[ExI] Why is "cost of living" such a big problem?

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 06/11/2026 16:20, spike wrote:
> Profiteering: is going to work profiteering?  Is investing profiteering?  Is
> doing anything profiteering?  How are we defining the term?


The term has a well-established definition. I used the internet to look it up for you:

Profiteering
noun
The act of making an unreasonable profit not justified by the corresponding assumption of risk, or by doing so unethically.


> Research is risky. Most companies fail to find the profitable solution first. Without profiteering, there is no profit, and there are no shareholders. Shareholders go to other industries.


Reconsider your statement above, in light of the meaning of the word.

There are reasonable profits, and there is profiteering. Two different things. Can you now agree to that?

If so, try to explain the Epipen scenario that Henrik described as anything other than profiteering. Try to defend a $600 price for a $1 dose of a natural substance (no drug development involved) in a simple plastic and metal device. I don't know how much the pen costs to produce, but I suspect it will be less than the cost of the adrenaline it contains. Even if it costs $10 (which is ridiculous), that's a charge of $600 for something that costs $11. If that doesn't count as pure gouging, I don't know what does.

If not, please explain why you don't make a distinction between reasonable, justified and ethical profits, and unreasonable, unjustified and unethical profits.

-- 
Ben
"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." - Pablo Casals, via Albert Einstein