Slashdot Mirror
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 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.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Somehow Democrats and Obama did this while Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.[1]
The DOJ, FCC, and FTC are executive branch agencies, controlled by the Chief Executive. A decision by the DOJ not to prosecute under anti-trust law, or the FTC/FCC to allow a merger, are executive branch decisions.
Republicans controlled the House for the last six of Obama's eight years in office, and the Senate for the last two.
And every time they tried to oppose something Obama wanted they were called racist or obstructionist.
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.
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.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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.