[atlarge-discuss] Part 1 - Re: [atlarge-discuss] Incorporation & Marginally Useful Insects

[Joey Borda **star*walker** <starwalker@gay.com>]

Sunday, August 11, 2002 * 2:28 PM EDT USA

Jeff, Todd, Eric & Bruce (& Everyone -- all save Bruce, in response to my 
post at http://www.fitug.de/atlarge-discuss/0208/msg00468.html since he 
fired me up in the first place ;-) ):

At 09:10 PM 8/10/2002 -0700, Jeff Williams wrote (in abbreviated form):
> Joey and all stakeholders or other interested parties,
> Some entering the legal profession do so with the long term goal
> of becoming a politician.  It is one career path for Lawyers...
The overwhelming preponderance of U.S. Congressmen, Senators, and all of 
the various State legislatures are lawyers. Could there be anything even 
slightly wrong with this picture?

> This seems a bit of an extreme point of view.  First the medical
> community is by no means a monopoly.  Second the pharmaceutical
> industry especially in the past few years, is no monopoly either as
> new pharmaceutical companies have come along over the past
> 5 years that are quite good...  Inclone of course is not one of those
> good ones...  >;)
Extreme? Perhaps.

If so, it may be an extreme reaction to extreme conditions.

More likely its people's views that it's extreme because it's outside the 
permissibly thinkable, let alone expressible. It sets off the alarm bells 
of fear, of the not previously thought or spoken. It has the quality of 
heresy, and I will surely be damned for thinking and saying these things, 
and if others are not careful to cry out heretic they will surely burn in 
hell along with me. ;-)

I'll be clearer about my assertion of monopoly or monopolistic practices as 
briefly and as "extremely" as I can.

First, the pharmaceutical industry is extended extremely long-term patents 
on life-saving drugs and only they (at least in this county) can produce 
those drugs. There is no requirement that they license production of the 
drug to others. That's monopoly! Rather transparently justified as covering 
their research and development costs supposedly, when most drugs come out 
of public and university health research.

What do you think the threat by world governments, such as South Africa and 
now a host of others, to produce AIDS drugs, e.g., generically is about, 
and why our national policy has become to rush in and save the day for the 
drug industry with various threats and finally concession agreements. 
That's a response to threat against monopoly.

How is it that I can buy the prescription drug Lipitor at 30% below U.S. 
prices out of Hong Kong, by the same manufacturers?

Second, the fact that in this country I cannot buy necessary medications 
without a doctor's prescription (which adds to the cost of the other 
monopoly by the way) is a monopolistic practice. That I cannot get an x-ray 
without a doctor's prescription is monopolistic.

Those drugs I buy from Hong Kong are without my doctor's prescription (oh 
yes he writes them, but I don't need them nor the added expense of my 
seeing him as often). If I were in Mexico, or had a friend there to do it 
for me, I could walk into any pharmacy and buy anything I needed without 
prescription. The same in Taiwan. And at a fraction of the cost.

In most of the world the greatest numbers of babies are born without an 
attending physician or hospitalization. Many are just "dropped" in the 
dirt. Do you know that dirt doesn't hurt new borns? Or with midwives or 
family members in attendance

Try that here. Giving birth is not even a disease, but we treat it like 
one, regardless of the health of the mother and the in utero infant. How do 
you think this comes to be?

Rather effectively marketed need to be answered by a monopolistic practice. 
And for all that we don't even have the world's lowest infant mortality rate!

Ahh, now I get to my favorite, to talk about the practice and profession of 
law.

Do you know there wasn't always a Bar? That there weren't law schools. How 
did we ever get along?!

People interested in the profession simply hung out with, apprenticed 
themselves to lawyers, people grown famous for their "practice" of law.

As late as when I was in law school in 1967, one could still learn THE LAW 
that way, and qualify for the tests. There was such a young man in my law 
classes, taking the classes he was interested in, not to get the degree or 
status, but to get the knowledge he sought and otherwise could not get in 
Pittsburgh of those days any other way.

Day in, day out, he worked with lawyers learning the law, and otherwise was 
a parking garage attendant.

Ah you say, but things change, and the law changes, and things get more 
complex and so on and so on and so on.

You bet they do, but not quite in the way you think. Everyone intuitively 
understands the needless complexity and overreach of law. It used to be 
single greatest cause of that complexity was simply its historicity. 
American law, particularly real estate, tort law and contract law is 
precedential, based all the way back to William the Conqueror.

These days legal complexity is insured by the profession itself having 
monopolistic control over the passage of law itself via their preponderance 
of seats at all levels of government, not merely the Congress and State 
legislatures.

The fact of the matter is that much of the arcane complexity of the 
practice of law could be eliminated with the stroke of a pen. But don't 
expect them to do it. They could, but they won't.

The AMA, ABA, and APA (American Pharmaceutical Association -- I dare not 
add the MCAA do I? ;-) ) are even more effective than the Teamsters Union 
in staying on top of what they have and getting more of what they want. And 
they're no schlepps.

That's monopoly power at work.

> Interesting view and comparison.   Thankfully it(Your view) is not
> widely shared...
Yeah, well, I don't mind standing alone. I've done that most of my life in 
one way or another. ;-) Come to think of it, maybe it's the other way 
around and that frees me to think the the "unthinkable." May it always be so.
 (...continued in part 2)