• About
  • Contact
  • Editorial
  • Policies
  • Archives
Angry Bear
Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.
  • US/Global Economics
  • Taxes/regulation
  • Healthcare
  • Law
  • Politics
  • Climate Change
  • Social Security
  • Hot Topics
« Back

Open thread May 27, 2020

Dan Crawford | May 27, 2020 10:35 am

Comments (8) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
8 Comments
  • Denis Drew says:
    May 27, 2020 at 11:49 am

    Imagine if Bill Gates (instead of Gilead) had bought the patent for Hep-C antiviral(from Pharmasset) and proceeded along with copy cats to charge desperate Americans $250 billion over 20 year patent rundowns NOT to wipe out Hep-C in one year. And now this:
    https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/14/gilead-should-ditch-remdesivir-and-focus-on-its-simpler-safer-ancestor/comment-page-1/

    What does it take to make any or all of this stuff front page news?
    * * * * * *

    Meanwhile back at the airlines nobody seems to know how to make air travel not just seem safe but actually be safe again. It can all revolve around manipulating use of $1 N95 masks and their useful alternates.

    Why aren’t the airlines publicizing the fact that the air in the passenger cabin changes 12 times an hour (every five minutes!) and is put through the exact same HEPA filter required for newest corona virus patient hospital sections? That should be their first order of advertising business.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/18/airplanes-dont-make-you-sick-really/

    Airlines could start to experiment with all volunteer all N95 flights. But, may not be as easy as it sounds. Everyone cannot tolerate N95s for long periods. But airlines can try to mix up combos of N95s and other types of masks, including modified N95s. Work out whatever combo works — they are facing extinction.
    https://www.jpost.com/health-science/could-wearing-a-mask-for-long-periods-be-detrimental-to-health-628400

    N95s that have exhaust valves protect the user but not others. But they are easier to use I believe because they dump out bad air more efficiently allowing less effort to replace with good air. Simply placing a surgical mask over the valve might stanch exhaust droplets.

    You have to keep playing around here — reshuffling the cards over and over to get a mask/publicity combo that works. Shouldn’t take a Manhattan project to do it. But similar effort at a simpler level could save the airline and airliner building industries. Got to be able to credibly tell people that taking plane is still the safest part of their trip.

    For publicity airlines could tongue-in-cheek advertise “safe” rides for triple the fare — then say they were just joking and display a careful analysis of how safe passengers are when everybody is individually breathing safely — in the every-six minute, changed, HEPA filtered air.

    Further alternates of the N95 for those who cannot tolerate N95s for long flights might be some kind of exhaust port that feeds into a closed tube evacuation system — that could probably be hooked up for a few thousand bucks a ($100 million) plane whose commercial life we are trying to resuscitate.

    Most folks could probably tolerate N95s for medium distance flights.

    If Boeing (or Airbus) wants to keep churning out 787s (or A320s) they better get to work churning out billions of N95s — and playing around with different ways to introduce them. Save two industries for a $1 a passenger.

  • G Lammert says:
    May 27, 2020 at 5:55 pm

    The asset debt macroeconomic system is deterministic. The counterdeflationary responses of central banks also deterministic. What would have been the composite commodity and equity asset valuation patterns and those nadir valuations in 2009 if the global central banks had not intervened without acquisition of the ‘devalued toxic assets’ and initiation of ‘QE’? In 2019, corporate bad debt toxic assets were supported by central bank intervention. The virus exponentialzed this intervention.What would commodity and equity composite valuations be sans the necessary reaction intervention of global central banks? These are real questions inolving the nadir low and debt driven high valuations and the cyclical patterns that represent the science of asset debt macroeconomics. Expect nonlinearity in asset prices regardless of central bank intervention.

  • anne says:
    May 27, 2020 at 6:22 pm

    Test:

    Again, I sought to post an important writing by Dean Baker but was unable to. I must be doing something wrong. I have been unable to post.

