I was there. I read the post. *most* of us recognized it as clever, and immediately began speculation about how it was done.
However, a good number taken in, and they were hysterical. Remember, this was during the end-game of the cold war (though most of us still thought it was the height of the coldwar). The gullible folks (was it Stalin or Lenin that called them "useful idiots") that bought it hook, line, and sinker, decried it has a horrible thing, as it had been a great step forward for peace.
This was also during the time that you could read the *entire* newsfeed in under two hours--all 30 or 40 groups.
The notion of people reforming in prison is nice, but it just doesn't happen. Yes, you see the occasional article about it,which is exactly the point: it's so rare that it's newsworthy when it happens.
Prison renders criminals incapable of committing crimes for some period, and it punishes them. The criminals that do go straight usually do so because, in a moment of lucid thought, they realize that if they don't commit any more crimes, they don't have to go back! This is obvious to most of us, but a revelation to a large portion of the population in question.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to teach them useful skills: this changes the choices that they're making about whether or nto to commit more crimes. But for Heaven's sake, please don't put the white collar criminals inthe same prisons with the regular folks--we don't want them cross-polinating.
While I'm at it, prison *is* cost effective for felons. I wish that I had a nice cite for it handy, but studies have shown that the financial losses alone from the crimes commited by felons are lowerthan incarceration costs. We pay taxes to lock them up, butwhile lose, they inflict a random tax.
I'm not even sure how many computers thereare in my house . . . But I'm pretty sure that I have more computers than kids (Yes, I know how many kids I have (4), their names, their birthdays, and it's my wife who can't remember our aniversery).
Lesssee, there's eyry, the K6, temporarily commandeered by the kids (who will be using FreeBSD, not windows, to face the internet with the cable modem installed in their room yesterday); there's Milton, the powerbook 180 that's in pieces and will never run again; a pair of 486's, one of which will work again once I get a new drive; wanderer, a backlit macportable; my old tandy 102; my 486 thinkpad, and the parts for Mercury, my homebrew from, hmm, over 20 years ago. I think that's all of them,but I'm not sure anymore. Plus there's my Mac Classic in california, and my old 128k mac that my brother expanded but never gave back, and 3 apple II's waiting for me to pick up in california (they're only e's, though, not original or even plus).
Ooops, scratch one of the 486's as an independent computer; it got subsumed into eyry for its copy of windows for the kids software (yes, its broken hard drive is physically mounted in eyry).
I was realling thinking of the tab on the outside of the package, where it is observable, rather than the inside. Fuses accomplish the same thing, but I thought intelhad a problem with these (apparently I'm mistaken).
Bork & Posner are the two primary architects of modern antitrust law. To the best of my knowledge, though, Posner didn't start out on the far left as Bork did.
However, Bork has been retained by netscape to help with its issues with microsoft, particularly alleged predatory behavior--which is odd, since bork has insisted for a long time that predatory behavior makes no sense from the monopolists standpoint . . .
Very roughly, the difference between classic liberals and libertarians is that classic liberals regard government as a necessary evil to be strictly limited, while libertarians aren't so sure about (or deny) the "necessary" part of that.
Libertarianism is pretty much classical liberalsim taken out to its logical extreme. Rejection of drug laws is one of the steps along the way.
>Judge Posner's views and politics are decidedly >pro-Microsoft in these facts. Judge Posner would >probably argue that there is no such thing as a >real "barrier to entry," the very fulcrum of >Judge Jackson's FOF.
Mild correction: the chicago school will disagree (at least usually) about *capital* barriers to entry. They certainly acknowledge administrative barriers, and I was first taught about strategic barriers (such as microsoft imposes) by a rabid chicago-schooler.
And I should toss it here somewhere (I should have put it on vlax's, but I hit the button early:), but the chicago school are not so much conservatives, but classic liberals. However, on these types of issues, conservatives & classic liberals usually agree--and when they don't, it's going to be the classic liberals bolting away from notions of protectingthe monopoly.
>I'm not a fan of the Chicago school of economics >(after Milton Friedman helped the Chilean >dictatorship screw its workers I'm certainly not >a fan of its biggest proponents),
I'm not a chicago schooler, but I'll use their tools and analysis when appropriate. Hell, I'd use Marx's if I ever found an appropriate case, but I'm not holding my breath.
But I'm not clear on your reference to Friedman & Chile. Is this the retirement plan? I'd swap th U.S. social security system for the Chilean system in a heartbeat [but I think it was post-dictator].
{way offtopic, but quick summary: 10% of paycheck goes into a fund of the worker's choice [but only a few are approved by the government]. The gov't runs one of these funds. There is a minimum guaranteed pension; if your fund doesn't have enough at 65, the govt makes up the difference. If your fund reaches the size to buy an annuity for this pension at your current age, you can retire now. At 150% (?) of this amount, you can stop kicking in. Chilean's see a much better return on their SS dollars than today's workforce in the U.S. . ..}
Anyway, you list excellent reasons why Posner is a perfect choice. I just hope you've switched to New Keynsianism after the utter failure and death of Keynesianism:)
>After that, what is to prevent the MS version of >Windows from coming up with more secret APIs and >the MS App guys "reverse engineering" (yeah, >right), or discovering top secret documents in a >dumpster, so they can use these APIs in the next >version of Word?
Quite simply, it wouldn't be an auction and then everyone sent their separate ways, but the terms of the order would include mandatory cross licencsing from (and maybe too) ms for a term of years, and/or a mechanism for agreement/coordination of the API for some years to come.
Actually, I'm inclinded to agree that something close to natural monopoly would apply. However, without distortion of the market, it is a *contestable* natural monopoly. Indeed, microsoft replaced the prior incumbent (Digital Research).
Natural monopoly, however, does not give the incumbent the right to use the monopoly power to inhibit challengers. Netscape was the challenger, and the incumbent used the current monopoly's power to prevent challenge. Preventing the contest was even the motivation for the MS actions.
The judge found that microsoft's attempt to divide the market with netscape happened. I'd give you a paragraph number, but I don't see where my copy with the yellow tags went. Given the finding that microsoft attempted to do so, I would expect it to make it into the conclusions of law.
On the other hand, market division didn't happen: netscape refused. Nonetheless, this is still an attempt to monopolize.
The remedies really won't be any difference: remedies aren't chosen by nature of the offense, but by what is necessary to solve the problem. However, for this particular threat, I think my proposal of horizontal divestiture is the best (though I seem to be in the minority as to whether it will work or not).
>Oh well, lets leave this one to the archives of .
Good idea, it's beaten to death. But one little note: I'm not talking about US employment law, but the Common Law of England:) For the most part, that is still the law in the U.S., but were old law by the time we separated.
There is a *lot* of preselection for graduate school--lefies just ain't gonna apply to Chicago, and those that think competition works aren't going to harvard . . .
The legal school is really the same group; it's just the law & economics issues reaching the law. Toss the silly antitrust stuff that raises prices rather than lower it, don't do things that make absolutely no economic sense, etc. The emphasis on efficiency tends to make social wealth maximization (regardless of who gets the wealth) the policy goal in the law, but the big contribution is trying to make the cost explicit, rather than "this is nice and that isn't."
What tends to be missing is the notion that economics can tell us what the choices are (the positive), it can't tell us what the best choice is (the normative). Like many of the schools from the left that it challenges, the more rabid elements of the chicago school tend to forget to keep the positive & normitive separate.
What surprises me, though, is that I've never seen the left take their style of analysis and change the choice mechanism. The New Keynesian economics did exactly this: they took the models and tools of the New Classicals and the Monetarists, but changed the assumption that prices were flexible to the assumptions that prices were predetermined.
The same thing could easily be done with the chicago-school thinking: It will cost $50M to save those beavers, but in the process we avoid another $20M of environmental damage, and gain access to scenery worth another $10M from peoples' willingness to pay to view it. Or the real winner: $50 Million to save the beavers, but this avoids $75 million in damage to farmlands from water runoff. The tools are there to make the choices explicit, but noone but the chicago school itself has used them.
I wish I wrote this, and I'm an antitrust lawyer and professorof economics:) This really cuts to the issue.
Just one comment:
>[chicago shool] whose best-known "member" is >probably Robert Bork (not that Posner >and Bork are interchangable). But if MS had to >choose a mediator, Posner just might be > the person they'd most prefer.
Especially since Netscape already hired Bork:)
OK, two comments: Bork was a screaming leftist until he learned some economics. But the benefit to the consumer is what drives his legal/economic analysis.
When the chicago school gets "skeptical" about antitrust law, the point to very silly cases and outcomes, or cases in which economics comparable to flat-earth physics prevailed.
Take Brown Shoe (please:)
The merger, which would have created a seller/manufacturor with less than 5% of the market, was blocked because it would be able to sell quality shoes at a lower price than its competitors. This was the *stated* reason of the government in opposing the merger.
"Chicago School" refers to the school of thought, not the University of Chicago. The name does come from the role of members of the Law school and Econ department at U of C in developing it. In terms of actual effect on the world, legal scholars, particularly Bork & Posner, have spread chicago school thought farther than economists.
>The FoF do not have any legal ramifications until >they are incorporated >into Jackson's Findings of Law, or final ruling.
That's entirely consistent with what we wrote. In fact, we would have written that, had we been presented the question. However, assuming we get to conclusions of law, these findings give us a very good idea what those conclusions will be.
>This is interesting because, although it seems >unlikely that an appellate court would >tamper with Jackson's FoF, modifying elements of >a legal ruling that contained facts is > precisely what an appellate court is supposed to >do. If this is the case, then the Findings of > Fact cannot be said to be entirely unassailable. >An interesting possibility.
This doesn't follow. The conclusions of law will be based on the findings of fact, and can be easily modified. However, the findings of fact would remain untouched in any such change; the appellate court would not change them when making new rulings.
> I noted with surprise that some of the Hon. >Jackson's Findings essentially pass edicts about >various other cases Microsoft is currently >litigating
Nothing unusual here. That other parties have litigation pending in those matters in no way prevents the government from bringing them up in this case, which it did.
>I wonder what would happen if Jackson were to >incorporate the Java-pollution "Fact" in his >legal findings, and then Sun were >subsequently to lose its battle against Microsoft >in that trial. Which "Fact" would legally > prevail?
In this case, it would be as litigated in this case. Also, the private litigation cannot be used as proof in other cases. While different rules apply to government antitrust cases, those who were not parties to litigation are not bound by its factual findings.
Yes, you called it simplified, but you oversimplified to the point of falsification.
Posner is a leading member of the Chicago School, the body of thought from the Law School and Economics Department at the University of Chicago that are very big on competition--and the econ department which picked up four *consecutive* nobel prices recently.
The Chicago school does *not* claim that the open market corrects all monopolistic problems. Read Bork and *gasp* Posner and you'll see this. The change in law as the Bork/Posner view replaced the old antitrust law is that it is the effect on consumers, and not competitors, that matters. Bork explicitly defines competition as whatever benefits consumers--if mergers that will leave two firms instead of ten will lower prices, the merger is pro-competitive.
Posner doesn't necessarily go that far, but expects antitrust law to make economic sense.
And the extreme wing of the chicago school believes that in some cases, one firm is enough for competitive behavior to hold, since other firms *could* enter.
But the catch (which you'll find in Posner's writings) is that competition has to be working. If competition is possible, and is alive in the industry in question, they expect it to make use of monopoly power impossible. They don't see it so much as a *cure*, but as a way of determining whether or not a monopoly couldhurt consumers.
They most certainly do not think (as a group) that antitrust law should be eliminated (Posner's textbook on the subject is about five feet behind me:), but that the portions which harmed consumers (such as Brown shoe, which protected us from low prices on quality goods) should be tossed. This means tossing the "Big is Bad" principle, and actually looking at what's happening.
I'm intrigued. I had been figuring that there is close to no chance of settlement. Now, I don't know.
A mediator doesn't impose a solution, but tries to bring the parties together. Someone with experience in the particular area can be useful, and may be more able to get them to see eye to eye.
And thus the interest in Posner. Judge Posner is the second leading authority on antitrust law today (behind Bork). You can quote Posner's writing to argue that Supreme Court precedent is wrong--and the odds will be on your side. If there's any one person left in the country that can get it through Microsoft's head that they didn't win, this is the man--Bork has already been hired by Netscape.
I'd still put odds against a settlement happening, but they just changed.
>Even if he did implicitly agree to a contract >modification
Actually, it's explicit: the modified contract is accepted by performing the action
>(he may have; IANL,
but I am:)
>and the law has stranger things in it...)
nothing strange here; this is no different as a legal principal than working eight hours instead of the six in your contract, and expecting an extra two hours pay.
>- did he also implicitly enter into an assumed >modification that assigned intellectual property >of his creation to the company?
It was work for hire. The employer is entitled to all of it.
>If not, and there was no such assignment in his >original contract, then he owned the code, and >was free to do with it as he wished.
If for some reason there wasn't, he was stealing when he did it during time the company was paying him . . .
>Once he undertook the duty, he was obligated to >due so correctly.
>Legally, or morally?
Legally.
>Morally, I'd agree with >you... if he made the commitment, I think he >should have followed through. Legally, though, I >don't think there was a commitment, and >he can't be held accountable for not doing work >he was never hired to do.
He was doing it on company time, for which he was paid. He then vandalized, it, and took the copy he wasn't entitled to.
>but I'm sorry that Prof. Hawkins didn't address >the main point of my post:
>Antitrust laws were passed to protect small >businesses, as well as the consumer.
I did. The whole paragraph, but particularly:
:Today, the outcome would have been different--the :lower prices would mean that the merger was :pro-competitive, and the effects on competitors :be damned.
As a blunter answer to your original question:
No, you're wrong. Under current antitrust law, in this situation, the effects on other competitors just plain don't matter. Maybe the law should be changed, but the protection of other business is no longer the concern.
Also, at the time that this *was* a concern, it wouldn't apply here: harm to small competitors could lead to remedies, while you're arguing that that other small companies benefitted from the monopoly, even though it is maintained by forbidden acts that harm the consume. Even assuming that there was no harm to the consumer, to the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely *no* precedent for considering positive effects on other firms from the existence of the monopoly (both current and older law).
>The "remedies" that people are talking about >won't actually help any consumer. There is >some fanciful notion that some consumer >somewhere is harmed by the pricing of Windows
"fanciful notion" ??? It's quite clear that if a consumer is charged extra, the consumer is harmed. Just as a back-of-the-envelope grade calculation, figure $50 as the difference in the price of windows to the wholesaler (from the W98 pricing). Add another $50 for the increased support costs from micrsoft's actions (the HP example in the fof). That's $100/machine for *every* machine sold, just in increased manufacturor cost. Figure a porice diference to the consumer of $150-200. This isn't fanciful; it isn't remote.
>but breaking up Microsoft will cause immediate, >permanent damage to lots of small businesses >across America. We can compete with Andersen, >DeLoitte, Cambridge and the rest because a >Microsoft-centric solution will work: the OS, the >DBMS, the programming tools, the Office app all >work together.
I don't even know where to start with this portion. *none* of the remedies suggested (other than the folks who want to give away the source code) will cause *any* microsoft product or service to cease to exist. Yes, they might now be availble from separate compaines. No, microsoft will not have an advantage any longer over smaller competitors in making sure that Office is better integrated.
>Break up Microsoft, and that level >of integration disappears--and with it goes my >competitive advantage over the big guys.
This has *absolutely* nothing to do with antitrust law, past or present. There has *never* been a concern that smaller companies riding on the skirts of a monopoly may be harmed.
>Break up Microsoft, and I become the victim.
This is just bizarre. Taking away your ability to benefit from the illegal behavior of microsoft makes you a victim??? We could also worry about the businesses that supply legal goods and services to mobsters when we crack down on organized crime, I suppose . . .
Let's get this clear one more time: this isn't about you; it's about microsoft and the consumer.
>Microsoft is directly responsible for the >creation and growth of literally thousands of >small ISVs and consulting firms (like mine).
An interesting notion. Assuming that these businessess wouldn't happen if there were competing OS's is a rather large leap. The existence of such firms that work with Macintosh, Sun, etc. make it particularly odd.
Quite frankly, many of your arguments sound an aweful lot like those of the assorted microsoft front groups.
>The ONLY firm that is portrayed as a "victim" in >the Findings is Netscape
This just isn't true, as those of us who have read the findings are aware. The only firm for which a *quantization* of the harm is provided is netscape, which is left as more than $100M ...
>So what I really want to ask is--why the hell is >the Justice Department looking out for the >billionare owners of Netscape, and screwing the >likes of me?
It isn't, until very strange spin is applied. The case is about microsoft and consumers. This comes across quite clearly from the findings. It's about harm to consumers in the forms of increased prices and loss of choices. The only way to spin it as something harmful to you is that you won't have as great an ability to benefit from the actions that harm others--and it's a long reach to get even that far.
Slashdot Mirror
I was there. I read the post. *most* of us recognized it as clever, and immediately began speculation about how it was done.
However, a good number taken in, and they were hysterical. Remember, this was during the end-game of the cold war (though most of us still thought it was the height of the coldwar). The gullible folks (was it Stalin or Lenin that called them "useful idiots") that bought it hook, line, and sinker, decried it has a horrible thing, as it had been a great step forward for peace.
This was also during the time that you could read the *entire* newsfeed in under two hours--all 30 or 40 groups.
