Agreed.

I would just add that in Pharma, the problem is greatly amplified by the fact that that clinical trials are a great barrier to entry (rightly so) for a product and FDA regulatory is a single gatekeeper entity that determines whether a drug is approved or not. Once a drug is approved, and there are few competitors, it can charge high prices and have great profit margins that gives rise to boardroom excesses, more so than in other industries.

In most industries, there aren't gatekeepers and the barriers to entry for a product are much lower. In those, the competition in the capitalistic market-driven system limits some of the excesses that you see in the Pharma. The greater the competition, the lower the margins, and the less money with which to play. I'm not saying there aren't excesses elsewhere, just as markets become more competitive, these excesses become more limited.

Competition is the usually the best cure, but Pharma is a totally different animal. Hopefully RFK can clean things up a bit. We'll see

Staying long