Thread by @neil_chilson

THREAD: So #USWMNT has just beat England in #WWC19! 🇺🇸

Last weekend @FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson also invaded England with a great speech to @BIICL on what U.S. history can teach us about our approach to big tech. Read it! A few highlights. 1/n ftc.gov/system/files/d…

She argues we can learn a lot from past attempts to regulate the dominant industries of the time - specifically the failures of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Civil Aeronautics Board. (Hey look, "non-discrimination" requirements. Paging @HalSinger!) 2/n

The speech runs through a deep history of the creation of the ICC and CAB. The ICC was created in part to protect railroad cartels from"ruinous competition." Great idea? 3/n

No, bad idea. Here's a price regulator at work: When new tech enabled 60% lower rates on railcar shipments, the regulator chose to protect the barge industry instead. The speech lists several more examples of bad decisions. 4/n

After decades of ICC hindering competition, Congress, on a bipartisan basis, deregulated the rail and trucking industries. Rates plummeted, with massive savings to shippers and consumers. 5/n

Civil Aeronautics Board: same story, different industry. Regulation meant complete monopolies on routes and extremely high prices. "[T]he inefficiencies built until the public could bear them no longer," and in 1978 Congress ditched the CAB. 6/n

With predictable results: more competition, lower prices, and huge amounts of consumers surplus generated. 7/n

On to lessons learned, Comm. Wilson calls out @openmarkets for ignoring the disaster a ban on vertical integration in railroads, which was avoided only by narrow court interpretations. 8/n

A couple more sharp criticisms of @openmarkets here. My fave: OMI, nominal defender of the common people, wants regulatory approach that would return us to the age where flying was only available to the very wealthy. 9/n

Wilson ends with more heat: these simple ideas from railroad and airline regulation weren't simple but were really bad for competition and consumers. The ideas are bad and old. Let's learn from the past failures, she says -- not repeat them. 10/10