|
Blowdryer posted:It needs to be explicit in some way. If firms behave in ways beneficial to each other without saying they want to, it is legal. Firms can get other firms to do so by 'signaling'. Hell, if I remember right they basically admitted it during their argument in favor of the merger anyway, saying they already don't compete with each other in local markets so merging wouldn't really be that much of a change. Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Apr 24, 2015 |
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 03:55 |
|
|
Luigi Thirty posted:Like the one time putting a businessman in charge of regulation works, he got screwed and wants to unfuck it for everyone else. I feel this is actually an important lesson for future generations.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:09
|
|
|
Samurai Sanders posted:Right, so my question is, how would market sharing/price fixing agreements ever be subject to the law then? Surely they wouldn't sit in a room together and write down "okay you guys get Chicago and we get New York", but the government would have to find evidence like that to make a case? Well of course that poo poo IS said in a room together most likely (at industry summits/events, the cable industry is very tight) but just don't write it down yourself or get recorded saying it and you've got plausible deniability.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:12
|
|
|
Samurai Sanders posted:Right, so my question is, how would market sharing/price fixing agreements ever be subject to the law then? Surely they wouldn't sit in a room together and write down "okay you guys get Chicago and we get New York", but the government would have to find evidence like that to make a case? I don't think noncoordinated cooperation is as difficult as you think, especially with so few actors in the market.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:14
|
|
|
Samurai Sanders posted:If that's the standard of evidence for an antitrust case, how do antitrust cases ever happen? Isn't there an equivalent of the RICO law for antitrust? I've done antitrust work in other areas totally unrelated to cable, but the short answer is that everything in an antitrust case is incredibly difficult to prove, especially damages, and the system is rigged to make it as difficult as possible for the plaintiffs to actually accomplish anything. Like, for example, did you know that as a consumer, you have no legal right to actually bring an antitrust lawsuit against a company who's monopoly is screwing you over? http://www.robinskaplan.com/resources/articles/ninth-circuit-clarifies-scope-of-the-direct-purchaser-rule-in-federal-antitrust-claims The long and short of that ruling is that, for a consumer good, only direct purchasers (the stores that sell products to you) can sue for antitrust violations -- the actual consumer can not. Why is this bad? Because direct purchasers can almost never prove damages -- they still sell products and make a profit, no matter what the price is. They can try to argue that more people would buy the product if it was cheaper, but legally that's incredibly difficult to do and most stores aren't going to want to make that argument anyway because they have an incentive to not charge rock-bottom prices for things. It also means that if they DO succeed in an antitrust lawsuit, all of the judgment just goes straight into corporate pockets and the consumers don't see a cent. Almost always, everyone involved in an antitrust case is an enormous corporate entity, and the only time an antitrust case even gets filed is if a company thinks they can score a massive multi-billion dollar judgement that goes straight to their profits. There is zero incentive to do so otherwise, and consumer concerns are basically a non-factor in determining if an antitrust lawsuit is ever brought in the first place. Why are corporations the ones filing the lawsuit in the first place? Because the courts decided a long time ago that instead of burdening the government with enforcement, we should rely on private corporations to act as Private Attorneys General in bringing these cases. (I don't have a direct cite for this on hand at the moment, but just googling "Private Attorneys General" will return a lot of material on the concept.) Our legal system has a lot of problems, but antitrust law in particular is egregiously, egregiously broken. Aerox fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Apr 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:15
|
|
|
PostNouveau posted:I don't think noncoordinated cooperation is as difficult as you think, especially with so few actors in the market.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:16
|
|
|
Joementum posted:We can now make hologram Congressmen and the first person they tried it out on was Blake Farenthold I had no idea we had elected a giant baby congressman.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:18
|
|
|
Samurai Sanders posted:Huh? No, I'm saying the opposite, that it sounds ridiculously easy to fix markets like that without any explicit planning that would become evidence for a government case. It makes me wonder how cases like this ever happen, but Wikipedia lists lots of them. Email is an amazingly useful tool for an investigation. People never seem to realize electronic communication is forever, and even if they keep the actual criminal discussions on the phone and off the record, they then refer to them in an email or the like. Or hell, a whistleblower comes forward because he got fired/got pissed off/saw that sweet whistleblower reward and can testify where the bodies are buried.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:20
