House Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on legislative proposals to change the antitrust laws streaming now.
Wow, Judge Diane Wood attacks Robert Bork, Trinko, the consumer welfare standard in antitrust... docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU…
"The only problem with Professor Bork’s assertion that it is clear that the Sherman Act was only about “consumer welfare,” as he defined it, is that there is little to no support in the legislative history of the statute to support it." - Judge Diane Wood
"True as it might be that “the antitrust laws are for the protection of competition, not competitors,” it is equally true that without competitors, there will be no competition." - Judge Diane Wood
This is a big deal.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser basically puts forward a framework that will not work. Put antitrust in the hands of center left economists to interpret consumer welfare, not right-wing ones. The problem is consumer welfare! docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU…
Now Republican Commissioner @FTCPhillips is talking about how the FTC vigorously enforces the antitrust laws. This is infuriating. YOU VOTED AGAINST BRINGING THE FACEBOOK CASE.
I'm sorry but @FTCPhillips is being super sleazy. "Some calls for reform seem to promise that antitrust can solve a host of issues in our society, from the political power of large corporations to privacy to labor rights to racial inequality."
Nice. @davidcicilline is going at the FTC hard for its total failure on Google in 2012, as well its approval of Google's acquisition of Doubleclick and Admob.
Now @MondaireJones and Judge Diane Wood are talking about consumer welfare and what a problem that philosophical orientation has been for antitrust.
Oh this is good. @JoeNeguse asks Phillips 'is the FTC's approach to pharmaceutical mergers working?' Phillips dances around. Neguse offers a follow-up, cites @chopraftc/@RKSlaughterFTC pharma merger dissents.
Never mind. The slobbering over a 'working group' and cooperation among bureaucrats needs to stop. Come on, do something.
Republican @DarrellIssa is asking a smart series of questions on the use of standard essential patents to monopolize markets. This is a Qualcomm case related issue.
Now Republican @FTCPhillips says that censorship by big tech platforms is not a market power problem. Wow. Says content moderation is governed by the first amendment.
Is he working for Facebook now or just waiting until he leaves?
@Jim_Jordan: If we're not going to use antitrust to deal with censorship and you are reluctant to talk about Section 230, what's the answer?
Phillips: "I'm afraid I don't have a good answer."
Then @RepKenBuck brought up the Hepburn Act, which split up railroads and coal companies, and Phillips had never heard of it.
Now @RepKenBuck asks: "What is the last antitrust case brought purely on innovation grounds without any price impacts?" @FTCPhillips: "Off the top of my head I can't think of one."
😂
Monopoly Weasel had a very bad hearing.
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The Chinese government is a dangerous and totalitarian force bent on destroying the rule of law and Western democracy. It's heartening that the Biden administration is taking a tough line.
Chinese strategists have rightly identified Wall Street as the achilles heel of the United States, and are exploiting our greed and short-term oriented willingness to do anything for cash. The challenge the CCP presents is not just external.
A good chunk of the elite political world built well-financed networks and careers boosting Obama as victim, so they can't concede he had power and was a bad leader. That's why they mocked the economic anxiety narrative, because it implicated their own institutions.
It's incredibly obvious that economic anxiety fostered by decades of bad policy - including Obama's mishandling of the financial crisis - enabled Trump. It's beyond debate. But institutional networks on the center-left expunged those who made these points.
A lot of the anger at Substack types - @mtaibbi and @ggreenwald - is a holdover from their skepticism towards Obama's financial and national security policies. They didn't kowtow to liberal pieties during the Obama era, and they are hated for it.
1. I cover monopolies in my newsletter, and all their bizarre and harmful effects. Today I showed how a merger in the salt industry - yes salt - could spike car accidents in the Midwest. And it gets weirder. mattstoller.substack.com/p/how-a-salt-m…
2. Yes we need semiconductors and search engines and app stores, but the reality is all the basic old-timey stuff - steel, railroads, brass, and yes salt - is still as essential as it ever was. America needs salt. Not just for food, but to stop car accidents.
3. If we don’t have salt, Midwesterners can't drive, because salt is what keeps our roads manageable. Without salt, trucks can’t deliver supplies and the economy comes to a standstill. Every year, over 1300 people die in car accidents due to snowy, slushy, or icy pavement
1. There's an important debate w/in the Federalist Society over the conservative legal movement. The alliance between social conservatives and libertarians is breaking down. A few observations about this wonderful @jacklgoldsmith essay on the tension. libertiesjournal.com/now-showing/th…
2. My read, as an outsider to this debate, is that Scalia's view of Chevron and the regulatory state are a fulcrum for debate. Scalia expanded the power of the executive branch from the 1980s-2000. But bc of Obama's actions, libertarians are now fighting to overturn Chevron.
3. I'm not an expert here. But I suspect this debate skips over a key part of the conservative legal movement, which was Bork/Scalia's erosion of the anti-monopoly tradition in American law. Trinko - which got rid of Section 2 claims - is a useful and consequential decision here.
1. Ok I guess it's time to address the push for 'interoperability.' The main problem we have with big tech is they are too powerful. Would mandating they interconnect their systems with competitors break this power? No. The CEO of Mapbox made it clear when he testified.
2. