May 13, 2011
Actually the Washington Post never mentioned patent monopolies in an article reporting that Google is likely to pay a $500 million fine for running ads from illegal pharmacies. The main reason that there is a market for illegal pharmacies is that government granted patent monopolies allow drug companies to charge prices that are several thousand percent above their free market price.
This fact should have been mentioned. This would be like reporting on illegal efforts to circumvent tariff barriers without effort referring to the tariffs. In the absence of patent monopolies, these rogue pharmacies and the resulting enforcement issues would not exist.
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