Facebook's stock took a real hit when the announcement came out. Oh, wait, the stock price actually went up.
Presumably because the market had expected a worse outcome for Facebook. Or, perhaps, it was just relieved that the event was over.
Yup. Facebook got hit with a huge fine, but they still are expecting to make over $15 Billion. That is insane. You want to make companies hurt, fine them for something far greater. And also go after their business practices (which I understand Facebook got a pass on).
The market is weird like that. It's like when investors expect the fed to raise interest rates, the market goes down, but after they are raised, it often goes back up.
So you would want the fine to end the company? Facebook is an outlier IMO. Their business model is so different from what Wall Street has seen, where J&J is a traditional company Wall Street understands.
No, just enough to hurt. I disagree. I think they are likely the new norm, it just happened that they were being looked at harder and got caught easier. Sure, but Wall Street understands that huge fines are an incentive to not act irresponsibly. Such as lacking quality controls on sales and marketing of additive products. And that latter part is also how the company should be "fined."
Stanger, I am not directing any of this at you. I am just using your posts as a starting point. The media have picked on many of these same themes. I do not intend any attack or offense to you. How many people did they kill in this latest venture? Oh, that's right: "The potential settlement, if agreed by attorneys general across the US, would be the largest to date in the complex litigation over addictive painkillers, which have caused the deaths of about 400,000 people since 1999." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-payouts-from-drug-makers-highly-questionable Sounds like a bargain for both J&J and the f*cking Sackler family to me. The Sacklers state that they are only go to put up $3 billion of the money, with the rest from their company Perdue Pharma, which (of course) will go bankrupt and all of the money will likely not be paid. Yet, they made several times that during their venture peddling these deadly substances. Pension funds should probably not invest in companies that are likely making products that kill their clients. Or, perhaps, they should. Yes, please shed a tear and feel sorry for the poor, poor companies. Oh my heart bleed for them! Yes, put the company over the lives of 400,000 who were killed over the past 20 years, The millions who were addicted but did not die, Multiply those deaths and illnesses by the families that were devastated, The billions of dollars in medicals bills that went unpaid (well, paid by us), The tens of millions of lost days of work, productivity and jobs. The thousands upon thousands of homes that were lost due to these addictions. Also, why would the company go out of business? Is that because shareholder would sell? Why is that be a problem, from an investment perspective? If the fine is so large that investors flee like the rats they, that is the "hand of the free market" at work. Adam Smith Milton Friedman Freidrich Hayek James Buchanan The Kochs Etc. should all be very, very pleased by the result. It shows The Market (the mighty, holy market) is WORKING. Wall Street should "understand" that making a product that kills tens of thousands of people a year is, probably, not a great product. Endlessly promoting a product that kills tens of thousands of people a year is, probably, not a great business strategy. Lying and covering up the data they knew regarding the dangers is, probably, not a great business strategy. Let me reemphasize: 400,000 DEATHS
Either you didn't understand my posts or I worded them in a confusing way because I don't disagree with any part of what you posted. The Pharma companies that were knowingly acting like a cartel should be ended and their executives jailed.
Yes, that was why I said I was not commenting directly to your post, but just used it as a "launching pad" for my rant. Thanks!
Not directly related with the opioid crisis, but about believing in the corporate church of free market: If Twitter can’t stop abuse of its CEO’s account, imagine how good it is at stopping abuse of regular people pic.twitter.com/PXHFXYZemO— Rani Molla (@ranimolla) August 30, 2019
Not news, but this app the State of Indiana put together is pretty amazing. They've mapped Naloxone administration across the entire state for a few years with an incredible level of geographic detail. For example, I can select 2018 as my timeframe zoom into a WalMart just south of Indianapolis in Greenwood (a solidly middle class suburb) and see that narcan was administered 7 times that year in/around the WalMart parking lot. It's much more interesting to view if you know particular areas very well, but still interesting regardless. https://www.in.gov/recovery/1054.htm
Saw that. And his family said he was not that type of person, or something to that effect. IOW, "I raised a good boy, he just wouldn't do that kind of evil."
The Washington Post has a good series that I'm surprised isn't already in this thread. It's called The Opioid Files. Part of it is using information that came out in lawsuits and FOIA to create databases of where pills are coming from, the manufacturer and where they are going. It charts every county and pharmacy.
