Free Republic

The Obama administration on Wednesday filed to block AT&T's proposed acquisition of wireless rival T-Mobile USA ...

Government Bailouts, Pump Priming, Interference, Whatever you want to call it, it Doesn't Work, & the numbers have already been crunched, & documented. http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx By Meg Sullivan August 10, 2004 Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years. "Why...

Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman was a top executive of a large chemical conglomerate that is paying $33 million to settle a lawsuit alleging price-fixing. Huntsman International LLC recently agreed to pay the money to settle a suit filed by several competitors. The lawsuit accused Huntsman International and other companies of antitrust violations by fixing the price of urethane chemicals, used in various products. Huntsman was a top executive in the family's business conglomerate for about five of the six years covered by the lawsuit's allegations. He confirmed Tuesday that he will run for president.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Wednesday offered a strong defense of his agency’s new Internet traffic regulations, telling skeptical Republican lawmakers that existing laws were not strong enough to police the large firms that operate the Web’s infrastructure.. “In my view, while critically important, antitrust laws alone would not adequately preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet,” the FCC chief told a House Judiciary subcommittee on the hot-button issue of “net neutrality.”

A group of law and economics professors and practitioners has asked the Department of Justice to investigate college football's Bowl Championship Series under antitrust law. In a letter, a copy of which was provided to The Wall Street Journal before it was made public, the 21 signatories—who include Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago and Andrew Zimbalist of Smith College—assert that the BCS is a cartel that "secures market access and revenue" for its favored members. The argument over the fairness and legality of the BCS is the central front in the ongoing war over college football's controversial postseason...

Collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty. P>How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions. Wisconsin was the first state to allow collective bargaining for government workers (in 1959), following a tradition where it was the first to introduce a personal income tax (in 1911, before the introduction of the current form of individual income tax in 1913 by the federal government).

BRUSSELS — The top European antitrust regulator opened an investigation into Google on Tuesday to examine allegations that the Internet giant has abused its dominance in online search. he decision follows complaints by specialized search-related companies about “unfavorable treatment of their services in Google’s unpaid and sponsored search results,” the European Commission said in a statement. The commission said it was also looking into whether Google might have given its own services “preferential placement” in search results. In addition to its search engine, Google has a growing number of other online businesses, including mapping, translation, video and electronic commerce services,...

House leaders expect to bring H.R. 4626, the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act bill, up for debate on the House floor today. Members of the House Rules Committee agreed Tuesday to send the HIIFCA bill, which was introduced by Reps. Thomas Perriello, D-Va. and Betsy Markey, D-Colo., to the floor with a rule providing for 2 hours of debate. Lawmakers can consider one motion to send the bill back to committee. The bill would repeal McCarran-Ferguson Act antitrust exemption for the business of health insurance -- and only the business of health insurance. Earlier versions of H.R. 4626 and...

Suggestion: change the tax code to stop taxing US jobs; instead encourage employment and smaller corporations.

Of all the campaign promises that President Barack Obama made, the only one that I hope he does not break is the one to try to get a playoff system in Division I college football and scrap the anti-trust and discriminatory BCS system. Given how many of his other promises that he has already broken, I am not holding out much hope that Obama will keep this one. However, hopefully Senator Orrin Hatch and others will keep the pressure and the attention on this issue. This is actually the ultimate affirmative action case, so it seems like an issue that...

Rush was dropped from the group of investors looking to purchase the St. Louis Rams. They said he became "a complication."

Rush Limbaugh won't be buying a piece of the St. Louis Rams after all. With criticism mounting, Dave Checketts, the sports businessman leading a group vying for the National Football League franchise, dumped the controversial conservative talk show host just days after Mr. Limbaugh disclosed his intent to buy a minority interest in the team.

"My co-worker, Tim, explained that our company, a major software vendor, is seeing its mainframe workforce rapidly approaching the age of retirement. Tim said IBM and most other firms whose businesses depend on mainframes are also dealing with this industry-wide problem. "Since the 1980’s, PC’s and UNIX machines were supposed to have taken over the computing world, relegating mainframes to the scrap heap alongside rotary-dial telephones, suitcase-size boom boxes, and Plymouth Reliants. Indeed, most mainframes from that era have been consigned to the scrap heap – only to be replaced by bigger and faster mainframes. "Today the number of mainframes...

If government wants to offer health care, they need to get out of the regulatory business. Or be a regulator, not a health care provider. Most people would call this request a mater of anti trust. Waxman thinks its OK to get this data because, hmmmmm...... well I don't know why.

Wireless Market, Generic Drugs Reviewed as Justice Department Steps Up Enforcement The Department of Justice has begun looking into whether large U.S. telecommunications companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are abusing the market power they have amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter. The review, while in its early stages, is an indication of the Obama administration's aggressive stance on antitrust enforcement. The Justice Department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, has said she wants to reassert the government's role in policing monopolistic and anticompetitive practices by powerful companies.

Anti-trust or Anti-trustworthy? by: Mytheos Holt, June 19, 2009 Last month, assistant Attorney General Christine Varney announced plans by the Obama administration to reinvigorate antitrust policy as a step to solve “cases where monopolists try to use their dominance in the marketplace to stifle competition and harm consumers," a plan legal critics are warning is on a “collision course” with recent precedent set by the Supreme Court, and by extension, with the constitutional rule of law itself. For his part, DC Appellate Court Justice Douglas Ginsburg argues that recent Supreme Court decisions show a “more informed approach to antitrust cases”—one...

FedEx Express is learning what could be the Democrats' economic motto -- "Never Let Success Go Unpunished." Led by Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minnesota), the House on May 21 passed legislation that contains a hidden provision -- a mere 230 words -- that would hobble FedEx Express by completely changing the labor laws under which the company operates. Unless the Senate removes the language from the bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, a mere dozen or so workers in just one city could hamstring much of the nation's overnight delivery service. Americans take for granted that things can "absolutely, positively ......

Executives from many of America's leading newspaper companies and the head of the Associated Press met quietly in Chicago on Thursday to discuss ways to increase revenues from their online operations -- presumably by charging visitors to their websites -- as well as how to recapture some share of their catastrophically declining classified ad business. The meeting, whose participants included an antitrust lawyer to make sure the conversation didn't stray into impermissible collusion or price-fixing, was conducted under the auspices of the Newspaper Assn. of America, and its agenda was titled "Models to Lawfully Monetize Content." These guys may be...

The newspaper world has temporarily diverted its gaze from its collective navel to Rosemont, Ill. That's where, reports James Warren in the Atlantic, top executives from major papers have gathered to plot the future of their business. Machers from, among others, the New York Times, Gannett, E.W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises, and Freedom Communication Inc. were scheduled to gather for a "discreet" "discussion about content models," including the possibility of charging for Web content. This comes barely a month after a similar meeting in San Diego, where CEOs...

Here's a story the newspaper industry's upper echelon apparently kept from its anxious newsrooms: A discreet Thursday meeting in Chicago about their future. "Models to Monetize Content" is the subject of a gathering at a hotel which is actually located in drab and sterile suburban Rosemont, Illinois; slabs of concrete, exhibition halls and mostly chain restaurants, whose prime reason for being is O'Hare International Airport. It's perfect for quickie, in-and-out conclaves. There's no mention on its website but the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group, has assembled top executives of the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps,...