And on the Pharma R Crooks scene...

And as Shooter points out we pay for the manufacturing of weapons and weapons R&D. But even if we didn't my question would remain the same. It wasn't particularly tied to military spending except in the abstract idea that military spending is done to keep us safe and thus we'd probably be better off spending that money on medicine than weapons seeing as we're far more likely to die from disease than terrorism or war.

Meaningless statistic.

You can't cure most diseases by simply pouring more money and resources into them. Any more than one woman being able to produce a baby in 9 months doesn't mean you can produce a baby in one month if you put 9 women on the job.

Actually, most drug research is funded by the government.

You can't cure terrorism and conflict with more weapons and war either. You can end violent attacks in the short term but lasting peace come through diplomacy. Either way you can't find cures without R&D. It's not as if I'm suggesting we spend billions on a combat plane that will never see combat though so I can understand if the thought of it doesn't give you wood.

No shit, amateur.

From what I've read that's mostly at the early stages of research. Late stage drug development is mostly done by pharmaceutical companies and venture capitalist. Hence the insane drug prices.

Almost every U.S. combat aircraft type has seen combat except for the newest. And I'm sure they will see combat eventually.

So, back to the original topic before @Dayton3 shit up the thread...

I'm going to take a page from George Carlin and say we need to start executing white collar criminals. Yes I know the CEO in the OP was not charged with any crime, but what he did was immoral and unethical.

As Carlin once said, you start executing a few bankers and Wall Street crooks, crime in general is going to start drying up pretty fucking quick.

Haven't you been paying attention to our libertopian comrades? GUBMINT BAD!!!! (Unless it gives them something they want.)

I'm against putting white collar criminals in jail.

(A) He's completely wrong about the status of my books, and
(B) Put down the coffee and try reading my follow-up post

And that R&D is all tax deductible.

There's a surprise.

And the government designs and tests new weapons - the vast majority of which never pan out though.

Why? I'm against putting nonviolent offenders in jail.

If I get to pick out the 9 women, can I test out your theory?

Some would say destroying people's careers, their pensions, and their future a la Enron is an act of violence.

Some would categorize denying patients life-saving medicines as at least manslaughter.

What's your preferred punishment for white collar criminals?

Repay the money defrauded and stolen. Pay costs to the government and legal system. Hefty fine. Home confinement.

So guys who traffic in kiddie porn are okay in your books?

encouraging acts of violence I would consider to be de facto violent acts.

I'm gonna give Dayton the benefit of the doubt here and say that:

1. I don't think he or anyone would consider that "white collar".
2. I don't think he or anyone would consider that "non-violent".

I might be wrong, but... that's my take.

No, no... I'm not talking about the upstanding citizens who actually engage in human trafficking; I'm talking about the folks who buy and trade the images, videos, etc.

Everyone makes mistakes.

I know that.

And if they've spent all the money? Bring back debtors' prisons?

Right. And you don't see the fallacy of your argument?

(Of course you don't.)

From what I've seen most "white collar" criminals have few problems making substantial amounts of money by honest means.

Okay, there seems to be some confusion.

The government doesn't design much of anything. What we do is assemble requirements and then put out a request for bids. Private industry then looks at the requirements and decides if they can bid or not, based on their expertise and capabilities. The government then evaluates the bids and almost always picks the lowest one, tho it's usually couched as "best bid" rather than lowest, with the fig leaf explanation that we looked at everything and the winner was the one who provides the best result for the cost.

Anyway, private enterprise does all the design stuff, the government reviews the results to determine if the design meets the requirements, and if it does we move to production. BUT, if you take a good look at the procurement process, it's pretty much broken to hell and gone and results in things like the F-35 program costing a half-trillion dollars or the Littoral Combat Ship being a useless pile of fuck-all. If you really want to go this route with pharmaceuticals . . . well, good luck with that.

Some would say that and some would be wrong.