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Samsung To Pay Out $300 Million In Anti-Trust Suit
infernalC writes "Reuters is reporting that Samsung has agreed to plea guilty to charges of price fixing in the memory market in a $300 million settlement." From the article: " Samsung would become the third chip maker to plead guilty in the wide-ranging probe of the prices of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips. The Justice Department has blamed the price-fixing conspiracy for driving up the price of chips used in products ranging from personal computers and servers to cell phones, cameras and game consoles."
I guess the question is, do those of us who have bought memory during this time get money back? My first impression would be no, as this is a criminal suit, not a civil suit. *shrug* If that's the case, I'm sure there will be some opportunistic^K altruistic lawyer who will file one on our behalf for a substantial legal fee^K^K^K^K^K pro bono.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Does this mean Apple is off the hook in Korea? Or are they twice as screwed because they got "fair" prices?
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
is the lawyers are getting $275mil and then everyone else gets a buck. ;)
I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
what about those oil and medical companies that drive the prices on the smallest pretext
I believe the story here is that Micron Technology organized the price fixing ring, then informed the government(s), thereby obtaining immunity.
This is an interesting strategy for handling competition, but dont' fool yourselves that it means lower prices for anyone.
Lew
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
Just did a little bit of searching when I read the article. According to wikipedia, the first motherboards with Rambus were in 1999, and Intel had an agreement with Rambus to use their RAM until 2002. These are the same years quoted in the article. I wonder if there are other players in this game other than Samsung?
What I would like to know is how much money it is estimated they made from price fixing. While $300 million is a lot of money I can't help feeling that they made a lot more than that and therefore over all they have still made a profit. Personally, I think these companies should be fined to the point where they are all but bankrupt. After all it's not like they did it by accident. Perhaps makign the directors personally liable would be another route to take. The threat of a couple of year behind bars would probably make them care about shady practices.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
There isn't easy empirical evidence or equations to be had.
The Austrians (Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Rockwell) point to the fact that money is a commodity affected by supply and demand and that prices are as well.
When you involve a million regulations, tariffs, taxes and fees, it is very difficult to scientifically attribute prices to reality. Fox example, gas. The price of gas is affected by too many government mandates to set an equation to. Mandated blends, refinery monopoly, distribution restrictions, price controls, etc. Did you know we sell our oil to Iraq for pennies a gallon? Government gas needs also raise prices by reducing supply.
In a free and unregulated market, the best quality and best price occur from billions of consumers making unique choices.
Economics to me is philosophical today. How else can you account for nearly every American putting faith in legal counterfeiting (inflation) and legal bubble-building (artificially low interest rates and artificially high loan acceptance due to FNMA)?
Don't read Mises for junk science, read Mises to better understand those you put in public office.
Look, someone else pointed out that the technology wasn't even developed by Samsung. Another company could come along and produce a similar good for those who didn't wish to pay such a price.
Profits are never unreasonable. And consumers have no right to be sold a specific product. Each and every sale is an agreement between the buyer and the seller. If the consumer does not want a good at a price, they won't buy it. Monopolies have never existed to the point at which people whine about them. Oil is expensive due to foreign imports and restricted domestic drilling.
Capitalism is not necessarily competition. What you call a monopoly had to get there somehow, probably by competitive practices and superior goods.
"I wish I could break laws and not admit guilt."
You can, it's called pleading "No Contest". It means you don't admit guilt, but it is easier/cheaper for you to accept a guilty verdict then to fight it.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Assume that you are in the middle of desert and you run out of water. Water trucks run by your location on a regular basis. You flag one down and discover that all the water carriers have decided that buying water this way costs $1,000,000 per pint. In cash. You don't have it and you die.
Big joke, right? This never happens in real life, right? I live in Califorina, and during the Enron era THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED to energy prices. Although there was no single big meeting to plan it out, all the energy market players realized that they could lie, cheat and steal as much money as they wanted AND THEY DID. Some of it was recorded in audio, and your can hear them laughing about it. If you are interested in the details, and you want to watch a very good movie, see "Enron: The smartest guys in the room".
Even after they were caught, very little happened. The Bush appointed federal regulators in FERC took the attitude "they stole the money fair and square, so they should get to keep it." Various state regulators went to court, and when they started winning cases the energy companies (or at least the ones that had not gone bankrupt), paid settlements and admitted no wrong doing.
Meanwhile, during the energy crunch, Califorina energy suppliers signed long term contracts based on the extremely inflated prices. We are still stuck with these high prices. Many of these contracts are with the very same companies that inflated prices initially (El Paso Corp, if I remember correctly). WE ARE STUCK PAYING THE VERY PEOPLE WHO CHEATED US IN THE FIRST PLACE.
If this is actually capitalism, then I guess I'm against it. The theory is that capitialism is about rational decisions in a free and open market. The reality is that a bunch of insiders lie their teeth out, steal hundred of millions of dollars, and walk away laughing. If they get caught they almost never go to jail, and the fines don't have any long term impact. Most of the time, what they do is legal because they buy the people who make the law. Or they become the people who make the law. Just remember, Bush and Cheney are oil guys first, and elected officials second.
And by the way, at the beginning of this rant I used the example of someone dieing for lack of water. Well, when blackouts happen people really do die. They die in car crashes when lights don't work or they die in their houses when they can't pay the gas bill and they build a charcoal fire to stay warm. Greed kills. But as long as you pay a fine and don't have to admit guilt so you can "put it behind you", the dead aren't complaining.