Thanks. But they both rounded his beak (though the thinkgeek version isn't as bad). It looks like it belongs on a duck :(
:)
Hmm, I wonder if I can get my 8 year old to sew some together
What I *need* this Christmas is close to a dozen stuffed Tux for my children, nephews, friends' kids, etc. Does anyone know where to buy them?
The notion of people reforming in prison is nice, but it just doesn't happen. Yes, you see the occasional article about it,which is exactly the point: it's so rare that it's newsworthy when it happens.
Prison renders criminals incapable of committing crimes for some period, and it punishes them. The criminals that do go straight usually do so because, in a moment of lucid thought, they realize that if they don't commit any more crimes, they don't have to go back! This is obvious to most of us, but a revelation to a large portion of the population in question.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to teach them useful skills: this changes the choices that they're making about whether or nto to commit more crimes. But for Heaven's sake, please don't put the white collar criminals inthe same prisons with the regular folks--we don't want them cross-polinating.
While I'm at it, prison *is* cost effective for felons. I wish that I had a nice cite for it handy, but studies have shown that the financial losses alone from the crimes commited by felons are lowerthan incarceration costs. We pay taxes to lock them up, butwhile lose, they inflict a random tax.
I'm not even sure how many computers thereare in my house . . . But I'm pretty sure that I have more computers than kids (Yes, I know how many kids I have (4), their names, their birthdays, and it's my wife who can't remember our aniversery).
Lesssee, there's eyry, the K6, temporarily commandeered by the kids (who will be using FreeBSD, not windows, to face the internet with the cable modem installed in their room yesterday); there's Milton, the powerbook 180 that's in pieces and will never run again; a pair of 486's, one of which will work again once I get a new drive; wanderer, a backlit macportable; my old tandy 102; my 486 thinkpad, and the parts for Mercury, my homebrew from, hmm, over 20 years ago. I think that's all of them,but I'm not sure anymore. Plus there's my Mac Classic in california, and my old 128k mac that my brother expanded but never gave back, and 3 apple II's waiting for me to pick up in california (they're only e's, though, not original or even plus).
Ooops, scratch one of the 486's as an independent computer; it got subsumed into eyry for its copy of windows for the kids software (yes, its broken hard drive is physically mounted in eyry).
Hmm, how many is that'i lost count . . .
But woe be to she that calls me late for dinner
I was realling thinking of the tab on the outside of the package, where it is observable, rather than the inside. Fuses accomplish the same thing, but I thought intelhad a problem with these (apparently I'm mistaken).
Labels and etchings have been counter-fitted over, and the ultimate speed of the CPU is not generally known at mask time.
However, a *physcial* tab could be put on the chip along the lines of
500 450 400 350
etc. All tabs above the rated speed would be broken off, leaving the "true" speed identified.
Bork & Posner are the two primary architects of modern antitrust law. To the best of my knowledge, though, Posner didn't start out on the far left as Bork did.
However, Bork has been retained by netscape to help with its issues with microsoft, particularly alleged predatory behavior--which is odd, since bork has insisted for a long time that predatory behavior makes no sense from the monopolists standpoint . . .
Very roughly, the difference between classic liberals and libertarians is that classic liberals regard government as a necessary evil to be strictly limited, while libertarians aren't so sure about (or deny) the "necessary" part of that.
Libertarianism is pretty much classical liberalsim taken out to its logical extreme. Rejection of drug laws is one of the steps along the way.
>Judge Posner's views and politics are decidedly
:), but the chicago school are not so much conservatives, but classic liberals. However, on these types of issues, conservatives & classic liberals usually agree--and when they don't, it's going to be the classic liberals bolting away from notions of protectingthe monopoly.
>pro-Microsoft in these facts. Judge Posner would
>probably argue that there is no such thing as a
>real "barrier to entry," the very fulcrum of >Judge Jackson's FOF.
Mild correction: the chicago school will disagree (at least usually) about *capital* barriers to entry. They certainly acknowledge administrative barriers, and I was first taught about strategic barriers (such as microsoft imposes) by a rabid chicago-schooler.
And I should toss it here somewhere (I should have put it on vlax's, but I hit the button early
>I'm not a fan of the Chicago school of economics
.}
:)
>(after Milton Friedman helped the Chilean
>dictatorship screw its workers I'm certainly not
>a fan of its biggest proponents),
I'm not a chicago schooler, but I'll use their tools and analysis when appropriate. Hell, I'd use Marx's if I ever found an appropriate case, but I'm not holding my breath.
