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Bacon with the overthrow. Hart at first now with the error.

QUOTE (3E8 @ Jun 13, 2009 -> 01:09 PM) I was going to say shame on you guys for even debating which national pizza chain is best but I noticed none of you live in IL I do now, but those 5 years in Ann Arbor were hell to get a good pizza. Not to many options outside of Dominos and Little Ceasars, and people thought those were actually GOOD pizzas. Its sad...

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Jun 13, 2009 -> 12:39 PM) Papa Johns >>>>>>>> Pizza Hut = Little Ceasars >>> Dominos Papa Johns wins out for me if only for the garlic sauce and peppers that come with the pizza. But frankly I would rather spend a little bit more money and get GOOD pizza than to eat pizza from any of these. Ugh, Papa Johns pizza has no flavor, and the sauce is too sweet for me. Pizza Hut just doesnt use good ingredients IMO. The garlic sauce for Papa Johns also makes me kinda sick, so my opinion of their pizza will change since alot of people like it and I dont use the garlic sauce. Caesars is the best out of the options because the crust is meh, the sauce has a decent flavor, and the cheese and toppings are also decent. But they make the difference in the little things because they actually use spices such as oregano to add flavor. Is it good pizza? No, but its decent. Papa Johns and Pizza Hut are bad pizza IMO. Dominos is cardboard with a red-like substance on it. I would love to spend more and get a better pizza, but Im also a poor college student.

Its not bad pizza if youre going for a cheap one. Around $5 for a large, Im in. Little Ceasars >>>>>>>>>Papa Johns/Dominos/Pizza Hut

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 03:30 PM) Perhaps you haven't seen the latest unemployment numbers. And alot of those people arent really lazy people or unqualified workers, theres a s***load of talented, well educated workers on the unemployment list right now.

