The Greatest Gamble

     Imagine that you are a middle-aged man who has a perfect life.  You are intelligent.  You have had a good education.  You have a great job that pays well.  Your ability, effort, and fortune have enabled you to find a beautiful woman to marry and raise a nice family.

But, there is one lethal flaw to the family's metaphysical existence.  Both you and your wife have a genetic history of the same terminal disease.  There is a high probability that you and/or some of your family members will die from that illness.  There is no definitive cure; and the existing treatments can only delay it from killing you.

You and your family have it all in life, but for how long?  One day, you sit down with your wife and offer her a solution that is perhaps the greatest gamble that the family will ever make.

Your plan is to find a promising, pharmaceutical research company, and buy millions of shares of stock--then use your stockholder influence to steer some research effort into working on a cure for your nemesis.

I seek to do this in my own life.  My grandmother died from Parkinson's disease.  The hereditary nature of that illness means that I have a significant chance of getting it.  There is only limited treatment available that offers no cure.  Now, I don't have millions; but, what if I owned 100 shares of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly? (Which I do).  And, what if I have picked a company that has been increasing research spending while much of the Pharma industry has been slashing R&D? (Which Eli Lilly's done).  Then, what if I campaigned for other investors, and the Eli Lilly company management, to fund one promising treatment that could result in a Parkinson's cure? (Which I just did).

If through my productive investment, I can save my own life in the future, that is, in my opinion, the highest, aesthetic achievement that one can obtain.

Paul Wharton
Objectivist Capitalist Medicine Promoter

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for being the fuel of my mind