The Crowhill Journal

From what I’ve read, it can take more than ten years to get FDA approval for a new drug. That’s part of the reason why drugs are so expensive. You’ve got to be paying the doctors and researchers and lawyers and such for a long time before you have any chance at making any money. (And as a side note, I think that’s why healthcare is more expensive in the U.S. We’re bearing more of the burden of drug research.)

With something like COVID-19, I’m sure they’re going to fast track the process.

While thinking about all that, it struck me as odd (once again) that drugs go through such rigorous review, while dietary supplements don’t.

Some dietary supplements are just normal stuff. Turmeric and ginger, for example, or something that people have been making tea from for a hundred years. Other supplements might be more questionable. But I think the big issue is the dose. A little ginger is probably good for you. That doesn’t mean that a whole lot of it is. And some of these supplements have way more of the secret super-whatever than you could reasonably get from food.

This was a big topic of conversation in the regulatory publishing world — back when I was in that world, about 15 years ago. And it seems nothing much has changed.

We seem to have overly lax regulation of dietary supplements, and overly restrictive regulation of drugs. And for some reason, it’s stayed that way for a long time.

When I was a younger man, I used to drink a lot of coffee and tea. Then my appendix said, “enough of that,” and now I’m stuck with decaf. I’m not thrilled with that, but such is life.

I still drink decaf coffee and tea, but they’re not quite the same.

Recently, I had a very vivid dream about a tea experiment. In my dream, I decided that I liked tea better when more tea was steeped for a shorter period of time (as opposed to less tea steeped for a longer period of time). In my dream, the former option resulted in stronger tea with less astringency. And that’s how it turned out. (I tried it today.)

If you enjoy tea, I encourage you to experiment with different preparations. It can make quite a difference in the flavor, the amount of bitterness, etc.

Pigweed and Crowhill review Flying Dog’s Lucky SOB, an Irish Red Ale, and then talk about China.

Who was the genius who decided to make the U.S. economy so dependent on China? And why isn’t the media exposing this dangerous, lopsided relationship?

Our China policy seems to have developed from the idea that a free market is going to result in freedom. But … does that follow?

We brought these monsters into the World Trade Organization — with “most favored nation” status — on the silly hope that more capitalism would make them love freedom. Or something.

As a result of George Bush’s foolish Chinese policy, we now have Huawei — a Chinese telecom company — installing spyware everywhere in the world. Thanks, George.

1. Don’t be a hypocrite. But isn’t hypocrisy the tribute that vice pays to virtue? So … is hypocrisy bad or not?

2. Kissing cousins. Now that we’ve allowed same-sex marriage, should we still have laws against cousins marrying?

3. MLB, the NFL and “African Americans.” Is an English black female an “African American”?

4. When are earbuds appropriate? They seem to be the universal symbol of “don’t bother me.” Are they also anti-social?

5. Pigweed’s war on fun. If we’re worried about energy consumption, we should eliminate things like cruises, vacations, second and third homes, etc.

Markets are very efficient things for allocating prices. No genius can sit at his computer and figure out the “correct” price for a commodity, because the correct price of a thing is nothing less or more than what people are willing to pay for it. That’s one of the reasons that planned economies fail.

However, it’s a mistake to think that markets are perfect, or that they can solve all problems. There are very few free markets. Most of them have distortions — for one reason or another.

Right now, the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia threatens the health of the domestic oil industry. Or, to put it another way, private companies in the U.S. have to compete against government-funded companies overseas.

That’s not right, and that’s a perfect example of when governments should intervene — perhaps with a tariff.

We don’t want to imitate Saudi Arabia or Russia and nationalize our oil companies. We want them to compete in as free a market as we can manage.

But when other parties aren’t playing fair, it makes sense to impose a tariff to prevent long-term harm to domestic companies.