QUOTE (Cubano @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 03:12 PM) If I am one of these companies, I will be moving overseas. These comanies have to run a business and pay their workers, investors, etc. Of the pharma companies I know, many have overseas operations. Without giving to many specifics, the company I work for is based out of Japan and has large operations here in the US and in Europe.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 03:02 PM) I was going to say something like that but you already did. Increase the time the patent is valid so they don't need to raise prices as much (unless someone tells me that's a bad idea), and somehow de-incentivize cost increases through regulations or whatever. Honestly though, I'm not familiar enough with the industry to write anything in-depth, I'm just a semi-educated casual observer to it all. Im pretty sure that as long as you present a business plan that is still very profitable for the pharma company along with helping out more people in terms of cost for the drug you would see a pretty good reception in the pharma industry. Do I know this for a fact? Nope. But working here and getting to know many of the top employees such as the Director of R&D and IT and the VP of R&D and IT and how they are down to earth people who take pride in working for a company that is more about being a business, but one that helps people with their products makes it encouraging to me that it would be receptive. I do not know about all the drug companies, and I know people who have worked for Pfizer and they are very different when it comes to business practice (they are very arrogant there, not everybody there is, but the majority of top bosses are).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 02:53 PM) The biggest problem with that setup not being talked about here is that it also puts the profit motive in the wrong direction. The most profitable pill for a company to develop is not going to be the one that makes the greatest number of people healthy or cures a disease the easiest; it's the one that people have to take every day for the entire time that it is under control of their patent. So, instead of drugs that could be targeted towards curing things, we get drugs that manage symptoms, or drugs that are aimed at things that really aren't life threatening. You wind up with erectile dysfunction drugs and antidepressants being the most profitable type of drugs, while necessary things like improving our vaccine manufacturing languishes because you only need that one time per year. Eh, obviously there needs to be a demand for the drug for a company to deem it a risk worth investing in, but you can say that about alot of products that never make it to market that would help people, just not a large amount of people. Those drugs do take up R&D time, efforts, and money, but it is just one division of the pharma field. Hell, the company I work for develops transplant drugs, uruology drugs, skin drugs, drugs that help the immune system (Im not that caught up with the terminology so please excuse that), so we have a wide variety that we research and develop. Many of our drugs that we have now and in the pipeline do not reflect a drug such as antidepressants etc, they are drugs that will help stop the expansion of certain cancers, help organs be accepted by the body after a transplant, help the body keep a strong immune system even during the organ acceptance period, etc. Yet we are still making a good profit.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 02:52 PM) I'm not saying that the motive for profit in and of itself is a bad thing, because when you run a business that's what you do. I'm saying that in this particular case I'm all for tighter regulation and more government involvement than I would normally be because it's a different situation. So what would you propose? Realistically, I could see an agreement between the two sides where the patent time is increased so the pharma companies can control it longer but there is a limit by the govt on how much the pharma companies can charge per pill/dose/prescription whatever. I have no idea about the legal implications of such a deal though.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 02:44 PM) I'm not really buying it... unless the entire industry was taken over and run as a government agency and not for profit (which isn't going to happen), they will still get their profits. They just won't be able to gouge and contribute to exploding costs like they do now. If I had my way, anyway. Well, their big profits come in those short periods of time that they can sell their drugs under patent, so they basically are forced to sell them at such a high price. They need to get as much money as possible in that time so they can accumulate a nice amount for new drugs, and obviously they are making nice money at the same time but thats what a business does.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 02:38 PM) That's really part of the problem IMO. The fact that money is the bottom line. We're not talking about a flavor of soft drink, or a Blu-Ray player, or a website, we're talking about people's health. And furthermore, the consumer base doesn't have any kind of control over it because they can't see it, so I don't even really think the free market/laissez-faire argument is that valid anyway. They shouldn't be allowed to just extract profits from us because they want to, and because they can. Theyre still a business that is trying to make as much profit as possible, you take that away you threaten to take away their resources to reinvest into R&D, and then everybody hurts because less advancements in medicine are made.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 02:34 PM) Like I said, I'm a free market guy - let things go as they go... but pharma is one industry that I have some integrity issues with... because at whose cost is a reformulation going to come from. Drug A - $300 for 30 pills Drug A generic - $45 for 30 pills Drug AB (redformulated) - $330 for 30 pills (with all sorts of new marketing campaigns to allow for the "degradation" of drug A and drug A generic (which provides the same result as drug AB)). The reality is most times, marketing spend for "Drug A" and "Drug AB" will be the same in the budgets once the switch is made, so they're making 10% more off of the reformulation for no reason other then a name change - all because of a patent expiration. The other thing I'll say - pharmas COULD do it different with generic companies - they could have agreements (some do, most don't) in place to maintain control over the generics - but they don't because the profits aren't enough. So you're saying the profit isnt high enough for pharmas to make deals with generic companies, okay fine. Then why should they change from what they are doing? If they feel the best business is to keep reformulating the drug, why not? Do I think they should raise the prices? Personally, no. But when a company strives to make the most profits possible this is what happens. Unless you want government intervention or reform of the laws in place, this is what is going to happen as long as generics are threatening to take away profit.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 02:14 PM) Most of the time, you know what the FDA is going to request. Of course speed to market is the whole thing and yes, you only have a short window. With that said, moving an end of a chain on a molecule and then selling the drug as a new formulation to keep the insane profits down is crazy. And you know exactly what the FDA is going to do with those reformulations because you've already been down the path with the original molecule. Doesnt sound crazy to me, sounds like a business trying to keep profits high and keep the return coming on their investment.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 01:56 PM) I worked at a pharma company. I know how this game is played. Generic companies "steal" your business? OK. If you have a good product, you'll make billions off of it before the patent expires anyway. You have a lot of years of patent protection. And if the pharma company can't get it to market and make money off of it, it's their own fault. I work at one currently. I am only an intern, and Im not in the R&D side, Im in the IT part, but from what Ive heard you only get a few years of actual selling time because of FDA requirements and testing. Pharmas are constantly trying to improve their rate and speed of getting out their products, but the chances are small for many of their products and the obstacles a numerous, with many of them unknown until the FDA tells you so. You can prepare your documents as best you can for the FDA but if they feel any slight discomfort in allowing the drug on the market, they'll ask for more testing and you can easily see a year or two knocked off your time frame of the patent. Luckily the one I am working at specializes in transplant medicine and it is much harder to make a generic copy.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 01:38 PM) One thing I will say is "rationing" is ok, as long as it's not "rationing" for providing services. The doctors thing: one of the biggest challenges is there are at least two (if not more) standards the docs are held to. Their license may require different expectations (read: treatment outcomes) depending on which medical board it goes through. This does cause a difference in how they treat a dx. I think that's wrong, and a big problem. (I.e. an internist goes through a different treatment then a general practitioner). Then you tie that in to malpractice, insurance, etc. You can't forget that when you're talking about the malpractice stuff. That cap is really just a bs thing - because it only comes into play at rare cases. Another pharma trick is the reformulation of things just to escape patent renewals. I think that's horses***. Let's move the carbonate molecule from one branch to another, call it something different (when in fact it's the same drug) and remarket it. Yea, that's fair. Oh yea, its really fair that a product you invest millions of dollars into is only under your protection for a few years before generic companies come in and steal your patent and make a ridiculous amount of money with very little R&D costs. Thats fair alright.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 01:40 PM) COWARDS!!!!!! They just have less obligatory draft picks apparently.

