Stossel Did gov stupidity make the great depression and recessions worse?

I'm basically a free market guy and lean towards calling myself a libertarian. Just kidding I'm actually a fascist.

There is a strong argument for the occassionally private public partnership. Example: Operation Warpspeed*, where the US gov partnered with 7 drug companies to quick produce COVID vaccines. A huge winner and a model that could be used to produce other needed drugs (antibiotics) and products that are strategically important to this nation.

China does this in a number of businesses.

Dets of Operation Warpspeed(Claude AI)

Operation Warp Speed funded six primary vaccine candidates plus several ancillary contracts for therapeutics, glassware, and manufacturing supplies. In total, over PubMed Central $18 billion dollars of US public funds have been invested in 6 vaccine candidates, with the major vaccine deals breaking down roughly as follows:

Sanofi / GSK — up to $2.1 billion. U.S. government to provide funding up to $2.1 billion for development, including clinical trials and manufacturing scale-up, and delivery of an initial 100 million doses Sanofi. This was the largest single OWS vaccine deal, though the candidate never made it to market in time.

Pfizer / BioNTech — $1.95 billion (supply only). Warp Speed announced it will purchase 100 million doses of the vaccine being developed by the German biotechnology firm BioNTech and the drug giant Pfizer for $1.95 billion. Those companies have chosen not to work with the NIH on clinical trials or take government grants in order to fund its work, and the deal is structured as a straight purchase of goods. Statnews An additional 200 million doses were ordered in December 2020.

Novavax — $1.6 billion. Novavax was selected to participate in Operation Warp Speed and would receive $1.6 billion by the federal government to complete late-stage clinical development, including a pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial; establish large-scale manufacturing; and deliver 100 million doses of NVX‑CoV2373, Novavax' COVID-19 vaccine candidate Novavax.

Moderna — roughly $2.5 billion combined. Moderna received nearly $1 billion in federal funds for development and a $1.5 billion contract with HHS for 100 million doses. KFF Health News A separate analysis from Harvard researchers put total public investment in Moderna's vaccine closer to $6 billion when accounting for NIH's foundational mRNA research.

AstraZeneca / Oxford — $1.2 billion (vaccine) plus $486 million (antibody). In May, AstraZeneca signed a contract for $1.2 billion to boost access to its COVID-19 vaccine. In October, the drugmaker signed a second contract for $486 million for the U.S. to secure 100,000 doses of its experimental COVID-19 antibody drug and support clinical trials for the drug. Becker's Hospital Review

Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) — roughly $1 billion. HHS announced approximately $1 billion in funds to support the large-scale manufacturing and delivery of Johnson & Johnson's (Janssen) investigational vaccine candidate. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. Government will own the resulting 100 million doses of vaccine, and will have the option to acquire more. Navy

Ancillary contracts also went to glass/vial manufacturers (Corning $204M, SiO2 Materials Science $143M), syringe maker ApiJect ($138M), and Cytiva ($31M) for bioprocessing supplies. Merck briefly participated with two vaccine candidates but abandoned its COVID-19 vaccine efforts Endpoints in early 2021 without large OWS development awards comparable to the six above.

One nuance worth flagging: Pfizer's $1.95B wasn't development money — it was an advance-purchase commitment contingent on FDA approval. Every other company above received a mix of R&D funding and dose-procurement dollars bundled together, which is why those numbers aren't strictly comparable.

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