But I'm not clear on your reference to Friedman & Chile. Is this the retirement plan? I'd swap th U.S. social security system for the Chilean system in a heartbeat [but I think it was post-dictator].
{way offtopic, but quick summary: 10% of paycheck goes into a fund of the worker's choice [but only a few are approved by the government]. The gov't runs one of these funds. There is a minimum guaranteed pension; if your fund doesn't have enough at 65, the govt makes up the difference. If your fund reaches the size to buy an annuity for this pension at your current age, you can retire now. At 150% (?) of this amount, you can stop kicking in. Chilean's see a much better return on their SS dollars than today's workforce in the U.S. . .
Anyway, you list excellent reasons why Posner is a perfect choice. I just hope you've switched to New Keynsianism after the utter failure and death of Keynesianism
>After that, what is to prevent the MS version of >Windows from coming up with more secret APIs and
>the MS App guys "reverse engineering" (yeah,
>right), or discovering top secret documents in a
>dumpster, so they can use these APIs in the next
>version of Word?
Quite simply, it wouldn't be an auction and then everyone sent their separate ways, but the terms of the order would include mandatory cross licencsing from (and maybe too) ms for a term of years, and/or a mechanism for agreement/coordination of the API for some years to come.
Actually, I'm inclinded to agree that something close to natural monopoly would apply. However, without distortion of the market, it is a *contestable* natural monopoly. Indeed, microsoft replaced the prior incumbent (Digital Research).
Natural monopoly, however, does not give the incumbent the right to use the monopoly power to inhibit challengers. Netscape was the challenger, and the incumbent used the current monopoly's power to prevent challenge. Preventing the contest was even the motivation for the MS actions.
The judge found that microsoft's attempt to divide the market with netscape happened. I'd give you a paragraph number, but I don't see where my copy with the yellow tags went. Given the finding that microsoft attempted to do so, I would expect it to make it into the conclusions of law.
On the other hand, market division didn't happen: netscape refused. Nonetheless, this is still an attempt to monopolize.
The remedies really won't be any difference: remedies aren't chosen by nature of the offense, but by what is necessary to solve the problem. However, for this particular threat, I think my proposal of horizontal divestiture is the best (though I seem to be in the minority as to whether it will work or not).
hawk, esq.
>Oh well, lets leave this one to the archives of
:) For the most part, that is still the law in the U.S., but were old law by the time we separated.
.
Good idea, it's beaten to death. But one little note: I'm not talking about US employment law, but the Common Law of England
hawk, esq.
There is a *lot* of preselection for graduate school--lefies just ain't gonna apply to Chicago, and those that think competition works aren't going to harvard . . .
The legal school is really the same group; it's just the law & economics issues reaching the law. Toss the silly antitrust stuff that raises prices rather than lower it, don't do things that make absolutely no economic sense, etc. The emphasis on efficiency tends to make social wealth maximization (regardless of who gets the wealth) the policy goal in the law, but the big contribution is trying to make the cost explicit, rather than "this is nice and that isn't."
What tends to be missing is the notion that economics can tell us what the choices are (the positive), it can't tell us what the best choice is (the normative). Like many of the schools from the left that it challenges, the more rabid elements of the chicago school tend to forget to keep the positive & normitive separate.
What surprises me, though, is that I've never seen the left take their style of analysis and change the choice mechanism. The New Keynesian economics did exactly this: they took the models and tools of the New Classicals and the Monetarists, but changed the assumption that prices were flexible to the assumptions that prices were predetermined.
The same thing could easily be done with the chicago-school thinking: It will cost $50M to save those beavers, but in the process we avoid another $20M of environmental damage, and gain access to scenery worth another $10M from peoples' willingness to pay to view it. Or the real winner: $50 Million to save the beavers, but this avoids $75 million in damage to farmlands from water runoff. The tools are there to make the choices explicit, but noone but the chicago school itself has used them.
I wish I wrote this, and I'm an antitrust lawyer and professorof economics :) This really cuts to the issue.
:)
Just one comment:
>[chicago shool] whose best-known "member" is
>probably Robert Bork (not that Posner
>and Bork are interchangable). But if MS had to
>choose a mediator, Posner just might be
> the person they'd most prefer.
Especially since Netscape already hired Bork
OK, two comments: Bork was a screaming leftist until he learned some economics. But the benefit to the consumer is what drives his legal/economic analysis.
