[leemcalilly]

This is not corrupt. It’s money well spent. The benefits to us all are most likely more valuable than anything we’ve spent on vaccine research. Government balance sheets also probably come out ahead on that investment given that the alternative is an economy with a raging pandemic and resulting lower tax base.

Then there is the logistical effort of manufacturing the vaccine at the scale and speed required. There are huge capital investments and risks associated with doing that. If a company wants to do that and seek the profits from that, great. Literally everyone comes out ahead. You, me, the government, the manufacturer, distributor, and every other business or person in the economy.

What is the alternative? We create a government agency that specializes in manufacturing and distributing pharma products?

[mcv]

Not when it's a monopoly. That means the company gets to exploit the results of the research for their own profit, without any competition to keep prices reasonable. Non-exclusive deals are fine. Exclusive ones are not.

[apexalpha]

Look, I understand the frustration but they're not going to set this price. This thing is way bigger than this company and even the entire pharmaceutical industry. This is a global crisis.

Many governments have proven that they will put the public's need over these companies need. They've broken patents and pressured companies before and they will obviously do it again.

There are more governments in the world than the American one.

For now speed is of the essence and this it's wonderful news they've set another step.

[throwaway894345]

I'm not a public policy, legal, or economics expert, but I certainly favor treating this as a one-off. If a legal monopoly is the most expedient way to get us back to normal, so be it, and if fears of price gouging are a concern let congress or the executive or whomever cap the price. Once things get back to normal we can litigate the monopoly issue.

[leemcalilly]

That’s a fair point. I guess my underlying assumption would be the government funding the research would retain rights to the research as well. Thanks for pointing that out.

[komali2]

> What is the alternative? We create a government agency that specializes in manufacturing and distributing pharma products?

Yes. Why don't you think that would work?

[uhtred]

It's laughable that you're getting downvoted. Socialist. /S

[vxNsr]

Because the government hasn't been able to do anything right for 270 years, why do you think they're suddenly gonna wake up a figure out mass manufacturing?

We can't educate our kids at an acceptable level without billions of dollars being donated on top of all the tax collected, we can't figure out how to make medicare work responsibly despite literally being able to control costs, what do you think makes drug manufacturing any different?

[guptaneil]

In the US, one party has dedicated itself to making sure the government is dysfunctional for a _long_ time so that it can run on the platform that government doesn’t work and we should privatize everything. This is not a fact of nature, it’s a willful decision. For example, the US used to be a leader in education. The thing that changed since then is one party started defunding education and moving that money to private prisons and defense.

If we as a people collectively agreed that we are as smart as other countries, there’s no reason we can’t have a functional government that can handle public education and vaccine efforts and keep us safe and maintain our infrastructure and everything else we expect our government to do for us.

[vorpalhex]

If your statement was true, Chicago and California would be bastions of government efficiency and capability. Instead we see both Republican and Democratic cities do terribly on most measures, and those cities that generally prosper have very little to do with who is in control other than it not being a single party and they have the right conditions for job growth.

School funding happens at the state level too, not just the federal grants.

[guptaneil]

It's funny you bring that up, because my comment originally even included a bit about how a lot of our current problems can be traced back to Reagan's presidency. He was previously governor of California. Guess when California stopped offering free higher education?

Chicago is in Illinois, which has had a lot of flip-flopping between red and blue governors and has an infamous history of governors going to jail for corruption.

Also I'm not claiming that Democrats haven't done shitty things. Daley bankrupted Chicago and privatized a lot of our public services while running as a Democrat and some of those jailed governors were democrats, but I do think the GOP is more homogeneous in its efforts to break down the government. I mean privatizing everything is a platform they openly campaign on!

If your claim that prosperity has nothing to do with who is in charge were true, we wouldn't see a pattern of blue states outperforming red states economically or a national pattern of economic growth after a democrat president and decline after a republican president.

Coincidentally, I live in Chicago and used to live in California. People love to use both places as punching bags when talking about national problems, despite one being a state and the other a city! It's different types/scales of problems.

[kortilla]

> He was previously governor of California. Guess when California stopped offering free higher education?

And why hasn’t California added free public education or expanded housing in the last 20-30 years then?

[blueline]

> Because the government hasn't been able to do anything right for 270 years, why do you think they're suddenly gonna wake up a figure out mass manufacturing?

worked just fine for penicillin during world war 2