I don't get why anyone could like this guy, or the wolf of wallstreet dude. They were literally convicted of despicable crimes

@NiciusB What were the despicable crimes that he was convicted of? I see two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

@higherLEVELING fair enough, I thought he was convicted of something worse. The guy is clearly a terrible person tho

@NiciusB That's fair. He has a bad reputation. I think his case, in particular, is interesting because he's charged with securities fraud, and you would assume he ripped people off or that someone had lost money, but that wasn't the case. They actually made money.

Martin Shkreli found guilty of securities fraud, other charges | CBC News

@higherLEVELING There's also this, from Wikipedia:

In September 2015, Shkreli was widely criticized when Turing obtained the manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug Daraprim and raised its price by 5,455% (from US$13.50 to $750 per pill).

Not illegal, but probably should be illegal.

@evergreenemily Why should that be illegal?

@higherLEVELING It's monopolistic price gouging that takes advantage of sick people??? Why SHOULDN'T that be illegal???

@evergreenemily Just wondering, when you read an article or story, do you ever read past the headlines? Or try to hear out the other side of the story? Hearing different perspectives on it might help to suppress the moral outrage.
if you read into it, it might not be as evil as your assuming it to be.

@evergreenemily It might actually be even worse than you imagined. actually. super. evil.
When you get triggered, your profile pic really makes your words pop btw.

@evergreenemily from what I remember (it's been a long time since I paid attention to this), the company both offered and actually gave out to anyone not fully covered by insurance reimbursements for their felt price increase. Skhkeli is/was autistic and did not communicate this well/interview well, but he seemed to being trying to make sure individual people did not get screwed.

So at the end of the day, it was him, big pharma, trying to get more money from big insurance. Since health insurance is legally required and taxpayer funded my libertarian desires are frustrated, but I don't think you share those.

@RobertCousineau Great, now my worldview lost another supervillain....

@RobertCousineau Huh, I wasn't aware of that. You're right that I don't share those desires as far as the health care system goes, but I would consider myself a lowercase-L libertarian in enough ways that "libertarian socialist" is one of the ways I sometimes identify my political ideology.

I did some digging to find a post-2015 news article, and while it seems like individual people (probably) weren't bankrupted by the price hike, it also seems like there was no good reason for it aside from money. Also, as the article points out, a big part of why insurance costs in the U.S. are so high is that prescription drug prices here are absurd, so Shkreli's price hike is an example of something that contributes to the size (and profits) of Big Insurance.

@evergreenemily No one disagrees that the system is rotten to the core. But is Shkreli an evil person?

@Schwabilismus "Evil" might be a strong word, but he's intentionally helping the system persist and he raised the price of an old drug just to make more money for himself and his company. I definitely don't think he's a good person.

@RobertCousineau OTOH he did do felony securities fraud bad enough to get a seven year prison sentence afterwards (not even related to the Darapim stuff), so I'm gonna stick with "bad person" purely based on that.

@NiciusB what makes him "clearly a terrible person" in your opinion, exactly? I'd hate to see how some of you would describe individuals who in my mind actually qualify as being deserving the "terrible person" label.

@dieselbaby1337 Like who?

@evergreenemily just like how we charge dirty money for food, water, shelter from the cold, without which people will literally die

@evergreenemily How is he helping the system to persist?
Being a ratbag openly and spectacularly may be a completely necessary step towards getting ratbaggery banned. This is a way he has justified his actions. For all I know, that may be a valid justification.
You should be way way madder at the people who do all of the same shit then pretend they think it's fine, and personally, I'm really mad at the people who act like the rules of the game are fine and that it's the players that're the problem.

@makoyass You raise a fair point - and believe me, I'm mad at the other people doing this shit as well. I don't think Shkreli is uniquely evil at all; many other CEOs (of pharmaceutical companies or otherwise) have done the same things, or considerably worse ones. That doesn't mean I think Shkreli isn't a colossal dickhead. There's other ways to sic policymakers on crooked business practices than engaging in them yourself.

The rules of the game absolutely need to be changed, and changed significantly. But in the meantime, I don't think engaging in shitty behavior just because the rules allow you to do it is a good look.

@evergreenemily "Meantime"... I'm straight up not sure it's going to happen until we get a critical mass of shkreli.

@makoyass Yeah, could be. I hope it doesn't take that long, but I also don't have much faith in the American political system.

jfc i hope not