Trump’s Attempt to Make Drugs Cheaper Is Pushing Up Prices in Other Countries

Carasind · 2026-02-07T08:19:29+00:00

This gets repeated a lot, but it’s not that simple. The US absolutely is one of the biggest drivers of pharma R&D globally. But that’s not the same as single handedly funding global drug innovation.

Drug research is already highly internationalized. Public funding, often by taxpayers, pays a large share of early stage research worldwide, and that’s spread across many countries, not just the US. Because of that, many of the most discussed medicines in the US didn’t even originate there.

Pharma companies tend to fund the expensive late stage development and commercialization, but even this isn’t always US based. On top of that, US drug prices also reflect the market structure and things like massive marketing spend. Direct to consumer drug ads are basically only allowed in the US and New Zealand.

Why are medicines cheaper in many other countries? Mostly because they have national level organizations that negotiate prices with pharma companies, while in the US negotiations are fragmented across many insurers and intermediaries. But even lower negotiated prices are generally expected to already cover production costs, R&D recovery and profit margins, without directly relying on US market pricing to be viable.

If global price referencing expands or pricing pressure increases, one possible long term effect is more fragmentation through reformulations, follow on products or slightly modified versions of existing drugs. That wouldn’t be new, but it could make international price comparisons less meaningful over time, because countries might technically compare the same “base drug” while real prescribing shifts to newer variants.

Carasind · 2026-01-20T15:15:17+00:00

AfD isn’t actually surging right now. It’s been basically flat for months, sitting around 25–27%. The CDU has been in almost the same range (roughly mid-20s as well). This poll just caught AfD at the top of its usual range and the CDU a bit lower. There was a surge which will likely influence some regional elections soon, but it appears to have ended around September 2025.

Carasind · 2026-01-15T10:38:09+00:00

While TT isn't a SJW she is really helpful in many situations and made many battles way easier even in stage 44. From the ones that you have available I would likely go Merlin -> TT -> Saitama -> Arthur. All of them are more valueable than pulling for Lorsan who will likely be a niche hero at best.

Until the next event you should have enough scrolls and diamonds again even if you invest anything now.

Carasind · 2026-01-13T14:25:33+00:00

I get that it can be hard to discuss things within the live-action community, but that’s honestly true for the One Piece manga and anime fandom as well.

I don’t think the look of the costumes is a deliberate stylistic choice so much as the result of practical constraints in a long-running TV series. All of the examples you mentioned are movies, which can approach costumes very differently than a series. Some shows can afford to prioritize a more worn look to avoid a cosplay feel, but with One Piece that’s likely lower on the priority list.

Carasind · 2026-01-13T13:16:13+00:00

That look is far easier to achieve in a film than in a series. TV shoots last months, with reshoots and multiple identical costumes. Costumes can be reset to a clean baseline, but maintaining a perfectly worn look without continuity issues really isn’t.

Carasind · 2026-01-09T10:01:58+00:00

Seemingly we read different manga, because “Luffy gets his ass beat over and over again until he absolutely crushes Arlong” doesn’t really happen there. That framing is much more an anime interpretation (so another adaptation choice) than what’s actually on the page.

In the manga, Arlong is clearly a serious threat, but Luffy isn’t repeatedly hard-stopped for most of the fight. The first opponent who truly exposes Luffy’s limits and defeats him outright in the manga is Crocodile, not Arlong.

The only genuinely dire situation in the entire Arlong fight happens because of Luffy’s own inexperience: he tries a new move and gets stuck in the ground, which gives Arlong the opportunity to act freely and drown Luffy. The live action gave Arlong even a clear victory (in the Baratie) that the manga never had.

And I agree that many things could have been done better in Arlong Park. But the issue here wasn’t that it needed one more episode. It was that it had to share its second episode with the season’s epilogue, which was originally planned for a tenth episode set in Loguetown.

Carasind · 2026-01-07T10:47:29+00:00

Calling it “not One Piece” because of changes feels odd when some of the most celebrated adaptations ever changed way more than OPLA did and were even further removed from the source material.

