Thought experiment: What if we made high profit margins illegal? (purchase, dollar)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Lots of years consulting for healthcare companies, perhaps.
ahhhh. ok. Personal Experience.
Because you work in that field, and it seems like intensive regulation, you figure it must be the most regulated? Fair enough for perspective.
I work several fields, because the work I do crosses many, including some portions of Healthcare.
For contrast, I would submit that US Healthcare is not the most regulated (especially in regards to the Money aspect). Here are just some quick examples:
Say weapons/defense for example -- actually a HUGE industry for the US. This is very highly regulated down to the point of loaded weapons kept on the workers themselves. While from time-to-time we may hear of stolen drugs from the Medical / Pharmco Industry -- you do often hear of Nukes and Heavy Weapon Systems going missing?
Electrical Power. We have to call in production every 15 minutes to stay in compliance with NERC (National Electric Reliability Council). Along with EPA, etc. audits and continuous monitoring.
Fuels. You do not hear much of "Black Market" untaxed fuel do you? Because there is not much, despite a large financial incentive to do so. The Feds run the rack directly (tax and check) on the back end of the refinery.
We can go deeper. But Medical has brought any negative attention to themselves by allowing Crooks and Price Gouging to flourish in the Industry.
Quote:
Tell you what. Spend some time in a hospital and look at the paperwork entailed to just get a Medicare reimbursement for a fairly simple procedure and get back to me.
I have. Been out a few years now, but the focus is on the Money, at least in the scope of our discussion, right? And you are aware that members of your industry has targeted Medicare for fraud and abuse more than a few times?
You may be displeased the efforts to keep your industry honest, but that portion was brought upon yourselves by failure to govern yourselves.
------------------------------
Real Question? Do you know the current typical ranges between "List Price" Payments and Profitability?
A few years ago (again by various comparison in the Real World) it looked like if procedure were at "Full Retail" for $100 (or 100%) the (very general) breakdown went along these lines:
Take big pharma, for example. Should they be allowed to disable & kill large numbers of us, just so they call sell a patented synthetic drug at 100 times cost? Prescription pills killed millions, cannabis 0.
Cannabis oil can cure most cancers & other terminal illnesses, and it was in pharmacies by 1850 til as late as 1937. It's been banned all this time due to greed, resulting in many premature deaths, after much unnecessary suffering.
Would you like some companies invest in your death? Socialists shouldn't be the only ones to say we should have a right to continue living long in good health with happiness.
Capitalism can greatly shorten lifespans if corporations are only "regulated" by themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1
Why does large profit imply unethical behavior?
Then we are fully socialist and investment is discouraged.
If the company has cash they can't come up with anything better to do with, normally, they distribute dividends.
Not profit, but profit margins. I get it that capitalism can't work without the idea of profit, or else there is no point. But I still can't help but feel disgusted when the profit margin of a company is sickeningly high. I know this isn't the case with all or even most companies, but I simply fail to see how anybody can enjoy large profit margins without some kind of unethical behavior.
So I have a random thought experiment. Not something to be take super seriously, but just a simple thought experiment. What if we made high corporate profit margins illegal?
No doubt free marketers will have a knee-jerk reaction and claim nobody would want to make money anymore, but there are some big problems with the idea of this. For starters, like I said, profit and profit MARGINS isn't the same thing. Allow me to demonstrate my point:
1. A company makes a pie for 10 bucks and sells it for 11 bucks. That gives it a profit of 1 buck and a profit margin of 10%.
2. The same company sells a thousand pies rather than just one, again with a 10% profit margin. Thus making over a thousand bucks.
In the 2 examples above, the profit margin is the same but the profit is much greater in the later example. That is because we are not talking about banning high profits, but profit margins. The reason this matters, is that it means it is possible to increase overall profits without actually increasing the profit margin itself all that much, meaning that there is still a reason for people to make money. Since money spent on wages and other expenses don't count as pure profit, having a ban on high profit margins would basically force companies to invest their money once profit margins start getting too high, instead of it gathering dust in a bank account.
Thoughts?
If profit margins for a product are too high some competitor will start up an new business and sell the same or similar product for less. Unless the market/demand for that product is too low to make it worthwhile.
If profit margins for a product are too high some competitor will start up an new business and sell the same or similar product for less. Unless the market/demand for that product is too low to make it worthwhile.
At this point, in the US, that sometimes has to be International.
Domestically we have become "Occupied Territory" for various Oligarchy Corporations who use the force of law to limit their competition.
If profit margins for a product are too high some competitor will start up an new business and sell the same or similar product for less. Unless the market/demand for that product is too low to make it worthwhile.
Or the startup costs to become a viable competitor are too overwhelming.
That's why many of the big companies stay big and become monopolies.
And they are the same ones that back more regulation. That keeps their competitors away.
According to wikipedia, it is undefined and does not exist:
Quote:
Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to when a seller spikes the prices of goods, services or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair, and is considered exploitative, potentially to an unethical extent.
As the seller, when I raise the price of goods, services or commodities, I never consider it unreasonable, unfair, or exploitative.
Simply said, there is no such thing as price gouging.
When a buyer and seller freely enter into a transaction, and agree upon a price, how can the buyer claim he was gouged?
Because perhaps he was. If you are stuck in a hurricane and need food that doesn't mean the local store should raise the price of a loaf of bread to $700.00
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
