Post #971 by jerryab on the Macroeconomic Trends and Risks board

Personal Finance Topics / Macroeconomic Trends and Risks

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government-sponsored R&D that so many of these firms incorporate into their products, and then charge the customer for despite not having financed it.

Almost, not quite.

The key point is one nobody mentions: How much of the taxpayer-funded R&D done at colleges and universities does NOT pay off in a big payoff? Most of it. The firms do NOT incur those costs at all (for practical purposes). The firms ONLY will consider taxpayer-funded R&D that looks like it MIGHT be profitable. And they do not really pay a lot for the license to try it. They only pay the school--and the group that did the original R&D--if they actually "hit it big" with the new drug.

So, they privatize the profits and socialize the losses.

Sound familiar?

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