When the chicago school gets "skeptical" about antitrust law, the point to very silly cases and outcomes, or cases in which economics comparable to flat-earth physics prevailed.
:)
Take Brown Shoe (please
The merger, which would have created a seller/manufacturor with less than 5% of the market, was blocked because it would be able to sell quality shoes at a lower price than its competitors. This was the *stated* reason of the government in opposing the merger.
hawk, esq.
"Chicago School" refers to the school of thought, not the University of Chicago. The name does come from the role of members of the Law school and Econ department at U of C in developing it. In terms of actual effect on the world, legal scholars, particularly Bork & Posner, have spread chicago school thought farther than economists.
hawk, esq., and an economist too
>The FoF do not have any legal ramifications until
>they are incorporated
>into Jackson's Findings of Law, or final ruling.
That's entirely consistent with what we wrote. In fact, we would have written that, had we been presented the question. However, assuming we get to conclusions of law, these findings give us a very good idea what those conclusions will be.
>This is interesting because, although it seems
>unlikely that an appellate court would
>tamper with Jackson's FoF, modifying elements of
>a legal ruling that contained facts is
> precisely what an appellate court is supposed to
>do. If this is the case, then the Findings of
> Fact cannot be said to be entirely unassailable.
>An interesting possibility.
This doesn't follow. The conclusions of law will be based on the findings of fact, and can be easily modified. However, the findings of fact would remain untouched in any such change; the appellate court would not change them when making new rulings.
> I noted with surprise that some of the Hon.
>Jackson's Findings essentially pass edicts about >various other cases Microsoft is currently
>litigating
Nothing unusual here. That other parties have litigation pending in those matters in no way prevents the government from bringing them up in this case, which it did.
>I wonder what would happen if Jackson were to
>incorporate the Java-pollution "Fact" in his
>legal findings, and then Sun were
>subsequently to lose its battle against Microsoft
>in that trial. Which "Fact" would legally
> prevail?
In this case, it would be as litigated in this case. Also, the private litigation cannot be used
as proof in other cases. While different rules apply to government antitrust cases, those who were not parties to litigation are not bound by its factual findings.
Yes, you called it simplified, but you oversimplified to the point of falsification.
:), but that the portions which harmed consumers (such as Brown shoe, which protected us from low prices on quality goods) should be tossed. This means tossing the "Big is Bad" principle, and actually looking at what's happening.
Posner is a leading member of the Chicago School, the body of thought from the Law School and Economics Department at the University of Chicago that are very big on competition--and the econ department which picked up four *consecutive* nobel prices recently.
The Chicago school does *not* claim that the open market corrects all monopolistic problems. Read Bork and *gasp* Posner and you'll see this. The change in law as the Bork/Posner view replaced the old antitrust law is that it is the effect on consumers, and not competitors, that matters. Bork explicitly defines competition as whatever benefits consumers--if mergers that will leave two firms instead of ten will lower prices, the merger is pro-competitive.
Posner doesn't necessarily go that far, but expects antitrust law to make economic sense.
And the extreme wing of the chicago school believes that in some cases, one firm is enough for competitive behavior to hold, since other firms *could* enter.
But the catch (which you'll find in Posner's writings) is that competition has to be working. If competition is possible, and is alive in the industry in question, they expect it to make use of monopoly power impossible. They don't see it so much as a *cure*, but as a way of determining whether or not a monopoly couldhurt consumers.
They most certainly do not think (as a group) that antitrust law should be eliminated (Posner's textbook on the subject is about five feet behind me
hawk, esq.
I'm intrigued. I had been figuring that there is close to no chance of settlement. Now, I don't know.
A mediator doesn't impose a solution, but tries to bring the parties together. Someone with experience in the particular area can be useful, and may be more able to get them to see eye to eye.
And thus the interest in Posner. Judge Posner is the second leading authority on antitrust law today (behind Bork). You can quote Posner's writing to argue that Supreme Court precedent is wrong--and the odds will be on your side. If there's any one person left in the country that can get it through Microsoft's head that they didn't win, this is the man--Bork has already been hired by Netscape.
I'd still put odds against a settlement happening, but they just changed.
hawk, esq.
>Even if he did implicitly agree to a contract
:)
>modification
Actually, it's explicit: the modified contract is accepted by performing the action
>(he may have; IANL,
but I am
>and the law has stranger things in it...)
nothing strange here; this is no different as a legal principal than working eight hours instead of the six in your contract, and expecting an extra two hours pay.