Angels dropped out.

Guy from Parkland College in Champaign, IL just got drafted. I believe they won their championship, whatever it is.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 11:06 AM) I got a busy day at work so I plan on attacking these picks in a set of ten or so, mainly talking about guys that have some sort of skill-set or interseting fact about them. However, the reality is that most of the guys going right now are either going to go back to school and try to improve there draft stock (especially any high school kid and a lot of juco guys) or they will most likely be organizational guys. That said there might be a few intriguing guys that come off the boards, maybe a college senior whose slid down for whatever reason or something like that. Any info on them would be really appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Anybody have any info on these guys?

QUOTE (Seymizzle @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 09:18 AM) With a high first round pick I would almost always draft the best player available based on organizational need. The only exception is if by doing so your passing up on a can't miss player that's exceedingly better that the one you draft. Gordon exhibits the same attributes as Justin at a position the sox organization was in desperate need of. At our draft position just don't see the point of drafting a first baseman when we had a good one already in the system. I personally wanted the sox to draft Aaron Hicks because there is a need for speedy outfielders. Smoak is a better hitter. If the Sox thought Beckham was a better overall player, and position can go into this (SS is usually stressed as a harder position to play and most SS are considered more athletic anyways) then I am fine with it. But Smoak IS a better hitter. You can never have to many great hitters in your system, I dont care what position and who else plays it. You can find room for guys with big bats, or you can make room. You win either way.

QUOTE (Seymizzle @ Jun 11, 2009 -> 08:12 AM) Why take Smoak or Wallace when Brandon Allen was having a nice year? Smoak>>>>>>>>>Allen Wallace>>>>Allen IMO Not to mention you should always take the best available prospect in the draft. If you have Smoak and Allen, you trade one for a young SS or pitcher or whatever your need is. Look at what Laporta got the Brewers.

Im really dissappointed in the apparent miscommunication of Kenny and Ozzie, they really need to be agreeing with each other in the media, let the disagreements stay in the clubhouse and office, but when they step out they need to be on the same page.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 04:32 PM) Goldy B. Simmons...awesome. The video I saw had him topping out in the mid-80s, maybe they were all offspeed. Does anybody have a report on him? By the way, his name is great (I think that is what u were trying to hint at there).

While I personally dont boo unless I really disrespect the person (not the stats) I do understand the frustration of fans. Wise is a bit of a scapegoat, he's out there with sub par defense and just awful offense, and when youre team is struggling those negatives are blown up ot a huge proportion. Look at 2006, when Anderson was hitting poorly and the Sox were winning it was ok, when the team struggled his stats became to much of a burden and they felt compelled to replace him. Its the same for the fans, they see a team struggling, and a player struggling, and they think they are putting 2 and 2 together, though it goes alot deeper than that. Fans want the team to succeed and the most obvious guy to replace to put the team back into winning ways is the one who is doing so blatantly poorly.