Note that the following is not a attack on any poster here or their position regarding this product, but an attempt at understanding where we a society choose to the draw the lines, and how we view different products. This post that I am replying to is a well written and good jumping off point. I have no problem with going after Pharma for lying about the addictive nature of this particular product, but once its dangers are well known, as with alcohol and tobacco these days, I think we should treat it similarly. If the deaths and not the current/recent behavior of the company/industry are our biggest concerns, would we be okay with Big Alcohol being sued or regulated out of existence? According to the CDC, there are on average 88,000 alcohol related deaths per year in the US, so over that 20 year period mentioned above, there were about 1.76 MILLION DEATHS from alcohol, over 4 times as many as from addictive painkillers. All the additional collateral damage attributed(correctly imo) to the painkiller "epidemic" would also apply to alcohol. The US tried saving these lives and avoiding all this collateral damage once before via a constitutional amendment, it did not work out well. Alcohol does far more damage, and unlike the painkillers, which actually do help people suffering from severe pain, alcohol does not provide an actual necessary benefit to anybody. Alcohol advertising does seem to be a great business strategy, despite the number of deaths. Every major sporting event has an official alcohol. Are any of us not going to watch a game because of the alcohol sponsor? I doubt it. Wall Street does not seem to have a problem with alcohol, despite the number of deaths. How many of us recreationally use a product that kills 88,000 thousand Americans a year? Why do we support such a industry? If enough people were able to recreationally enjoy the mind altering effects of the aforementioned painkillers without becoming addicted, but still use in high enough numbers to keep the current body count (like alcohol) would this even be a controversy? I look forward your thoughts.
I think this is the crux of the comment. I don't know if opioids can be used recreationally and not become addictive. Alcohol, IMO, isn't anywhere near as addictive. I think your point would have been better made with tobacco.
I volunteer through my church to work with recovering* addicts. Along these lines, I've sat in on some counseling classes at my wife's college, mostly focusing on addiction issues. It turns out, since researches have been keeping track (about 100 years now), the percentage of the population that develops an addiction to alcohol has remained about 15% for a century. (slightly higher in some populations, and lower in others. It seems to be mostly genetic, but poverty, tragically,mseems to increase the likelihood a bit). Basically, if alcoholism runs in your family, there's a good chance it will cause you problems, too. If it does not, there's a good chance you'll be able to keep your consumption under control. I was shocked to find out that, with heroin, it's not 100%. Somewhere in the mid 70s to low 80s, IIRC. IOW, high enough that it's foolish to trifle with it, IMO (both as a recreational user and as a physician prescribing it to patients. *we hope. It doesn't always work out.
First, I don't think it is equal to compare alcohol or opioids, not just for the reason which stanger stated. Unlike alcohol, an opioid product is not easily made and the base products, even in comparison to something like meth, are not something which can be bought at to the local store. Additionally, opioids are more likely to addictive than alcohol because of the nature of how opioids work. On that, I agree with stanger that the comparison with tobacco is more apt. That is up for healthy debate. There are plenty of studies that alcohol is moderation can have a positive effect on the body. But like anything, over use can cause problems. It does far more damage because it is legal and widely accessible. It is for good reason that opioids are not OTC medications (this is the one category of drug I have concerns about being legal), but if they were, there is historical evidence that they would be a serious problem, far greater than alcohol. But beneath either of those issues, or any issue regarding addiction, we need to have addiction understood and accepted widely as being a medical issue, not a life choice.
Nothing is 100%. I'm actually surprised it is that low. I would have though somewhere around 90% I have met people who describe it, in various terms, and either active recovery or passive recovery...as long as they are making the effort to get clean.
Also, opioids have a place in legit medicine. Alcohol, for the good it is, does not. I have had surgery a couple of times and have been prescribed opioids. There was virtually no chance of addiction in the way it was used. They work when used appropriately and for a very limited time. They do not work, never have worked and should never be prescribed for chronic pain. That is the problem. Perdue Pharma and the other bastards targeted the chronically ill knowing the likelihood of addiction and aiming those efforts at those most likely to be suspectible.
I have had surgery, too, and have addiction running through the family. Granted this was a while back, so don't remember what I was given in the hospital, though I think it was Oxy. At home, I was given Codeine and being vary conscious of the addiction in the family, under used it. The funny thing is that I was still recovering from surgery and taking the occasional pill, and did so before taking the SAT. That's right, I was high during my SAT.
I once went to a defensive driving class* stoned. A quick brushing of the teeth and a spray of Febreeze and I was good to go. *Speeding ticket- the class kept it off my insurance. Cool.