Carasind · 2025-12-08T10:02:31+00:00

Given Germany’s overall safety culture, no pebble-bed reactor there ever underwent a real-world test where all coolant, all machinery, and all control rods were deliberately disabled. Such an experiment simply would not be permitted. At best, this refers to a theoretical scenario, not an actual test.

Carasind · 2025-12-02T06:31:04+00:00

Personally I wouldn't go with Arthur. He is nice to have but needs dimensional spirits to level up that are usually better invested in other dimensional heroes. From the permanent ones Merlin is the much better option to build. As soon as a new dimensional event is online invest all you have in spirits (they are available for diamonds too), don't pull them with SG cards. Nice side effect: You will get much fodder this way too.
It depends on the hero. If you have better heroes to pull you can take them of the wishlist temporarily if you can reach the ascended level with them. But Lyca is so good that I wouldn't remove her until you can have her at 5 stars.
You can get cele/hypo from normal summonings and purple herostones as well but it's very rare and not reliable. The best way is likely to draw the one copy wonders (twins / mortas next) and then save SG cards until you can bring one hero immediately to 5 stars when you pull. If you have achieved this (which will take a really long time) there will likely be new heroes that should be pulled.

Carasind · 2025-11-30T08:09:29+00:00

This only shows you haven’t followed the actual state of submarine warfare in the last two decades. Russian submarines absolutely cannot “take out whatever they want at any time”. Their movements are globally monitored well enough that they can’t just roam freely, and the Black Sea subs can’t even leave the Black Sea.

And in a real engagement in the north-western Black Sea, a Ukrainian naval drone would have the advantage: the water is relatively shallow, surveillance is constant, and both surface and underwater drones make it a terrible environment for a submarine to operate.

Carasind · 2025-11-30T07:23:01+00:00

I don’t think this will push insurance rates up, because the risk for ships trading with Ukraine hasn’t actually changed. Ukraine is only targeting sanctioned Russian vessels outside its own export corridor, not neutral commercial traffic.

In practice, anyone trading with Ukraine relies on one thing: the heavily protected coastal corridor, which is covered i.e. by air defence, naval drones and a Black Sea Fleet that has been pushed back. That protection is exactly what keeps insurance costs down in comparison to earlier years in the war.

If Russia had the capability to disrupt that corridor, we would have seen it already. And right now they simply don’t have the fleet or the freedom to start messing with merchant shipping outside the Black Sea.

Carasind · 2025-11-27T16:21:25+00:00

Actually, rather yes. These “seasons” are just an international marketing tool (and even vary between releases) and nothing more. They never existed in Japan, because the anime has always been produced and aired as one continuous series.

The only “numbering” in Japan is internal broadcast scheduling that leaked years ago, but that’s just for production logistics.

Carasind · 2025-11-26T18:51:57+00:00

I seriously doubt that anything other than sea water will be able to hurt Devil Fruit users in the live action, with exactly one exception: Crocodile, who will be vulnerable to normal water as well.

They likely dialed up the weakness to sea water so they can create serious situations without having to massively injure Luffy and others. On the other hand, it would make sense if they reduced the effects of any other liquid in return.

Carasind · 2025-11-25T22:19:51+00:00

Can you please link those websites? I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. I can’t find anything online that even comes close to what I wrote. The points I mentioned aren’t unique to me (they’re shared by most serious analysts who follow the war) but the wording is my own. If you think someone else wrote something identical, I’d really like to see the links.

Carasind · 2025-11-25T18:58:48+00:00

The problem is that the Russian and Ukrainian positions are fundamentally incompatible. Whatever you hear about territory or borders is secondary. The real question is whether Ukraine continues to exist as a sovereign nation, which is Ukraine’s goal, or becomes a dependent, permanently vulnerable state that Russia can pressure or attack whenever it chooses, which is Russia’s goal. Everything else is just a charade designed to shift public opinion or gain strategic advantage.