>- did he also implicitly enter into an assumed
>modification that assigned intellectual property
>of his creation to the company?
It was work for hire. The employer is entitled to all of it.
>If not, and there was no such assignment in his
>original contract, then he owned the code, and >was free to do with it as he wished.
If for some reason there wasn't, he was stealing when he did it during time the company was paying him . . .
>Once he undertook the duty, he was obligated to
>due so correctly.
>Legally, or morally?
Legally.
>Morally, I'd agree with
>you... if he made the commitment, I think he
>should have followed through. Legally, though, I
>don't think there was a commitment, and
>he can't be held accountable for not doing work >he was never hired to do.
He was doing it on company time, for which he was paid. He then vandalized, it, and took the copy he wasn't entitled to.
>but I'm sorry that Prof. Hawkins didn't address
>the main point of my post:
>Antitrust laws were passed to protect small
>businesses, as well as the consumer.
I did. The whole paragraph, but particularly:
:Today, the outcome would have been different--the
:lower prices would mean that the merger was
:pro-competitive, and the effects on competitors
:be damned.
As a blunter answer to your original question:
No, you're wrong. Under current antitrust law, in this situation, the effects on other competitors just plain don't matter. Maybe the law should be changed, but the protection of other business is no longer the concern.
Also, at the time that this *was* a concern, it wouldn't apply here: harm to small competitors could lead to remedies, while you're arguing that that other small companies benefitted from the monopoly, even though it is maintained by forbidden acts that harm the consume. Even assuming that there was no harm to the consumer, to the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely *no* precedent for considering positive effects on other firms from the existence of the monopoly (both current and older law).
>The "remedies" that people are talking about
>won't actually help any consumer. There is
>some fanciful notion that some consumer
>somewhere is harmed by the pricing of Windows
"fanciful notion" ??? It's quite clear that if a consumer is charged extra, the consumer is harmed. Just as a back-of-the-envelope grade calculation, figure $50 as the difference in the price of windows to the wholesaler (from the W98 pricing). Add another $50 for the increased support costs from micrsoft's actions (the HP example in the fof). That's $100/machine for *every* machine sold, just in increased manufacturor cost. Figure a porice diference to the consumer of $150-200. This isn't fanciful; it isn't remote.
>but breaking up Microsoft will cause immediate,
>permanent damage to lots of small businesses >across America. We can compete with Andersen,
>DeLoitte, Cambridge and the rest because a
>Microsoft-centric solution will work: the OS, the
>DBMS, the programming tools, the Office app all
>work together.
I don't even know where to start with this portion. *none* of the remedies suggested (other than the folks who want to give away the source code) will cause *any* microsoft product or service to cease to exist. Yes, they might now be availble from separate compaines. No, microsoft will not have an advantage any longer over smaller competitors in making sure that Office is better integrated.
>Break up Microsoft, and that level
>of integration disappears--and with it goes my
>competitive advantage over the big guys.
This has *absolutely* nothing to do with antitrust law, past or present. There has *never* been a concern that smaller companies riding on the skirts of a monopoly may be harmed.
>Break up Microsoft, and I become the victim.
This is just bizarre. Taking away your ability to benefit from the illegal behavior of microsoft makes you a victim??? We could also worry about the businesses that supply legal goods and services to mobsters when we crack down on organized crime, I suppose . . .
Let's get this clear one more time: this isn't about you; it's about microsoft and the consumer.
>Microsoft is directly responsible for the
>creation and growth of literally thousands of
>small ISVs and consulting firms (like mine).
An interesting notion. Assuming that these businessess wouldn't happen if there were competing OS's is a rather large leap. The existence of such firms that work with Macintosh, Sun, etc. make it particularly odd.
Quite frankly, many of your arguments sound an aweful lot like those of the assorted microsoft front groups.
>The ONLY firm that is portrayed as a "victim" in
>the Findings is Netscape
This just isn't true, as those of us who have read the findings are aware. The only firm for which a *quantization* of the harm is provided is netscape, which is left as more than $100M
...
>So what I really want to ask is--why the hell is
>the Justice Department looking out for the
>billionare owners of Netscape, and screwing the
>likes of me?
It isn't, until very strange spin is applied.
The case is about microsoft and consumers. This comes across quite clearly from the findings. It's about harm to consumers in the forms of increased prices and loss of choices. The only way to spin it as something harmful to you is that you won't have as great an ability to benefit from the actions that harm others--and it's a long reach to get even that far.
hawk, esq.