  • anne says:
    May 27, 2020 at 6:23 pm

    https://cepr.net/a-gilead-remdesivir-fix-the-ten-percent-solution/

    May 27, 2020

    A Gilead-Remdesivir Fix: The Ten Percent Solution
    By Dean Baker

    The Washington Post had an excellent piece * documenting how the government put up most of the money for developing remdesivir, a drug that now offers the hope of being the first effective treatment for the coronavirus. As the piece explains, in spite of the substantial contribution of public funds, Gilead Sciences holds a patent monopoly on remdesivir, which will allow it to charge whatever it wants without facing competition from other manufacturers.

    There is a simple and obvious solution to this problem. The government should simply take possession of the patent, putting it in the public domain so that anyone can manufacture the drug and also conduct further research, subject to the requirement that any subsequent developments are also in the public domain. (This would be analogous to the rules for free software.)

    To ensure that Gilead is fairly compensated, we can pay the company an amount that is 10 percent above any research costs it incurred that exceeded the government payments for development. Gilead would just have to submit its records, with the payment coming after they are fully audited. (There would be a return applied to past payments, of say 5 percent real, so that a payment made in 2015 would get a 25 percent real return [ignoring compounding], in addition to the ten percent markup.)

    See, it’s simple, fun, and easy. We get the drug. Gilead gets a respectable profit, and remdesivir is cheap. Is everybody happy?

    * https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/26/remdesivir-coronavirus-taxpayers/

    • run75441 says:
      May 27, 2020 at 7:31 pm

      It appears you were able to post this website. Is the problem of posting a website solved?

  • anne says:
    May 27, 2020 at 7:35 pm

    Interestingly for households or institutions, such as pension funds, with stock and bond portfolios, as of May 27 a balanced portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% corporate bonds is down less than 1% for the year.

  • anne says:
    May 27, 2020 at 8:22 pm

    Suggested by Paul Krugman:

    According to the CDC, so far this year, Florida has had 1,762 deaths from #COVID and 5,185 from pneumonia.

    Average pneumonia deaths in Florida from 2013-2018 for the same time period are 918.

    Probably just a coincidence, yeah?

    — Kellen Squire (@SquireForYou) May 27, 2020

    Kellen Squire @SquireForYou

    According to the CDC, so far this year, Florida has had 1,762 deaths from #COVID and 5,185 from pneumonia. Average pneumonia deaths in Florida from 2013-2018 for the same time period are 918. Probably just a coincidence, yeah?

    3:58 AM · May 27, 2020

    • run75441 says:
      May 27, 2020 at 10:32 pm

      anne:

      Is this an example of your humor in the evening?

Featured Stories

Macron Bypasses Parliament With ‘Nuclear Option’ on Retirement Age Hike

Angry Bear

All Electric comes to Heavy Equipment

Daniel Becker

Medicare Plan Commissions May Steer Beneficiaries to Wrong Coverage

run75441

Thoughts on Silicon Valley Bank: Why the FDIC plan isn’t (but also is) a Bailout

NewDealdemocrat

Contributors

Dan Crawford
Robert Waldmann
Barkley Rosser
Eric Kramer
ProGrowth Liberal
Daniel Becker
Ken Houghton
Linda Beale
Mike Kimel
Steve Roth
Michael Smith
Bill Haskell
NewDealdemocrat
Ken Melvin
Sandwichman
Peter Dorman
Kenneth Thomas
Bruce Webb
Rebecca Wilder
Spencer England
Beverly Mann
Joel Eissenberg

Subscribe

Blogs of note

    • Naked Capitalism
    • Atrios (Eschaton)
    • Crooks and Liars
    • Wash. Monthly
    • CEPR
    • Econospeak
    • EPI
    • Hullabaloo
    • Talking Points
    • Calculated Risk
    • Infidel753
    • ACA Signups
    • The one-handed economist
Angry Bear
Copyright © 2023 Angry Bear Blog

Topics

  • US/Global Economics
  • Taxes/regulation
  • Healthcare
  • Law
  • Politics
  • Climate Change
  • Social Security
  • Hot Topics
  • US/Global Economics
  • Taxes/regulation
  • Healthcare
  • Law
  • Politics
  • Climate Change
  • Social Security
  • Hot Topics

Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial
  • Policies
  • Archives