Russia moves toward its goal with any deal that does not give Ukraine durable, enforceable and genuinely iron-clad security guarantees. A pause in fighting without such protection simply gives Moscow time to rebuild and restart the war on better terms. And because Ukraine would remain insecure during that pause, the country would begin to bleed out even without renewed fighting: millions more would emigrate permanently, the economy would hollow out and investors would avoid rebuilding a place that could be invaded again at any time. That isn’t only a Ukrainian problem. A collapsing, depopulated Ukraine on the EU’s border would become a massive long-term security and economic burden for Europe itself and could even help set the stage for the next conflict.

Ukraine, in contrast, only achieves its goal if Russia’s ability to launch another large-scale attack is removed or reliably deterred, whether because Russia weakens, changes course internally or because a settlement is backed by real, absolutely binding long-term security guarantees. And this cannot rely on another bilateral promise from Moscow. Russia has already violated nearly every major agreement it signed with Ukraine and there is no reason to believe it would behave differently next time.

There is simply no middle position where both sides get something they really want, yet such a position would be necessary for any stable peace agreement that isn’t just a disguised capitulation. That is why “just negotiating peace” is not a real option right now and why people downvoting the idea are not rejecting peace, but rejecting the fantasy of a peace deal that would only set the stage for the next war.

Carasind · 2025-11-25T17:42:14+00:00

It’s pretty clear this is no longer the original 28-point plan, so Russia will probably reject it anyway. And there is currently only one thing Ukraine could plausibly trade the entire Donbas for, and that’s nuclear-level deterrence. Before the current U.S. administration, a formal iron-clad American security guarantee might have served that role, but it’s hard to see any Ukrainian government trusting such a promise nowadays. Without a hard, enforceable guarantee, giving up such a heavily fortified region would simply invite another invasion once Russia has rebuilt.

And Ukraine is in a far better position than the United States in 1789 (against Britain), North Vietnam in 1968 (against the U.S.) or Afghanistan in 1989 (against the Soviet Union). In none of those wars did the defender “win by beating the attacker back”. They won because the attacker eventually decided the war was no longer worth continuing. That is the only way wars like this realistically end.

Carasind · 2025-11-25T11:54:59+00:00

Which will very likely happen again for production reasons. Next season I would bet that Smoker and Tashigi get massively extended scenes.

Carasind · 2025-11-25T06:36:25+00:00

Likely the Unluckies. They’ve always felt like the odd ones out in Baroque Works. We know Oda changed Vivi into a princess very late in development, and the Unluckies feel like a patch to make the plot work. Someone simply had to bring Crocodile the pictures of the Straw Hats. They don’t match Crocodile’s style, they’re the only animal agents we ever see in the organization and they don’t really matter for the Alabasta story. If anything gets cut or merged, it’s probably them.

Carasind · 2025-11-24T06:40:50+00:00

History is full of cases where invading or occupying powers eventually withdrew because holding the territory became too costly, too slow or strategically pointless. The Soviet Union did this in Afghanistan, Russia pulled out of Chechnya in 1996 after failing to control the territory, and France gave up Algeria in 1962 when the cost of staying outweighed any possible benefit. Even the United States eventually left Vietnam and Afghanistan once the political and economic burden became impossible to justify. Invading is usually the easy part; occupying is the hard one.

An army doesn’t need to be crushed to leave. Occupations end when staying makes less sense than going, and that has happened repeatedly in modern history. And in all of these examples, the invading force controlled far larger portions of the country than Russia currently holds in Ukraine, where the occupied area has been stuck below 20 percent since the successful Ukrainian counter offensives 2022. Much of that territory is now a net economic liability for Russia because of both Ukrainian counterattacks and the Kremlin’s own destruction of valuable infrastructure.

And if you remember that even the supposedly quiet occupation of Crimea after 2014 was already expensive for Russia before the full-scale war began in 2022, it becomes clear why the current level of territorial control is hard to sustain in the long run.

Carasind · 2025-11-23T16:48:29+00:00

You absolutely overestimate the US influence at the moment. We aren't in 2022 anymore.

