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Please pay more tax.

Then we can fund the science with it.

Honestly, I heard a comment on Slate Money to the effect of "Why aren't the billionaire class doing more to fund COVID research"

All the epidemiology, all the WHO plans for last decade, all the incredible co-ordinated response globally (#) has been publicly funded. Give over on the idea private companies are good for anything but taking existing research in the hands of hundreds and putting it into hands of millions and billions.

Pay tax. Vote for competence.

(#) yes I happen to think that shutting down most of the planet, in an attempt to save millions of lives, in a matter of weeks, is an amazing feat of global co-ordination. Yes there are lots of local differences and many many ways things could be better but humanity could have done so much worse.




It would make sense to pay tax, instead of contribute directly to research, if you only wanted 3% of the money to go to research.

What you’re really saying here is it’s wrong that some entities choose to direct more money to research than society does collectively, and they should defer to society’s decision to spend on other things instead.


Tax is independent of spending, thanks to fiat currency.


Around 20% of all biotech revenue gets put back into R&D.

So the next time your insurance pays $1000 for a drug, know that $200 of that goes back to R&D.


The rest largely funds more fireworks at the Super Bowl through consumer targeted drug ads, and lunches to manipulate doctors into prescribing based on soft bribery.


And a significant part of R&D is in practice patent-engineering and slightly better solution to trivially solved issues.




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