Democrats Propose New Competition Laws That Would 'Break Up Big Companies If They're Hurting Consumers' (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Senate and House Democratic leaders today proposed new antitrust laws that could prevent many of the biggest mergers and break up monopolies in broadband and other industries. "Right now our antitrust laws are designed to allow huge corporations to merge, padding the pockets of investors but sending costs skyrocketing for everything from cable bills and airline tickets to food and health care," US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote in a New York Times opinion piece. "We are going to fight to allow regulators to break up big companies if they're hurting consumers and to make it harder for companies to merge if it reduces competition." The "Better Deal" unveiled by Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was described in several documents that can be found in an Axios story. The plan for "cracking down on corporate monopolies" lists five industries that Democrats say are in particular need of change, specifically airlines, cable and telecom, the beer industry, food, and eyeglasses. The Democrats' plan for lowering the cost of prescription drugs is detailed in a separate document. The Democrats didn't single out any internet providers that they want broken up, but they did say they want to stop AT&T's proposed $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner: "Consolidation in the telecommunications is not just between cable or phone providers; increasingly, large firms are trying to buy up content providers. Currently, AT&T is trying to buy Time Warner. If AT&T succeeds in this deal, it will have more power to restrict the content access of its 135 million wireless and 25.5 million pay-TV subscribers. This will only enable the resulting behemoths to promote their own programming, unfairly discriminate against other distributors and their ability to offer highly desired content, and further restrict small businesses from successfully competing in the market."

Comments

We have laws for this already

[JoshuaZ]

We already have anti-trust laws. The primary point of them is to break up companies that are too big, or to prevent the formation of companies that are too big. The solution is to enforce those laws seriously not to add more laws on top.

Re:We have laws for this already

[gfxguy]

The primary point of anti-trust laws is not to break up companies, but seek remedies against companies when they violate the laws. If a company is deemed a monopoly, that could possibly be one of the remedies, but it's not the goal of anti-trust laws to break up companies because people "feel like" they are too big.

I don't like AT&T. I don't like Comcast, either. But lately Comcast has been pushing HBO, trying to get subscribers to pony up for the premium channel, citing shows like the new season of Game of Thrones. HBO is a Time Warner property. They have also spent quite a bit promoting that you can watch Netflix on their X1 platform. Apparently, despite how much I dislike Comcast, they are not forcing their own (NBC Universal) content on me.

Point being that large companies are actually capable of not violating anti-trust laws, and there's nothing inherently wrong with being enormous conglomerates until they actually start violating the law. I agree they simply need to be enforced, and like any effective deterrent, they need to be enforced swiftly and with commensurate punishments.

Re:We have laws for this already

[bobbied]

The democrats are searching for a reason, any reason, no matter how crazy or ill-advised that will hopefully get people to the polls to vote for them. This is but a trial balloon to test the political winds aloft.

They already know that the Anti-Trust laws exist, they don't care. They NEED a cause (other than bashing Trump or keeping Obamacare which is for their base) to recapture the middle. This is a good as any I suppose..

I figure this trial won't gain much traction..

Re: We have laws for this already

[guruevi]

The thing is that Democrats allowed these mergers they are decrying. Obama allowed not just one but two of the biggest mergers in media history and left office with a third one pretty much approved.

The main reason this is happening is because Dems are finally noticing that they created this media mess that got Trump elected and most likely reelected. Now that it's no longer working in their favor must it be abolished. It's just a repeat of the Nixon administration and the Bell breakup.

It's all just politics in the end.

Re:We have laws for this already

[Jack9]

> there's nothing inherently wrong with being enormous conglomerates until they actually start violating the law.

That's a philosophical determination, not a factual claim. When talking about "the good", it's important to set a standard so that it might be measured and some sort of determination can be made. The common good in terms of retaining or growing economic power for the average individual of a population? or what? In practice, the concentration of wealth has shown to have a negative impact on all strata of economic systems for many definitions of common good. Even when redistribution occurs, it's usually applied in a regressive manner, so it's hard to say what the proper remedy would even look like.

There is commensurate political power that comes with economic power, as with every economic system in history. This will never go anywhere for the political reason, not because politicians will come to their senses about some quasi-morality like "it's ok for the super-powerful super-wealthy organizations to be super wealthy".

