”More than 20 years ago, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation took the pioneering step of providing research funding to Aurora Biosciences (now Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) to identify and develop the first treatments for the underlying cause of CF. Driven by the relentless determination of the CF community, those investments led to the development of multiple transformative therapies to treat CF.”
I partially excused that mentally with a "but yeah, research is expensive", but now learning that it was paid for by donations ruins that argument.
The fact that the state don't want to pay for it is of course also debatable..
And the CF Foundation has (had) an ownership stake in the IP for the drug and sold it for $3.5B.
And guess what that money is going towards? More research and help for CF patients! They gave $575M to Vertex for next generation CF drugs.
https://endpts.com/royalty-pharma-tops-its-record-setting-3-...
The foundation getting a cut of the success and reinvesting in new opportunities sounds good though, thanks for pointing that out!
Other charities, like those that are setup to cure specific illnesses, can accomplish their mission on reasonable timeframes.
If not, then one of two things are true:
1) Money can't solve social ills
2) Not enough people who have the means to do so are willing to voluntarily sacrifice to solve a social ill
Either way, that suggests that taxation/wealth redistribution solutions is similarly doomed (unless you're willing to do it by force).
I haven't gotten to the article yet, but I'm pretty sure this is intended as a criticism or the article.
Looking at the article, it uses the term "international dollars" instead of "PPP adjusted dollars," so I think the original comment just missed that the dollars are actually adjusted.
It makes sense if you read the original comment as a criticism of the article ("whitewash the staggering amount of wealth and power is held by American oligarchs" is, I think, pretty clearly a bad thing to do) which just missed that the dollars in the article were adjusted.
I took it as minimizing the disparity between rich and poor countries.
I don't know how to reconcile your interpretation with the idea that someone should feel guilty for having a higher dollar income but the same PPP income as someone else.
That's not really discussed because it's an utterly standard thing to do in cross-country comparisons, but the article might have been better if it talked about the fact the data is PPP adjusted so the actual dollar amounts earned in the poorer countries are even lower, and the fact that PPP adjustments aren't perfect so people on $6.70 of imputed US purchasing power can still pay rent
This is the point I am pushing back on.
1) Write an article about income inequality. Wealth inequality is 100x worse than income inequality - http://metrocosm.com/wealth-vs-income-inequality/ but if you just smoothly transition from talking about economic inequality to income inequality, not only is it not as bad, the reader becomes a much bigger part of it and hence you become less of a part of it.
2) Ignore PPP entirely. If a Slovakian gets paid 5x less than you do in New York and also has 5x cheaper haircuts, you should probably feel a bit guilty about that.
3) Focus on personal responsibility. This is an effective technique. It was used to turn jaywalking into a crime in the early 20th century. It was used to make the litter epidemic of the mid 20th century Not McDonalds Or Coke's Fault. It was used to shift responsibility from Oil supermajor CEOs on to suburban white middle class soccer moms and voila - reduced pressure.
Just remember, as the article says: "If you want to reduce global inequality and support poorer people, you do have this opportunity. You can donate some of your money."