Thursday, May 14, 2009
The coming change in competition law
Under American antitrust law, competitive practices are much more likely to be unlawful if they hurt the customers of the competing businesses. Higher prices and other anti-customer results are, in our way of looking at it, the harm in anti-competitive behavior, because Americans do not care, in theory, whether one business outcompetes another business. Except for a moment at the peak of FDR's meddling, that has been the American way.
Until now.
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu May 14, 08:59:00 AM:
You still here, and working?
Your business ought to be reincorporated offshore by now, your shareholders will think you remiss if you stay! I'm considering syndicating a copper mine myself, maybe bring in some steel and railroad bigwigs...
This is merely the first trickle of the coming wave of Anti Dog Eat Dog legislation.
By , at
Thu May 14, 09:23:00 AM:
A 1.45 billion dollar fine? Hmmm... Wonder if this has less to do with anti-trust and more to do with revenue enhancement for the governing authority? A 'winner's tax' on the most successful companies?
By 
Ed Rasimus, at
Thu May 14, 09:56:00 AM:
Anonymous channels Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Reardon cunningly. The copper mine, steel, railroad, et.al. need to be regulated, of course in the spirit of fairness.
What else could we do? If GM and Chrysler can't compete with Toyota, Honda and Nissan (and Ford) then we must redistribute their management techniques and confiscate the successful company profits to aid the UAW owners of the two Detroit giants.
Meanwhile, in a small valley on the western slope of Colorado...
By , at
Thu May 14, 12:32:00 PM:
I agree with the EU on this one because there were more than just market share concerns. The issue is that Intel was enticing their corporate customers to exclude other manufacturers. I.E. "We'll give you a discount on our hardware, but only if you sell less than 10% of your computers with AMD chips in them. Oh, and all your premium models must have Intel chips because we don't want anyone thinking AMD can make a premium product."
By Ron Russell, at
Thu May 14, 09:59:00 PM:
I fear what will happen with the auto makers is that the governments investment in the major companies with the except of Ford and those foreign auto companies operating in the states will cause the government supported companies to be given price supports to undercut their competition and the result will be even a greater downturn in auto sales.
By , at
Fri May 15, 08:23:00 AM:
I think this bit of Stephen Moore's article captures the zeitgiest perfectly:
"Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism."