Re:We have laws for this already

[ShanghaiBill]

Shouldn't all politicians seek to find policies which resonate with their constituents?

No. Politicians should have principles, and stick to them. They should stand up for things they believe in, and try to convince voters that they are right. What they should NOT do is find out what a plurality of voters want, and then just bend their principles to give it to them.

Re:We have laws for this already

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the problem with wealth accumulation? Other than petty jealousy? What matters is the average quality of life and whether or not the average person is content. Who cares if someone has more than you. Worry about if you have your needs met. And your needs to not include every luxury under the sun.

Re: We have laws for this already

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Politicians should have principles, and stick to them. They should stand up for things they believe in, and try to convince voters that they are right.

Hmm, not one word to suggest that a politician should change their minds, rethink their positions, or let the people convince them of anything.

That seems quite dogmatic.

What they should NOT do is find out what a plurality of voters want, and then just bend their principles to give it to them.

Why not?

Re:We have laws for this already

[s.petry]

What's the problem with wealth accumulation? Other than petty jealousy? What matters is the average quality of life and whether or not the average person is content. Who cares if someone has more than you. Worry about if you have your needs met. And your needs to not include every luxury under the sun.

Nothing like shallow fallacy logic.

The problem with accumulated wealth goes back to the first recorded Democracy and ideas recorded in Plato's "The Republic". Paraphrased for convenience, The problem with people becoming extremely wealthy is that they are free to fuck with everyone else to gain more and more wealth. The same is true for any form of power really, but money is the easiest for people to understand.

People on the Right don't hate Soros because he has money, they hate him because later in life much of his money came questionably and he funds people who he believes benefits him and his agenda in politics. People on the Left don't hate the Koch brothers because they have money, they hate him because they fund people who they believe benefit them and their agenda in politics.

Have another weak ad hominem you wish us to correct?

Re:We have laws for this already

[Kohath]

Democrats: We had Whitehouse for 8 years, and now that we lost it, here are our ideas (that we're totally really committed to, not faking at all, honest).

Re:We have laws for this already

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing like shallow fallacy logic.

The problem with accumulated wealth goes back to the first recorded Democracy and ideas recorded in Plato's "The Republic". Paraphrased for convenience, The problem with people becoming extremely wealthy is that they are free to fuck with everyone else to gain more and more wealth. The same is true for any form of power really, but money is the easiest for people to understand.

I'm in full agreement. In short, Absolute Power tends to corrupt absolutely, if not this generation, then the next.

Inheritance taxes are a good thing. They are in fact an essential thing as a check on absolute power. If there is a single thing republicans want that must be stopped above every other thing it is that.

A democracy can be manipulated, until it barely resembles a democracy. Control enough wealth and power and you can manipulate enough of the inputs that the outcome can be shaped.

Over and over they repeat on TV that Trump won the election fair and square. I don't buy that. Russia simply attacked the weaker nodes of our democracy by feeding them raw sewage and from all accounts tried to attack voting databases and such as well.

Why did the attack work? It worked because our own politicians have been hacking at those same nodes (people) for a long time. Anti-Intellectualism is rampant. People are conditioned to drink the cool aid they are given and like it. Hell a common refrain for sites like Drudge Report is it is perfectly fair since it just aggregates links, but as with anything, you can pick and choose.

The only solution is a better informed electorate. It does no good that people are slowly noticing Trump's lies. People have to spot them in real time.

An electorate that believes that Obamacare is the root of all evil is not compatible with a democracy. Any time one side or the other wins by lying it weakens us. Hell, Obama did a form of it by oversimplifying. "If you like your plan you can keep it" was true, but only if you add, ", if your plan meets the new minimums."

What do we need?
1. Run offs if an election is close, so we remove the spoiler effect. (Other methods could work as well.)
2. An electorate that actually actively rejects the liars.

In some ways we just need (1), and some of the rest will take care of itself. Sure I'll vote for the lesser of two evils every time, since not doing so is the greater, but I'd surely have loved to vote for the best choice with a backup of the lesser of two evils.

Re: We have laws for this already

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the problem with wealth accumulation?

