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NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2025 14:21:31 +0000
From: john larkin <jlArbor.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Trump's latest lunacy
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2025 07:21:35 -0700
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On Mon, 24 Mar 2025 01:21:24 +0100, Klaus Kragelund
<klauskvik@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On 20-03-2025 15:33, Bill Sloman wrote:
>> I may be being unfair here, but the latest claim amongst American who 
>> like Trump's tariffs is that the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits 
>> Scheme is a non-tariff barrier to trade. They may be the lunatics 
>> involved here rather than Trump himself.
>> 
>> The Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme buys medicines which have 
>> been approved as effective and cost-effective, and sells them on cheaply 
>> to patients whose doctors have prescribed the medicines.
>> 
>> It's no kind of barrier to trade - anybody who wants a particular drug 
>> can buy it directly from the manufacturer at a price they negotiate with 
>> manufacturer.
>> 
>> They won't have the buying power of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, 
>> which buys in much larger volumes, and employs people who know exactly 
>> what they are buying, and who the alternative suppliers are.
>> 
>> When I read the New Yorker I see ads for medicines aimed directly at 
>> consumers. I don't see them in periodicals aimed only at the Australian 
>> market, not because they are illegal, but because not enough people in 
>> Australia would act on such advertisements.
>> 
>> We all know that if a drug is safe and effective we will be able to get 
>> more cheaply through our doctors and the Australian Pharmaceutical 
>> Benefits Scheme.
>> 
>> There is a lively market for illegal drugs in Australia - tests on the 
>> outflow from our sewage systems demonstrate that a lot cocaine and other 
>> illegal drugs do get consumed here,
>> 
>> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/australia-drug-use- 
>> wastewater-testing-methamphetamine-increase
>> 
>> So the US pharmaceutical industry wants to operate with the same kind of 
>> freedom as illegal drug traffickers. They wouldn't sell as much - the 
>> Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme sell to patients at less than purchase 
>> cost, on the basis that curing patients is cheaper than treating them 
>> indefinitely, so we buy more than we would if individual patients had to 
>> pay the full cost - but they might be able to extort higher prices from 
>> patients who could afford to pay.
>> 
>
>I was in the US last week for a conference.
>
>The mood has really shifted to the worse. Lot's of talk on the radio on 
>people going bankrupt, how to survive the coming years, DOGE violating 
>constitutional rights.
>
>Before going, I had to check my text messages and online social 
>profiles, to be sure I had not made a comment about Trump. (many 
>examples of people send to prison for just not linking Trump)
>
>More homeless people than I have seen before (I have been going each 
>year for 15 years).

Where was that?

>
>I hope it gets better soon and this is just a temporary situation.

There are about 11 million illegal immigrants in the USA now. Some
have found housing - competing with everyone else - and some have not.

Illegal drugs don't help. Controlling the border will help both
problems.