[civilian_number_two]

schism, jism, malapropism.

You're right. That didn't fix anything.

[Thudd]

The school is out on Avian bird flu...was it man made in the first place?
ID Biomedical received $20 million for research into a vacination for the Avian bird flu in 2004. They sold their business to GlaxoSmithKline for $1.7 Billion in 2005 - where does the tax payer get a cut of this? They have raised $12 million using the public markets since then.

Gardisil maker Merck are trying to scare women into getting this vaccination to prevent cervical cancer, the Government of Canada is putting up $300 million to introduce this drug to Canadian girls and women. At $400 per shot someone is getting rich and potentially hurting or even killing generations of young women to come. In just little over a year, the HPV vaccine has been associated with at least five deaths, not to mention thousands of reports of adverse effects, hundreds deemed serious, and many that required hospitalization.

As of May 11, 2007, the 1,637 adverse vaccination reactions reported to the FDA via the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System included 371 serious reactions. Of the 42 women who received the vaccine while pregnant, 18 experienced side effects ranging from spontaneous abortion to fetal abnormalities.

If it's a good investment the investment community will get in...if it's not they'll get out...that's the way private enterprise works... Government should stay out of risky investments. If the internet revolution of the 80's and 90's were subsidized by the government because it costs too much to install millions of miles of fibre-optic cable, it would only be available to the super rich today. Trillions of investor dollars were wiped out of the technology business when the bubble burst in early 2000...If the government invested we would be owing that as tax payers.

If a particle accelerator like UBC have out at TRIUMF can potentially find a cure for say cancer, don't you think investors would be lining up at the door to invest?

subsidizing or funding research has not kept the price of drugs, diagnosing, treatment and equipment down...so why bother...Government know nothing about drugs, particle accelerators or new technology. They are Civil SERVANTS not civil protectors.

I'm going to go club a sabertooth now.

[Slade]

Uh... Interesting observations, but what does any of this have to do with Libertarianism or isms in general? You didn't even type one word with an ism in it at all. And if you're against goverment getting its hands in research, i.e. more free-market economies, investors only invest in companies that they feel comfortable will turn a profit and get results. Companies, with a much larger source of income than investors, will only fund research if it is profitable. Sure, the government can seriously fuck things up, too, but throwing research to the wolves instead isn't going to help.

[Thudd]

Some one mentioned bird flu and partical accelerators and government funding. But here ya go, ism.

[J m HofMarN]

Wow. This new page is both more topical and less brain pain inducing than the seven pages of "debate" before it. Huzzah for you all!

[civilian_number_two]

Fo shism, my nism.

[Deucaon]

I argue that a libertarian economy would work without taxes if the government takes the role of a middleman between sales within the country and outside the country so the government would be able to get profits by buying from its citizens/producers at a reduced price and selling it to another country (or directly to foreign citizens) at an increased price. I don’t know if free trade is a fundamental libertarian belief but if it is then libertarianism is as stupid and farfetched as communism or anarchy.

[J m HofMarN]

So a libertarian economy would work if it was communism, basically? Maybe I'm just jumping to a baseless conclusion, but if a government can tell people who to sell their stuff to, set prices for purchase, set prices for sale, etc etc, then that sounds a lot like a communist economy.

[Spoon Poetic]

Except for the no taxes part, that's pretty much no longer Libertarian.