Hodak Value

Actually, I'm just referring to the price of cancer drugs, as mentioned in today's WSJ, which drugs unfortunately do not yet offer the prospect of immortality. The point of the article's protagonist, Morgan Stanley biotech analyst Steven Harr, is that if the drug companies price their breakthroughs too high, they will face a political backlash that could undermine their long-term profitability. So, he says, they need to limit how much they earn from their breakthroughs by moderating their prices.

Setting aside the key assumption behind this claim, i.e., that the drug companies can forestall regulation by pre-emptively pricing below what the market can bear, I think this article presents a glimpse into what I believe will be the most important social debate of all time, the coming war over who will be allowed to afford immortality.

As I see it, it's just a matter of time before the totality of human health problems becomes treatable. We will eventually, perhaps a long time from now, get to the point where even the poorest person will have access to these treatments. Between now and then, however, one thing needs to happen: the life-extending treatments need to be developed.

Their pace of development will be faster or slower depending on the rewards of development and overall economic growth. There will inevitably be a phase-in period, which could last several generations, where those treatments will not be universally available at market prices, so they will need to be rationed or heavily subsidized.

The key question, and this is where the mega-debate will happen, will be over the means of rationing or level of subsidization during this transition period. Market-based rationing without subsidization means that the treatments will go to the richest. It will also mean that those developing the treatments will have the maximum incentive to develop more, faster, and that the overall economy will grow more quickly, all of which hastens the day when the full set of treatments exist and are universally available.

In the meantime, will society accept the idea that Bill Gate's kids or grandkids get to live forever but yours and mine may not? Of course, if we ration these treatments on any other basis, or tax everyone so that they are universally available more quickly, then the market will suffer. Either the drug company incentives or resources for further development won't be there (which is the effect of the policy described in today's article), or the economy as a whole will suffer from trying to afford the unaffordable--universal access to expensive innovations.

That's going to be the big debate.

You might not have seen the article. It was on page 12 of the WSJ.

Until recently, Germany condemned the low-tax competition from Poland and others as ���tax dumping.��� But after failing to win support within the EU, Germany has joined in�Ķ Others in Western Europe have reacted to the tax cut in Germany.

Most of the media presents globalization as the result of a political intent to liberalize. Uh-uh. Globalization is less an effect than a driver of government policy. The illusion that governments trump markets is based on the immediate, visible effects of new laws. The unseen, long-term effects include a market reaction that ultimately undermines laws that don't make economic sense. Ultimately, we see a change in the laws--the government responding to market realities when its alternatives look worse. Chinese communists and Indian bureaucrats aren't letting go because they like economic freedom.

Markets are aided by transparency. The impact of government policy on economic outcomes is becoming easier to see (or harder to hide). People are seeing through the collectivist excuses for limiting their ability to invest in or accept investment from anywhere, to sell to or buy from anyone. People are taking advantage of their ability to hire anyone anywhere to do a job. They're having more trouble justifying denying anyone the right to live or work anywhere. Eventually, we may even begin to insist on the freedom to adopt a governmental jurisdiction of our own choosing, possibly even regardless of where we happen to reside, like American corporations choosing among states. Sovereignty will become commoditized. That���s what this article is illustrating in its infancy.

Astronomy was my childhood passion. It was the height of the "space race." What boy's imagination wasn't captivated by Star Trek and the eventuality that science fiction would become fact?

So, my heart still races when we find something remarkable out there, as today when we discovered the first planet with earth-like temperatures. This planet may have water. If it does, it would very likely be liquid on its surface beneath an atmosphere of some kind. That makes it a keen candidate for a life-bearing world.

The exciting thing is that even if this world contains no water or no life, it's still a harbinger of other worlds yet to be discovered that almost certainly do have water and life. We've only been looking for a relatively short time, a few cosmic seconds, and already we have found over 200 planets, one of them earth-like, albeit with a big red sun that would look 20 times the size of the moon. (How cool is that?) At this rate, our grandkids should be familiar with dozens, if not hundreds of worlds likely to support life of some sort. Soon after, we may even be able to reach them in a reasonable amount of time.

The reason I love history is because it kind of makes up, in my mind, for all the years that I wasn't around before I was born. At times like this, I wish I were looking back on these exciting times of discovery, but knowing what those discoveries eventually turned into. I guess there are as many ways of saying life is too short as there are stars in the sky.

In three months, Max has gone from lofty, cum laude senior to lowly frosh having to prove himself all over again. Today we make the eight-hour drive down to his new school. We'd have flown him down, but he's got the accumulated STUFF of a post-industrial teen who happens to be both very athletic and crazy-smart with computing technology. Also, he's going away! By driving him down, I get a couple more days with him.

Many years ago, when the big guy was much smaller and more daddy-centered, and our worlds largely overlapped, the thought of this day would have inspired dread. Now that it's time to cut him loose, and for us to become visitors in each other's separate worlds, it's not as bad as I thought. First of all, it's not exactly a cold-turkey split. Max weaned us with a stint at boarding school these last couple of years. His school was only an hour away, so this still feels like a big step, but not nearly as big as "now-you-see-me-now-you-don't." Second, communications have changed a lot since the time of mini-Max; every kid now has a cell phone and Al Gore has invented the Internets!

I'll try to set a good example while I still have some parental influence, and not use my phone while driving.

Update: Eight hours turned out to be wishful thinking. Traffic was thick, even without the expected rains. Thank goodness, we'll only have to move his STUFF once in these next four years. At least the Internet is working down here.

Forbes just came out with an issue about Best Places to Raise a Family Most of these places seem very geared to young families, with great schools and kid-friendly open spaces. Other issues have touted best places to retire. These tend to have lower property taxes (which often, though not always, translate into poorer schools) and easy living.

I'm wondering if in our more mobile society, certain political jurisdictions will realize they can't be all things to all people, and begin to specialize. Florida itself seems to be doing that with senior friendly areas (with pretty crappy public schools), and family friendly areas with sky-high property taxes.

I know that some individual states and counties are starting to give significant property tax breaks to retirees as a way of keeping them, presumably as sales tax and fee payers with higher-than-average disposable income (not to mention a significant voting block).

I've been on vacation this past week, which included my birthday, which is why there have been no posts since Wednesday.

One thing I missed on my birthday was this review by Andrew Stark of "The Mortal Coil" by David Boyd Haycock. The review of the book itself was OK, but then the author transitions into a pointless after-commentary:

But how desirable would cryonics or immortality in tiny steps be, even if they were possible? Mr. Haycock says that he "will leave it for others to try and answer" such a question. OK, let's try.