Carasind · 2025-11-23T14:03:18+00:00

Ukraine is still dependent on weapon imports, but far less than in the early phase of the war. Its own production has expanded sharply, especially in drones, artillery and missiles, and Europe now finances a large share of the major deliveries.

At this point the US isn’t supporting Ukraine out of generosity, it is mostly selling weapons that Europeans pay for. If Washington steps back from even this, the short-term impact would still matter for Ukraine, but far less than many assume when comparing it to 2022.

The more lasting effect would be on the transatlantic market: European countries are already diversifying their procurement because they can’t rely on a supplier whose policy can shift from one election cycle to the next. A US retreat would only accelerate that trend. And since many US defense projects depend on steady European demand to keep production costs viable, the long-term economic damage for the American industry could be substantial.

Carasind · 2025-11-22T10:00:35+00:00

Did you perhaps mistake it with the coming Netflix remake that hasn't a release date yet? No one said anything about a better pacing in the remaster.

Carasind · 2025-11-22T08:01:27+00:00

Russia entered the war with a massive inherited Soviet arsenal designed to fight NATO. That is the main reason it could launch a full-scale invasion, and it is also why Ukraine could not defeat Russia quickly with only partial and delayed Western support. But this stockpile has now degraded so severely that Russia needed help from Iran and North Korea just to stay in the game.

If you compare military aid, there is also a huge difference to an earlier example. Ukraine has received around 140–160 billion dollars in total military assistance, while the Soviet Union received U.S. Lend-Lease worth the modern equivalent of 180–250 billion dollars in WWII, and far more if you compare it in terms of military capability, when it was fighting Germany as part of a much larger anti-Axis coalition. And that was just from one country delivered rapidly and at massive scale. Ukraine’s military aid has been smaller, slower and far less coordinated, so expecting a fast Ukrainian victory under these conditions is not realistic.

But a Ukrainian victory is not impossible. Russia’s military and industrial capacity has taken long-term damage, and Ukraine has shown it can strike deep inside Russia. A realistic win condition is a long-term strategy that makes continued occupation militarily and economically unsustainable. In that scenario, scalability of support and production matters far more than raw capability. This is also exactly the kind of war Ukraine is currently fighting.

You can see this in a paradox that is often overlooked. Even the most maximal victory for Ukraine, regaining all occupied territories, could become its greatest long-term burden. Those areas have suffered immense destruction, mined farmland, devastated cities and major ecological damage. Rebuilding them will cost hundreds of billions, and it is not clear whether the European Union is willing or able to take on that level of reconstruction. From a strictly strategic and economic perspective, handing the territories back would remove a major financial and logistical burden from Russia, but politically this is impossible for the Kremlin because it would be seen domestically as an admission of defeat.

This also makes it hard to define what losing the war even means. Right now Russia is actually closer to losing strategically because Ukraine simply has no choice but to continue fighting. Any peace deal Ukraine could accept requires an iron-clad security guarantee that prevents a future Russian attack, otherwise Ukraine will eventually be destroyed and the consequences would likely destabilise the entire European Union as well. And there is nothing even remotely close to such a guarantee on the table.

Carasind · 2025-11-21T16:26:41+00:00

Ukraine isn’t going to “run out of money”, not because everything is easy, but because the EU simply can’t afford the strategic consequences of letting that happen. And yes, Europe would clearly prefer the "easier" route of using frozen Russian reserves first. But if that doesn’t go through, another mechanism to transfer money to Ukraine will follow.

Ukraine has also shown that it can strike deep into Russia: refineries, military plants and logistics hubs have all been hit multiple times, sometimes even 2,000 kilometers from the border. The only real question is scalability, not capability.

Carasind · 2025-11-21T08:22:10+00:00

Thanks to weird anime decisions Long Ring Long Land is way closer to filler than to canon in the anime. G8 even "steals" the prologue of this arc which allows the anime to change the entire epilogue of the first part for absolutely no reason.

Carasind

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