Upon reading this story all I could say to myself is this: It's about time we restore some real competition to the marketplace.
Despite all the blathering about the "free market" and "capitalism", the Bush administration did more to undermine real competition than many previous administrations by gutting anti-trust law.
You can't call yourself a capitalist unless you support strong anti-trust enforcement.
Anti-trust law, when properly applied, eliminates monopolies and punishes those profiting from anti-competitive contracts. Basically, anti-trust law punishes croneyism--a hallmark of the Bush years.
For a market to work properly, concentrations of market power must be thwarted; that's what anti-trust law does--it prevents concentrations of power and greases the wheels of commerce.
Easy commerce makes for cheaper stuff.
Excellent!
Showing posts with label anti-competitive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-competitive. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Crappy broadband a legacy of Bush policy against enforcing Anti-Trust law.
Surely most of you get tired of me bashing the last President. Yet, there remain so many screw-ups by Bush, some intentional and many a result of his ideological blinders, that I must point out what his penchant for laissez-faire boob-ism wrought.
The Justice Department under Bush instituted a policy of refusing to enforce anti-trust law. You know, the laws enacted to prevent monopolies and anti-competitive practices. Ashcroft dropped an Anti-Trust lawsuit against Microsoft during the early years and it set the stage for later malfeasance.
This whole atmosphere of ignoring anti-competitive business practices in the name of--wait for it--free markets has actually reduced our supply of market-friendly internet.
For example: In Tennessee, when municipalities began looking at providing free wi-fi, the cable companies cried foul and spent a lot of cash greasing the General Assembly's palms to pass a law prohibiting cities from competing with cable. The Justice Department did nothing.
Now, it seems the lack of competition and the virtual monopoly on broadband by a number of providers means we have to suffer with crap for speed, crap for customer service, and crap for expense.
If Bush had really been in favor of business, his policies would reflect the value of maintaining competition instead of encouraging monopolies.
We all would have the best broadband in the world instead of the 15th best.
When Republicans talk of capitalism they can't ignore the dangers monopolies create.
The Justice Department under Bush instituted a policy of refusing to enforce anti-trust law. You know, the laws enacted to prevent monopolies and anti-competitive practices. Ashcroft dropped an Anti-Trust lawsuit against Microsoft during the early years and it set the stage for later malfeasance.
This whole atmosphere of ignoring anti-competitive business practices in the name of--wait for it--free markets has actually reduced our supply of market-friendly internet.
For example: In Tennessee, when municipalities began looking at providing free wi-fi, the cable companies cried foul and spent a lot of cash greasing the General Assembly's palms to pass a law prohibiting cities from competing with cable. The Justice Department did nothing.
Now, it seems the lack of competition and the virtual monopoly on broadband by a number of providers means we have to suffer with crap for speed, crap for customer service, and crap for expense.
If Bush had really been in favor of business, his policies would reflect the value of maintaining competition instead of encouraging monopolies.
We all would have the best broadband in the world instead of the 15th best.
When Republicans talk of capitalism they can't ignore the dangers monopolies create.
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