Six thousand years of historical examples.

None of which you seem to be capable of providing.

Re:We have laws for this already

[Anonymous Coward]

So, to weaken the power of wealth, lets give more vaguely defined powers where it is easiest to abuse, the government.

Fucking morons.

Re: We have laws for this already

[Boronx]

He probably assumed you were educated.

Re: We have laws for this already

[BlueStrat]

He probably assumed you were educated.

Well, you've proved you aren't, despite any schools you may have attended.

Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty & starvation, has raised the average standard of living higher and faster for more people, done more to advance science and technology, done more to empower the poorest and provide a way out of poverty, and has provided more charitable assistance worldwide than any other system yet devised by Man. And that's just a partial listing.

As the saying goes, capitalism is a deeply flawed system but it beats anything else that's been tried.

Strat

Re:We have laws for this already

[skam240]

Much more like Democrats: We had control of congress for 2 years and passed Obama Care. The presidency is meaningless if the party in power in congress has a clearly stated goal of opposing everything the president supports.

The Republicans can't even keep their own party in order long enough to repeal Obama Care under similar circumstances. Meanwhile more and more people are realizing that "hey, being poor shouldn't mean I should have to go massively in debt just because I'm unlucky enough to get sick".

Re: We have laws for this already

[Kjella]

Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty & starvation, has raised the average standard of living higher and faster for more people, done more to advance science and technology, done more to empower the poorest and provide a way out of poverty, and has provided more charitable assistance worldwide than any other system yet devised by Man. And that's just a partial listing. As the saying goes, capitalism is a deeply flawed system but it beats anything else that's been tried.

Pure capitalism is an extremely ruthless and egoistic system and far from the "best we've tried". We've chained the beast in a ton of laws for it to treat the consumers decently, the workers decently, the competitors decently, the environment decently, pay their share of taxes for public education, infrastructure and so on but it's a slippery eel when it comes to anything that affects the bottom line. A few philanthropists who've accumulated so much wealth they'd like to create a legacy, allegedly for charity but I suspect just as much for vanity doesn't make up for the fact that to most capitalists you're only worth anything as long as you're useful. Pretty much every concession for the weakest in the form of consumer rights, worker's rights and so on have been fought long and hard using the most heavily marketed lie in capitalism, that the invisible hand of the market will fix it.

The "invisible hand" wants to get rid of troublesome people as cheaply as possible, because usually you're not in a position to create a big enough stink to matter. As in, it's cheaper to put you on a support line with a heavily accented Indian reading a script until you give up than to actually fix the problem. You're an economic problem to be solved, solving it to your satisfaction is not necessarily the plan. That's why you have terms of service that are absolutely horrible and nobody reads or cares because usually you get the service you want. If you make any kind of "trouble" though the terms are effectively a kill switch. The gig economy is perfect for this, if you drive for a taxi company you call in sick. If you drive for Uber you don't get paid. It's the capitalist dream, a sick worker is a useless worker so why should he get paid? It's back to the old days of working in the coal mines until you got sick/injured, then you pick the next in line...

Re: We have laws for this already

[sjames]

And?

Since you are an expert on capitalism, you will surely be aware of Smith's warnings about handing out corporate charters and the importance of a well regulated market. You will also be aware of the need for all parties to have some reasonable parity of economic power in order for markets to work as they should.

Knowing that and being a supporter of capitalism, you should well understand the importance of limiting wealth accumulation and be all for it.

Define "hurting consumers"

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is making things cheaper and easier to obtain, but it is going to kill Mom and Pop stores. Is that "hurting consumers"?

I feel like that definition solely depends on much those big companies donate to Democrats.

Re:Rather pointless....

[rickb928]

Comcast doesn't have to be split up.

0) Permit local municipalities to form utility-style ISPs.
1) Permit companies such as Google to light up dark fiber.
2) Watch as T-Mobile turns up 600Mhz wireless broadband.
3) Figure out how to prevent ISPs with competing businesses diminishing various streaming services.

Ok, what did I miss here?

funny

[superwiz]

Industries missing from the list:

• -- Entertainment companies.
• -- State Bar associations (private organizations controlling access to law licenses!!! which act as gateways to petitioning the government!!!)