|
|
|
happyhippy posted:Benghazi is in Africa! I would love to see polling data to see how many people actually know this.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:23
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:Email is an amazingly useful tool for an investigation. People never seem to realize electronic communication is forever, and even if they keep the actual criminal discussions on the phone and off the record, they then refer to them in an email or the like. Or hell, a whistleblower comes forward because he got fired/got pissed off/saw that sweet whistleblower reward and can testify where the bodies are buried. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:25
|
|
|
JT Jag posted:If electronic communication is forever, then why Hillary's emails?? For that exact reason, so she could make sure nobody else had the server and access to everything.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:33
|
|
|
No you shut the gently caress up dad of the day, "They're automatically very very bad people, and nobody knows the circumstances—but anyway, being an American citizen means nothing in this day and age of no law and order. So they were literally assassinated. This was a targeted assassination of two Americans because they were doing something that we didn't want them to do. I think this is very dangerous." ~ Ron Paul on the two US citizens who were members of al-Qaeda killed in a recent drone strike.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:36
|
|
|
Joementum posted:No you shut the gently caress up dad of the day, "They're automatically very very bad people, and nobody knows the circumstances—but anyway, being an American citizen means nothing in this day and age of no law and order. So they were literally assassinated. This was a targeted assassination of two Americans because they were doing something that we didn't want them to do. I think this is very dangerous." ~ Ron Paul on the two US citizens who were members of al-Qaeda killed in a recent drone strike. At least they weren't robbing a liquor store.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:41
|
|
|
Joementum posted:We can now make hologram Congressmen and the first person they tried it out on was Blake Farenthold Almost didn't recognize him out of pajamas.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:42
|
|
|
Ralepozozaxe posted:I had no idea we had elected a giant baby congressman.  whoops DP
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:43
|
|
|
ErIog posted:Could the Terry McAuliffe thing be an early hint about who might be her VP? Terry ain't giving up the rest of his governor term to go be VP. For one thing having a democratic governor in Virginia is important, for another thing it would disrupt his fundraising stuff. Samurai Sanders posted:By the way, how do TW and Comcast operate legally even NOW, deliberately choosing cities so they don't need to compete with each other like they do? Only RCN ever tries to compete with anyone else, and they only deign to do it in very high population areas where they stand the greatest chance of profit. Because running your own cable network is complicated and relatively costly to build up in the first place, so why would you try to muscle in when you don't absolutely have to? Trabisnikof posted:Which is why ATT invested so heavily in DSL upgrades....oh wait. DSL "upgrade" are effectively impossible. It simply can't compete with actual modern technology, the kind of DSL you'd be likely to have. Fast "DSL" usually invovles completely throwing the standard DSL model (DSL termination in the central office with the line running all the way out to customer) away in favor of running DSL over a few dozen yards to the house from the street. Samurai Sanders posted:Huh? No, I'm saying the opposite, that it sounds ridiculously easy to fix markets like that without any explicit planning that would become evidence for a government case. It makes me wonder how cases like this ever happen, but Wikipedia lists lots of them. Dude, all they have to do is say that they'd need to spend a couple billion to build a cable network in another city, and oh by the way someone's already there. If you opposing company is already there, you will not bother unless you have a very particular reason to bother, or unless you're one of the few specialized ISPs that has no free-and-clear territory of their own.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:47
|
|
|
Radbot posted:but the Charter/Brighthouse deal is also dead, Source? I hadn't heard anything about that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:47
|
|
|
Joementum posted:We can now make hologram Congressmen and the first person they tried it out on was Blake Farenthold Can't wait until we elect congresswoman Hatsune Miku.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 18:56
|
|
|
Happy Noodle Boy posted:Can't wait until we elect congresswoman Hatsune Miku. "Senpai, we must eliminate the welfare parasites so I can become your waifu!"
