[leplen]

This is actually pretty interesting. Generic drug manufacturing has relatively high barriers to entry, but relatively low margins because there's no way for brands to command a premium. Standardized insurance costs work to prevent price discovery, and consequently you end up with supply shocks, especially for drugs that are difficult to store.

Even given dictatorial power over the FDA I'm still not sure exactly what I would do to untangle the swirl of incentive problems here.

[eschaton]

> I’m still not sure exactly what I would do

Use statistical modeling to determine the likely need for various generic drugs over time, and hire generic producers to make enough to accommodate that need, leveraging feedback loops to adjust the quantities and types of what’s ordered?

Why is it that people think a large corporation is perfectly capable of “enterprise resource planning” but when it comes to a government agency suddenly it’s “central planning” and therefore impossible?