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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...
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.