Profiteering, Abuse of monopoly, Price Fixing..

Great Profits are essential to a strong Nation.. They facilitate bold investment and hence a stronger economy.
We are not against great profits.. Just obscene markups.
Eg. Charging a $1000 for an i-Phone bill for data that only cost $10 to send. (a 10,000% markup)
or Charging a $1000 for an Aids drug that only cost $10 to make.
Currently, this is not illegal - just immoral.
In affluent times, the public can cope with this level of highway robbery! Those times are now over and the public is NOT coping.

Our new 'Prices Justification Commission' will investigate any product reported for excessive price.  After a preliminary examination of component costs the producer may be required to justify or reduce the price.
(In 1973, Australia had a world famous "Prices Justification Tribunal")

Normally, natural competition ensures products are never over-priced. Extreme prices are usually found where there is a patent monopoly in force.
There are many products in the health care industry that are vital to life yet they are marked up ten thousand percent!
The holders of those patents claim that the research costs justify those prices.. Yet the consumer electronics developers spend similar amounts on research, and they manage to keep their markups around 100 percent - not 10,000 percent. It would only take a few days for a Forensic Accountant and an Industry expert (employed by the Prices Justification Commission) to accurately determine what level of markup was justified.

These extreme prices for life saving drugs are not illegal but they do result in thousands of deaths. Our battle to reign in these obscene prices will be savagely fought by Big-Pharma and the only hope we have in winning this fight is to succeed in getting several nations to form sister political parties with our Australian party.. (Australia is already famous for standing up to Big-Pharma with our "Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme")

Controlling prices is vital to avoiding the looming national disaster of unaffordable health care. The proposed Prices Justification Commission (PJC) will be given the power to investigate and limit those costs.

Some of the issues the PJC will address..
• We shouldn't have to pay $100 for a spare auto part that costs just $10.
• Across a wide range of produce, farmers only get 25 cents for every dollar the consumer pays.
• Controlling prices is vital to avoiding the looming disaster of unaffordable health care.
• We can no longer afford Hospital Specialists who charge-out at $500 an hour.
• We can't afford to pay $1000 for a drug that could be sold at a profit for $10.

A basic principle of the PJC will be that.. If the product is needed by middle class citizens then the product must not be artificially priced beyond the means of middle class citizens. Eg. Lawyers are often needed by middle class citizens, but, at $300 to $1000 per hour, lawyers have priced themselves well beyond their reach.

Patent Abuse..

As mentioned above, extreme prices are usually found where a patent monopoly is in force.
Patents were never intended to allow the holder to charge obscene prices. The intention was to grant the developer a limited time of protection from competition while they re-couped their development cost. From that simplistic beginning, the abuse of patents has grown to a 'million lawyer' system of manipulation and extortion that makes the mafia look like kindergarten.

Patents are not actually owned by the patent holder..
"A Patent is a Privilege, granted by the people (the State), to assist in the development of a 'benefit' to the people. Any Patent can be revoked by the people (the State) if it is abused or proves not to be a 'benefit' to the people."
We will be holding referendums in each nation to determine if the public (who already are the ultimate legal owners of all patents) wish to have all 'critical to life' patents controlled and price-regulated by a new 'International Patent Authority'.
This Authority would oversee the sharing of "critical to life" patents between research laboratories and distribute royalties accordingly.
The current patent system prevents any other laboratory from adding to the research. That's one of the reasons there is currently a mad rush to patent every useful bit of the human genome. - to prevent 'others' from developing cures!
An 'International Patent Authority' could put an end to this greed driven insanity.

Patent abuse stifles innovation and costs the public trillions of dollars every year..
Many patents do not reflect or protect original effort, they cover small, previously unpatented items or ideas stolen from the trash of larger developers. These trivial sub-components are secretly patented and later, when the parent concept is in wide scale production, these minor component patents will be 'surfaced' and the pirates will be granted millions of dollars in royalties!
The threat of these 'submarine' patents forces an innovator to employ teams of lawyers and forces them to patent every trivial component! This vastly increases the cost of innovation.
The IPA will investigate millions of such patents and may cancel or redeem any patent that has no clear benefit to the public. The thousands of patents issued on gene sequences and ancient remedies will also be canceled.

Patent holder should not be able to prevent others from researching or adding further innovation to the patented item.  Such improvements could be added to the original patent and a small proportion of the royalties would be apportioned by the IPA.
The Wright Brothers belligerently and effectively prevented any further innovation in the Aero-Industry in the USA.  As a consequence, all innovation and development moved to France and the "Syndicat d'Aviation" started building planes in 1905. Because of this patent abuse, by the start of World War 1, the USA had not been able to build any planes and had to buy its entire Airforce from France. This type of abuse is still rampant today.

Note.. Our 90+ policy articles are all in the 'peer review' stage.. [more..]