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Micron Seeking Amnesty in DoJ Antitrust Probe?
deaddeng writes "Memory maker Micron Technology is allegedly seeking amnesty from a US Dept. of Justice grand jury investigation of price fixing, collusion, and antitrust by the memory industry, according to numerous news services, including the LA Times and Reuters. Last week, a Micron regional marketing employee pled guilty to charges brought under the same DoJ investigation for destruction of evidence and lying to the grand jury. The DoJ is investigating charges that major memory makers colluded to prevent the success of Rambus memory favored by Intel, and once that was achieved, colluded again to raise prices for DDR-SDRAM in 2001-02. If Micron is granted amnesty, it can keep its executives from facing criminal prosecution, but it may still face civil court challenges."
And Rambus Inc.'s practices are better?
Rambus, Inc.'s misbehavior is well-known, so Micron is hardly alone here. If Micron is guilty of collusion, the pregnant question is, "With whom were Micron colluding?"
What, me cynical?
...and I'll freely admit that I haven't RTFA yet...
but Rambus surreptitiously cuts a deal with Intel to make their patented technology the new industry standard for memory, and when it backfires, the rest of the industry is guilty of collusion against Rambus?
The inmates are running the asylum, kiddos, and it's getting nuttier by the minute!
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On the whole I'm in agreement with you, as my posting record will show, right down to the child labor issue. I started to work when I was 13, by choice, to make my own money and to contribute to society as an equal. To deny that right to a child is to deny the child equality, which is much the point actually.
However, just for the sake of argument, let us flip the situation around, shall we?
What if you are the poor person in a third world country? When it's time for the village party you could buy a Sony stereo and a stack of CD's for the music. This requires the village to support a capital intensive industry outside their economic borders. In the local ecomomy this is a massive investment, perhaps several years of the average income, and it all flows out, enriching Sony and Britney Spears and all the middlemen, but leaving nothing behind to the village.
Or, you could just hire the local mariachi band for five days average income, who will then spend that money at the village store, restaurant, cobbler, etc.
The money flows in a circle within the community, each peso doing the work of ten as it passes from hand to hand and the community is better able support itself without having to rely on outside experts from the developed world.
Well, the same principle holds for rich communities as well.
Think globally, but act locally. That means wherever you are locally.
Yes, that means the rich get richer, that's what happens when you apply principles of enrichment. But the poor get richer too by applying those same principles.
And if followed to its logical extreme the rich get richer that way without exploiting the poor, which is the real issue, not the wealth itself, thus accelerating the closing of the wealth gap.
KFG