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:01
|
|
|
Joementum posted:We can now make hologram Congressmen and the first person they tried it out on was Blake Farenthold We could have made Vulcan Love Slave 2 but chose this. Our nation has failed.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:25
|
|
|
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html Hillary played a part in Russian expansionism.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:27
|
|
|
Ballz posted:Source? I hadn't heard anything about that. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/business/media/comcast-time-warner-cable-deal.html?_r=0
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:35
|
|
|
Radbot posted:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/business/media/comcast-time-warner-cable-deal.html?_r=0 Thanks for that. Sounds like that Charter would've gotten some Comcast properties in the Comcast-TW aftermath. Of course, that alone doesn't mean the deal is dead. In fact, I just saw a breaker from WSJ saying Charter is now going to try and grab Time Warner. Edit: http://www.wsj.com/articles/charter-looks-at-possible-time-warner-cable-bid-1429899503
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:45
|
|
|
Nonsense posted:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html That's more of the Clinton Cash "reporting." Also as that article points out, there's not any evidence linking the donation to the Clinton Foundation to the nuclear deal. Also the fact that: quote:the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Is a big sign that this is more anti-Clinton BS.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:46
|
|
|
Ballz posted:Thanks for that. Sounds like that Charter would've gotten some Comcast properties in the Comcast-TW aftermath. All the deals have fallen through, and Obama is sick of their poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:46
|
|
|
Nonsense posted:All the deals have fallen through, and Obama is sick of their poo poo. Yeah, actually enforcing antitrust laws has been a big thing for the administration and there's no reason to think they'd suddenly stop.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:47
|
|
|
Fried Chicken posted:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ankaarproductions.wrathofobama I am also interested in their Hollywood Hitler game Edit:  *wink*
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 19:48
|
|
|
Joementum posted:We can now make hologram Congressmen and the first person they tried it out on was Blake Farenthold I can't believe I scrolled through that entire article.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:02
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:Yeah, actually enforcing antitrust laws has been a big thing for the administration and there's no reason to think they'd suddenly stop. How do any of these deals violate antitrust laws?
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:03
|
|
|
Nonsense posted:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html quote:The New York Times’s examination of the Uranium One deal is based on dozens of interviews, as well as a review of public records and securities filings in Canada, Russia and the United States. Some of the connections between Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation were unearthed by Peter Schweizer, a former fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and author of the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash.” Mr. Schweizer provided a preview of material in the book to The Times, which scrutinized his information and built upon it with its own reporting. No, she didn't
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:04
|
|
|
Radbot posted:How do any of these deals violate antitrust laws? Blocking a merger that would result in an entity that has too much market power is sort of the definition of antitrust laws, which were enacted to stop the trend of buying yourself a monopoly by absorbing your competitors.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:05
|
|
|
Fried Chicken posted:No, she didn't The NYT has become a red state subsidized by left wingers.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:06
|
|
|
Nonsense posted:The NYT has become a red state subsidized by left wingers. No, this is just the 90s all over again. No need to investigate, verify, or fact check, just take rumor, innuendo, and accusations from nakedly partisan attack sources and run it as uncritical fact. Or to sum it up... quote:So there’s a lot of buzz about alleged scandals involving the Clinton Foundation. Maybe there’s something to it. But you have to wonder: is this just the return of “Clinton rules”? It's really hard to convey the level of bullshit that was slung around then to anyone who wasn't alive, old enough, and actively paying attention. You are rolling your eyes at Benghazi? At least Benghazi is a real place where something actually happened. That's a huge step up from the usual Clinton crap. And we are now looking at another 9 years of this poo poo. Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Apr 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:18
|
|
|
Good thing the NSA has a classified and unaudited budget. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgEI4Ldo1i4
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:24
|
|
|
Fried Chicken posted:No, this is just the 90s all over again. No need to investigate, verify, or fact check, just take rumor, innuendo, and accusations from nakedly partisan attack sources and run it as uncritical fact. The louder and more tone-deaf the screeching, the more people they will drive away by revealing their insanity. Bring it on, I say 
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:32
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:Blocking a merger that would result in an entity that has too much market power is sort of the definition of antitrust laws, which were enacted to stop the trend of buying yourself a monopoly by absorbing your competitors. Except, of course, for the fact that none of these companies were competitors, nor have they ever been to my knowledge.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:35
|
|
|
Radbot posted:Except, of course, for the fact that none of these companies were competitors, nor have they ever been to my knowledge. Aside from that being nonsense peddled by Comcast/TWC, I didn't say competitors I said market power.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:48
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:Aside from that being nonsense peddled by Comcast/TWC, I didn't say competitors I said market power. Let's say I'm a residential customer who is only served by my telco and Comcast. Let's say Comcast buys TWC. How has their new market power influenced the situation of the consumer in this hypothetical?
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:51
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:The louder and more tone-deaf the screeching, the more people they will drive away by revealing their insanity. Bring it on, I say Ah yes, which is why Al Gore became president
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 03:55 |
|
|
Joementum posted:We can now make hologram Congressmen and the first person they tried it out on was Blake Farenthold Gotta load test it first.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2015 20:54
|
|
