responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the President. It is our job as outlined in Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5 of the US Constitution," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, promising to sign on to impeachment proceedings led by fellow freshman Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
Ocasio-Cortez added, "While I understand the political reality of the Senate + election considerations, upon reading this DoJ report, which explicitly names Congress in determining obstruction, I cannot see a reason for us to abdicate from our constitutionally mandated responsibility to investigate."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/18/politics/ocasio-cortez-impeachment-resolution/index.html
"Mueller's report is clear in pointing to Congress' responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the President. It is our job as outlined in Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5 of the US Constitution," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, promising to sign on to impeachment proceedings led by fellow freshman Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
Ocasio-Cortez added, "While I understand the political reality of the Senate + election considerations, upon reading this DoJ report, which explicitly names Congress in determining obstruction, I cannot see a reason for us to abdicate from our constitutionally mandated responsibility to investigate."
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UHC isn't more expensive than paying for the health care by other means. Multi-trillion dollar pricetags are tossed about--neglecting that the numbers are a bit below current healthcare spending. If the proposals worked as designed the result would be lower taxes.
Strange how we keep seeing old data. That's because a lot of the gap has closed since.
Your inability to see how management creates value doesn't make it not so.
Management is about making the process more efficient, small increases in efficiency applied to a large number of tasks can translate to very large value.
Competition does drive down drug prices--just look at the price of common generics. In fact, the price is driven too low in many cases (there isn't enough profit for the drug companies to care about ensuring supply, thus production glitches translate to patients not being able to get the medicine they need.)
The abuses we keep hearing about are uncommon drugs where there was so little profit that only one company was making them.
Also, the pattern we see these days with buying up smaller companies rather than researching is not a means of crushing competition. Rather, this is taking advantage of the stupidity of many investors. A company is formed to try to take a drug from a prospect to something on the market. These small companies exist only for this purpose, they do not have the ability to actually be viable in the marketplace. If the drug fails they're wiped out (all investors getting basically zero), if the drug succeeds they're bought out by one of the big players that can actually produce it, the investors get a big payoff. It's like playing the lottery, the big payoffs aren't enough to compensate for the flops but if investors will keep buying the big guys have no reason not to continue this model.
laughing dog
Contributor
You realize you are making the tacit argument that an unregulated market does not work for pharmaceuticals: competition is harmful to patients because it drives prices "too low", and that market participants are too stupid to understand that size matters.
Yeah, jumping from the frying pan is a very good thing!
The problem is there isn't anything that works better. The money has to come from somewhere, the current system at least does a reasonable job of applying it in the most useful ways.
There are things that could be done, though:
1) Drug ads should be basically banned. I don't mind the ones that tell you there's a new treatment for <x>, talk to your doctor. However, I would only permit them if <x> was something patients very well might have not talked to their doctor about. Viagra would be a good example. Everything else, banned.
2) I think the biggest problem is drug companies being allowed to charge different rates to different customers. A big example of the problem exists with Medicaid. The federal government pays most of the cost but the states decide what drugs to cover. Oops, you get drug companies offering big rebates to the states to make their brand name drug be the one covered--the rebate exceeds the additional cost to the state of the expensive drug, the drug company wins, the state wins, the federal government get soaked.
2b) We see a related problem with hospitals. They sometimes get big rebates to make brand <x> be the only drug of a class they carry. This results in patients on a competing drug who come to the hospital getting switched to <x>.