In other words, we'll make life difficult for the companies which haven't paid us off, but will leave you alone if you are a big Democratic donors.

Re:The Dems know this

[HanzoSpam]

Maybe what we need is a law to break up the Democrats.

Re:The Dems know this

[doctorvo]

the party is stacked with "Corporate Dems" like Chuck Schumer & the Clintons who are really just Republicans

Don't blame Republicans for the corruption and crony capitalism of Democrats.

Um... when did I do that?

[rsilvergun]

I'm saying we've got some right wingers in our party who are soft on a few social issues. If I want to blame the Republicans for something I've got multiple wars, the 2008 economic crash (though Clinton gets some of that Blame for starting the deregulation that led to it), our awful healthcare system, the war on drugs and all the horror it brings, decades of institutionalized racism being used to drive a schism between members of the working class so wages could be suppressed.

When I've got no shortage of awful things to blame the Republicans for that they actually engineered why bother with something they had nothing to do with?

Re:Bravo sir

[s.petry]

What a troll. I don't think I've ever seen a better one. You tick all the boxes, referencing my post while ignoring it to make a nonsensical point that passes the truthiness test (Leftist gave us Trump, which is so silly I'm not going to bother).

You don't believe that if the Democrats ran a better candidate Trump would have lost? You can't run a basic Google search and find all of the Presidents, Senators, and Congress people and find their ideologies and influences? Oh, I get it. You just don't like facts.

You should go work for one of those Russian outfits that engineered the Trump presidency. Shoot Jared and email, I'm sure he'll meet with you (he meets with _everybody_). Say hi to Paul Manafort for me.

Oh, I see. It wasn't that Trump won the Electoral college with a better message for Middle Class Americans and looked cleaner than Clinton. It was all those damn Russians who did it.

You do realize that that narrative lacks any facts, and was completely dismissed by the Obama Administration's head officials right? Oh noes, more of those things called "facts"! Show me one single fact of Russia hacking the election. I will personally write my Senator, Congressional Rep, the AG, and President and demand that Comey, Kerry, and Clapper be tried for Contempt of Congress since they lied.

I'm pushing back against the Marxist tactics the far left has engaged in since Trump won the election, you are promoting them. Who exactly works for the Russians between the two of us? If you are lost on the "Marxist tactics", see how other totalitarian governments attack opponents and their families.

We can debate facts, but facts in political threads tend to be moderated "troll" on Slashdot. While your allergy to facts is bothersome to rational debate, it's actually sensible on Slashdot. FWIW, I'm not pro-Trump at all. That does not make me for the BS that the far left and media have been spreading for the last year.

Re:The Dems know this

[Tablizer]

Maybe what we need is a law to break up the Democrats.

Close: break up the party system(s), or at least weaken them.

Re:The Dems know this

[Frank Burly]

the party is stacked with "Corporate Dems" like Chuck Schumer & the Clintons who are really just Republicans that think pot should be legal, immigration is fine and maybe we should leave the gays alone (but don't let 'em marry, that's icky).

You grossly understate the difference between the parties, even while the party that controls all three branches of government plots (in actual secrecy) to strip healthcare from the poorest Americans to give tax cuts to the top 1%.

Hillary's FCC would not be dismantling net neutrality and her Supreme Court nominees would not say that corporations are people, or that forced arbitration terms must be obeyed. And hawkish as she is, it is a safe bet Hillary wouldn't let generals kill as many civilians in 6 months as Obama did in two years.

So if you wanted to see daylight between "corporate" Dems and Repubs there you have it.

Hillary lost because did didn't make the 99% (or bottom 33%) feel that she felt their pain or their resentments. Hillary acknowledged that the Earth is flat for capital and practically parabolic for labor, but she didn't provide a clear and compelling solution so a critically located minority of voters opted for the guy who said he would bring coal back.

Finally, Dems don't keep losing seats: Dems picked up 6 house seats and 2 Senate seats in 2016, and the special elections that Dems lost this year were all in Republican territory. In Georgia the winning Republican candidate said expressly "I do not support a livable wage"; I don't see how tacking left would have helped there.

Re:Citizen's United

[OrangeTide]

The shills are out in full force tonight.