Well, I've got to give you credit, CamilleRoy, no one has ever called me a Burning Man Neo-con before. But I'm disappointed that you're disappointed. I assure you, I have little sympathy for American multinational corporations and how they have taken advantage of cheap labor overseas to put cut wages, benefits, et cetera.

The collapse of union power in the U.S. and the ascendence of deregulated market capitalism here has been a disaster for American workers. But in the long term, I don't see how that is going to be reversed, within the borders of the U.S. It has to be reversed globally, which to me, really means global unions, global movements for the environment, etc. And I don't think THAT will happen until nations like China and India and Brazil and scores of other much less developed countries, advance economically to the point that they have thriving middle classes that are powerful enough to demand real social justice.

Maybe you missed the post, CamilleRoy where I talked about Joseph STiglitz's new book on fair trade and the differences I see between "globalization" and the "Washington Consensus." Of course, if you think Stiglitz is some kind of neo-con, then I don't think that there is any common ground on which we can agree, and you're probably better off taking your attention elsewhere.

As for why I'm interested in China. I lucked into a couple of very good professors in college who fired my imagination, and I started studying the language to satisfy my college language requirement, then went to Taiwan after graduation to continue my studies, ended up living there for four years, and completely became enraptured by the history, culture, and dynamism of East Asia. And despite all the fear-mongering and worries about what an ascendant China means for the world, I think it is a fundamentally good thing that hundreds of millions of people are moving out of poverty and onto the world stage.

Well, Robert, that's clearly a question that this blog will be looking at in the months to come, and I don't know if I can give you a good answer yet. But I'm almost inclined to say that the lack of progress at recent WTO meetings at Hong Kong and Cancun might actually be construed as a positive sign. That is, the standstills are occuring because developing nations have a clearer idea of how trade liberalization without significant assistance is hurting them, and until the developed countries start making more concessions, they aren't going to budge.

Hey Jesse,

Welcome to the conversation. Great post on WOW. Myself, I used to be a big fan of Blizzard games but had to give them up to, uh, have a life.

As for trade unions in China -- it has to be one of the most painful ironies of recent Chinese history that Chinese workers are now among the most ruthlessly exploited in the world, as a result of "communist" leadership. But with 200 million or so as yet unemployed rural workers, its going to be tough for labor to apply pressure.

what am I missing here?

second paragraph: second line: "benefits from research paid for by the public sector"

the point of this post was not to dispute that Big Pharma exploits research paid for the public sector; that's a given. the point was to try to get some clarity on what the actual numbers are.

First: good points, Pyrian, thanks for bringing them to the table. But are you saying that you think that the $802 million dollar figure is a valid one? And as for the marketing "copying" -- I'm not sure that's all that relevant with respect to Brazil's National AIDS Plan, which is where this particular thread started. Brazil's spending on the particular AIDS drugs that its Ministry of Health chose for treatment was based on their efficacy in treating HIV, not on their popularity as a result of successful marketing.

Second: But what I really want to address at this point is Mark Pritchard's brutal smackdown. I'll admit, right off, it's a fair critique. I've been a working reporter for most of the past 15 years, and I'll be the first to admit that the blog format does not allow for the same kind of journalism and reporting that goes into a long, carefully researched feature.

However, what I'm trying to do here, will, I hope, ultimately end up in ploughing some new ground, through the accumulation of posts that inexorably build on each other, piece by piece, Lego block by Lego block. And the litmus test for me that determines whether something is worth posting is not necessarily that it informs all the readers of How The World Works something that they don't know (although obviously that would be ideal) but to learn something that _I_ don't know, post it, and move on to the next thing.

There's some aspects of globalization that I'm better informed on than others -- I believe that my background covering China and free software allows to me to cut more quickly to journalistically interesting things in those areas. My expertise in Big Pharma and intellectual property: not so much. This morning, the goal was to gather some data on R&D numbers -- next week, we'll go a little further.

It will be interesting to see how far the format can be pushed.

those costs, I believe, are already included.