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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."
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).
They're searching for an issue they can use to differentiate themselves from the Repubs. They can't do Medicare for All, College for All, End the Wars, real infrastructure bills (aka the "New New Deal") or even really end the war on drugs since their donors don't want any of that. So we get crap like this. Meanwhile they keep losing seats because what the hell's the point of voting for Republican Lite?
The Bernie Democrats (a wing of which is calling themselves "Justice Democrats") is trying to kick 'em out of the party. If you want to see the country move to the left you need to join 'em and get voting in your primary.
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Much of what used to protect the American people has been torn away over the last 40 years. And now we have the ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which neither the Democrats or Republicans wish to address.
You mean the decision that the First Amendment was important enough to allow people to exercise their right to political speech despite unconstitutional attempts to restrict it? A decision that protected the First Amendment is tearing away protections? Huh?
Yes, those people happened to have formed a corporation, but by doing so they did not abdicate their First Amendment rights. And you might want to note that the same decision that said that the people forming the corporation called Citizens United had First Amendment rights said that people who form labor unions also do not give up their rights. It was a decision that took the venue of paid political speech away from exclusive control of the media and allowed the public to band together to pay for speech they would otherwise be unable to afford.
I'd argue if the DNC was serious about going after corporate behavior that harms Americans, there would be talk from the main-stream Democrats to deal with the Citizens United ruling,
Yeah, Democrats would get a lot of political mileage by angering the labor unions that spend a lot of money on political speech supporting Democrats, and by becoming the party that opposes the First Amendment rights of the people.
but I really haven't seen anything but hot air.
I've see a lot of hot air about CU vs. FEC, but I've also read the decision and know the truth. Trying to claim that CU hurts Americans is only one warm front amongst many.
Both of these core claims for capitalism are demolished if monopoly, rather than competition, is the rule.
Quite true.
A functioning capitalist economy/society must have Rule of Law to make certain laws, contracts, etc etc are not broken or violated. There must be laws against predatory monopolistic actions and the must be enforced, and enforced equally.
Most of the laws to restrain such predatory monopolistic actions are already on the books. There is no lack of laws under which to prosecute such crimes, or prosecute anyone for almost anything, there are so many laws and regulations with the force of law on the books.
No, what is lacking is the willingness, nothing else. This is because as government gets larger, the difference between government and large businesses and financial interests becomes less and less. This is one of the main reasons why it is wise to keep the central government weak and relatively small. First, a weaker government is less attractive to the corruptible/corruptors as the risk/reward ratio is narrowed and pushed into the red, and second, what corruption that occurs can only inflict a minimum of damage. Less bureaucracy in which to hide corruption, incompetence, and to avoid accountability hiding within the faceless ranks.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Yes, the kind of people that actually represent what the majority of Americans want: small government, low taxes, individual responsibilty, and individual liberties. When the Democrats had more of those kinds of politicians, they were winning. On the other hand, when even a fairly tepid progressive like Hillary can't win against someone as unlikable and incompetent as Donald Trump, you'd think people would figure out that the problem with the Democratic party is their actual policies and directions. Yet, it looks like Democrats are going to double down on stupid and nominate a loser like Warren or Booker next time.
You're a bloody fool if you blame Republicans for that, but I guess that kind of folly and ignorance is typical for 21st century Democrats.
The majority of African Americans in the US are living under institutions and in communities dominated for decades by Democrats, Democratic policies, and businesses, civil rights organizations, and charities close to Democrats. So, there is institutionalized racism alright, but it is the creation of Democrats. Republicans, on the other hand, simply don't give a fuck either way about African Americans or their problems.
What's the problem with wealth accumulation? Other than petty jealousy?
As many others have already pointed out, with great wealth comes great power, which is invariably abused. Perhaps the obscenely rich don't intend to hurt anybody and destroy the environment, but they don't see the consequences of their actions and they don't care. People around the world live in extreme poverty as a consequence; we in the West are isolated from the reality of this, but there is a clear line from wealthy people and corporations seeking more wealth, through local corruption in 3rd world countries to extreme poverty, so calling it petty jealousy when people object to this state of affairs is at best, simply uninformed.
What matters is the average quality of life and whether or not the average person is content.
The average is all that matters? So, if you live in a room that is 50 degrees centigrade half the day and 0 the other half, you will be confortable in shorts and a t-shirt, because on average the temperature is 25 degrees?
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.
Isn't 'caring if someone has more than you' what drives capitalism? Ambition, in other words - the constant drive to do better, have more, acquire luxuries; why else would anyone work hard to make more money rather than just hang around in an armchair, beer in hand? What you are saying is nothing more than the shallow excuses for inequality, oppression and slavery, as they have been used throughout the ages. It's the sort of nonsense that goes along with saying "we're better of being poor".
in the rust belt and because Trump ran on a populist message while she ran, well, without one. She couldn't say anything that would piss off her corporate donors so she had to shy away from anything better than "we'll take a few percentage points off your college loans and let you borrow more money, and oh yeah health premiums are gonna skyrocket about 20% less". That's not a message _anyone_ could get behind. It didn't help that she was for TPP until it became clear it would cost her the primary.
Never mind the fact that the Dems should never has nominated somebody with 20 years bad press. But she could've weathered all that and won if she had just stopped being so damn arrogant and campaigned in the rust belt. She was off wasting time in Arizona while Trump's people were pounding the pavement in Ohio and Wisconsin. There's interviews with Dem party leaders in swing states talking about how they never once saw any of her people. When one of the key issues is that voters feel like their being forgotten and/or taken for granted and you're taking them for granted well, you're just out of touch.
Hilary was everything everybody hates about the Democrats. Not just in theory but in actuality. She's the real thing. A genuine right wing democrat. And just as useless.
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