A Matter of Prizes Winning Out

A Matter of Prizes Winning Out

This is taking a bit of a different route this time, more concentrating on the patent versus prize debate instead of a question of Denmark. First off, I would like to agree with Stiglitz's opposition to the patent system for discovering cures, which leads to monopolies. There is too much at stake here to let individual pharmaceutical companies dictate development and distribution. With the monopoly system the pharmaceutical companies do not produce enough medicine at too high of a price to satisfy the world needs for their medicine. Furthermore, with a monopoly the company does not have sufficient incentive to improve their product, such as making the product more potent or reducing side effects. These major problems would be solved by using a prize system that allows for free-market competition. With free-market competition there would be massive incentive to reduce costs and prices with the companies continually trying to undercut the market. Also, with the free market there would be more doses of the cure being produced because there would be more firms entering the market. Combining these two market forces the companies are able to produce the pills cheap enough and in a vast enough quantity to be distributed from New York city to Zimbabwe to Beijing. Furthermore, the companies would have major market incentive to improve the product as well, making it more effective and safer for those people who need the cure. In the end, the benefits of the prize system far outweigh the "not enough incentive to actually develop the cure" argument proposed by the pro-patent people.

*Live at Ceasar's Palace* The Danish Kroner vs. The US Dollar

In what was billed as a give me victory for the former Currency Heavyweight Champion of the world, the US Dollar was upset by the Danish Kroner in what experts have called the biggest upset since Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson. In what has been a five year battle since 2002 the Danish Kroner won all but the 2006 round against the Dollar when the Kroner depreciated against the dollar for the only year out of the five year bout, dropping 20 cents from $.179 per Kroner to $.159 a Kroner. At the end, as of March 9th, 2007 the Kroner had gained 58 cents from $.118 in March of 2002 to $.176 as of March, 2007.

(Author's note: the site http://www.xe.com/ict/
was used, but in order to find the specific exchange rates the reader will have to manually set the site to do the calculations.)

So what does this stunning upset mean for the Danish state? Simply put, the victory means money in the bank for Denmark, at least when dealing with the United States. With a stunning growth against the US Dollar of 49.8% over the past five years Denmark has been able to more readily purchase US goods at cheaper prices while gaining a higher revenue for any imports to the US. All in all, as far as this fight reporter is concerned, the Danes gained an even more favorable balance of trade with the US while even gaining some respect.

Denmark curbing its fixing for Thai chicken

All information taken from "EU chicken quotas agreed" Bangkok Post (Thailand) November 25, 2006
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=de76ee4da078ee5a4175ab9e7e1d4b7d&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLzVlz-zSkVb&_md5=d3e1c0861d635901af9af58cf010cd1c

It appears something was indeed rotten in the state of Denmark. That something, however, wasn't what one might think; in late November of 2006, Denmark and the rest of the European Union reached terms with Thailand regarding quotas limiting the amount of poultry products coming into Europe from Thailand. The EU has agreed with Thailand to instil a quota of 160,033 tons on cooked Thai chicken and 92,610 tons on salted chicken from Thailand. The agreement also entailed the tariffs to be put on the poultry products, with the cooked chicken having an 8 percent tariff rate and a 1,024 Euros/ton tax on products exceding the quota and slated poultry baring a 15.4 percent tariff and a penalty of 1,300 Euros/ton exceding the quota limit.

It may seem like these limits on a small southeastern Asian country wouldn't effect the European marketplace, however, the fact of the matter is that Thailand is the biggest exporter of chicken to the European Union. While the low tariff high quota deal might seem advantageous to Thailand, as of right now the shipment of all uncooked poultry from Thailand to the EU has been stopped because of the Bird Flu. In the end Thailand is able to export substantial portions of chicken (seeing as Thailand exported an average of 80,750 tons of chicken to the EU from 2003-2005) while European chicken farmers are still protected by the limited quotas and tariffs in place.

*author's note: As some of you may have noticed, I tended to use EU more than Denmark in this blog entry. Don't be afraid, the reasoning behind this is that, as an EU member state, Denmark must abide by any EU-wide trade agreement.

Intro

So yeah, Seth, this is to show you that I can post a blog. That's about all that I got right now.