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AT&T Wins Fight With US Over Purchase of Time Warner (reuters.com)
An appeals court has approved AT&T's purchase of Time Warner, despite the Trump administration's drawn-out attempts to block the $85.4 billion acquisition. The U.S. Justice Department said it would not fight the decision. Reuters reports: The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled unanimously in favor of the deal earlier on Tuesday, saying that the government's case that the merger would result in higher consumer prices was "unpersuasive." The decision ended a 15-month effort by the Justice Department to block it. It was AT&T's second major court victory against the Justice Department, setting the stage for the No. 2 wireless carrier to integrate its WarnerMedia business as well as its new Xandr advertising unit.
The deal has been seen as a turning point for a media industry that has been upended by companies like Netflix and Alphabet's Google which put content online with no need for a cable subscription. The merger, which was announced in October 2016, closed on June 14 shortly after Judge Richard Leon ruled the deal was legal under antitrust law. AT&T agreed it would have no role in setting Turner's prices to distributors and the number of Turner employees would remain largely unchanged.
The deal has been seen as a turning point for a media industry that has been upended by companies like Netflix and Alphabet's Google which put content online with no need for a cable subscription. The merger, which was announced in October 2016, closed on June 14 shortly after Judge Richard Leon ruled the deal was legal under antitrust law. AT&T agreed it would have no role in setting Turner's prices to distributors and the number of Turner employees would remain largely unchanged.
Trump hates it and so do I. Now what do we do. Love it?
He literally called them an enemy of the people.
They ain't paying for the wall neither.
America really is in decline.
Larger and larger corporations are coalescing into big, giant. anti-consumer piles of shit.
The government can't control them because the regulatory agencies are all suffering the worst possible for of regulatory capture ... the people in charge ultimately work for the industries they are supposed to regulate.
And yet, people continue to stupidly believe that whatever is good for corporations is good for the country, when nothing could be further from the truth.
America is fast becoming the dystopian future, only now there is no sign of a moral compass and any form of leadership towards progress ... just some shrieking, orange, yeti-pubed douchebag at the helm.
u need 2 vote 4 bernie in 2020 he would block the sale
the government's case that the merger would result in higher consumer prices was "unpersuasive."
Strictly speaking "blatantly obvious" and "persuasive" aren't the same thing. It's not technically not persuasion if you already know it.
I'm still confused as to any reason anyone would choose a living symbol of greed and cruelty as their leader.
But if that person is in control, could everyone involve just conclude after a few rounds of insanity that they just shouldn't bother pursuing anything that he requests?
He's basically the crown prince of idiocy - demanding a constant string of senseless things in order to 'negotiate' something he's been told would be really clever and sneaky by a series other idiots on a cable news channel.
It's like taking orders from Twitch Plays Pokemon - ignoring those orders is the most responsible, rational thing you can do.
90% of consumers won't understand what's at stake. But tell them:
1: More competition == lower prices
2: A boatload of people will lose their jobs if this happens. People like you
3: 2-5 of the 1 percenters will make millions off this, while your prices go up and service goes down
and hopefully even the most MAGA'centric drunken dipshit will get a clue.
This is bad for America, this is bad for consumers, it can be argued this is bad for freedums!
the taxes are when you buy something for $85.4 Billion.
I've never had the opportunity to buy something for that much.
Seriously, WTF? Who thinks this kind of merger is in the best interests of the American people?
What drunk, idiotic, evil, covetous, rapacious bastards are on this court? Why let this happen? How long do we have until UniCorp controls all of our mobile phone and Internet service?
The Dems control Congress. They can push anti-trust actions.
Reduced competition should be reason to block a merger. After a company reaches a certain size, it should not be able to merge.
went something like this.
Thought it was a bit odd that an anti-regulation, pro business admin staffed mostly by same revolving door of ex-Goldman sachs folks we've had around since Reagan would stand in the way of a merger. Dammit, I wish we could get somebody like Liz Warren or Bernie in office along with a matching Congress. They'd put a stop to this crap right quick.
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Let's hope this works out better than the last time an ISP bought Time Warner.
what we want to hear. Then when it matters he'll fall in line behind the mega corps. He did that with phrama prices. He told everyone in rallies he got prices down and it was just a lie. It's literally the 1984 chocolate rations. For some reason absolutely nothing sticks to Trump.
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=opportunity to bash and moan about Trump
Once, upon a time, people had the idea that businesses had to be good for capitalism: That included economic infrastructure like markets and tax revenue and job creation. Then the US courts decided that 'people' with billions of spare dollars were honorable and trustworthy, so they only had to obey the letter of the law.
If google, facebook et al can be monopolies, why cant at&t?
Read The Curse Of Bigness -
Well yeah, ORANGE MAN BAD...no matter what!!! Didn't you get the memo from the NPC's? We are all to fall in line with the Progressive agenda lest we be labeled racist and *insert -phobic word of the day here*.
AT&T 1 Consumers 0
Mahhhh rights are being taken away! Wahhhhhhhhhhh I can't beat people up for being gay anymore, wahhhhhh