KickIdle.com Blog

Courtesy of Megan at Live from the WTC, an explanation of why, exactly, drugs cost so much less in the EU. It’s far more interesting than you’d probably think, and written for the layman, as Megan usually does w/ these economic issues.

Lefties in America have been screaming about this for years – screaming, that is, that we are allowing our evil Pharmaceutical Giants to charge outrageous prices for their products, when prices in Europe show that the actual price of the product is really much lower.
If you haven’t picked out the problem with this argument already, it’s that the lefties have forgotten one little thing: the ENORMOUS cost of developing drugs. The average drug has to make $500 million to earn back all the R&D costs, not only for itself but for the 999 other compounds that didn’t work.

That’s just the intro though, she explains much more in the full version.

Dan Gillmor’s article in ComputerWorld explains why we’re suddenly hearing that privacy and security cannot co-exist. And it’s not just because of the government.

But corporate America has never been a friend of privacy. Building dossiers on customers and regulating their behavior has always been something of a Holy Grail for businesses.

You should check out HokiePundit, ifyou haven’t already. He’s a smart kid with some great insights into religion and the world. And I think it’s quaint that he can’t bring himself to type words like “penis”, hehe.

While announcing new foreign aid initiatives, President Bush tied aid to policies which encourage free trade and political freedoms. During his speech to the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development, Bush said “By one estimate, a new global trade pact could lift 300 million lives out of poverty. When trade advances, there is no question about the fact that poverty retreats.” He also noted that “Pouring money into a failed status quo does little to help the poor.”
From this, can we assume that the recent steel tariffs were designed to keep steel workers poor?

A friend of mine recently implied that I knew how to pick locks. While I continue to disclaim all knowledge of such things, I’ll point out that you can learn the basics right here on the Internet.

Her fantasy $7,000 portfolio rose 5.8 percent, while the one selected by analyst Mark Goodson lost 46.2 percent over the year. Astrologer Christeen Skinner’s portfolio dropped 6.2 percent.

What more can you say? Even the astrologer beat him, hehe.

“And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” When Mark Twain spoke those lines, he could have easily been referring to Congressman Nick Smith. The Honorable Mr. Smith wants to reinstitute the draft — not because we need soldiers, but because he thinks it would be a jolly good idea for young people.

Smith drafted the bill because of his childhood as a farm boy and his Air Force experience, he said.
“My thought is that it would be good for young people to have the same kind of experiences,” he said. “Growing up on the farm, I had to have the discipline of getting up at 5:30 in the morning, making my bed and making sure my clothes were pressed — that type of boot camp atmosphere.”
[Quote from an article which is no longer online.]

Well, bad news buddy, I happen to enjoy going to sleep at 2am, getting up at 11am and make a pretty decent living doing it. Fortunately, the Sarge performs the requisite take-down quite beautifully. Be sure and write your Congresscritters to let them know how stupid this new bill is.

The Fed will meet on Tuesday, and it’s expected that they’ll shift to a neutral stance on the economy — away from the fears of weakness which prompted rate cuts last year. More and more, economic indicators are looking up, and now economists are predicting 4% growth over the next quarter or two (if not the entire year).
I’ll be especially happy when this new round of growth finally increases demand for IT services. It hasn’t been fun to watch the industry contract, and I’ll sleep better at night when I know that there’s real cash flow available in our sector of the economy.

It occurred to me today, that I hadn’t heard anything about the tensions between India and Pakistan for a couple of weeks (or more). So, I pulled up Google News and searched on India, just to see what was going on. Turns out, there’s been in a pleasant lull in the border fighting for about a month. Unfortunately, it’s over. A return of border hostilities, combined with the attitudes expressed by one influencial Pakistani, makes me just that much more nervous about the world.

Business 2.0 provides their take on the 101 worst moments in business throughout 2001. Proof that capitalism, while pretty damn good, just isn’t perfect.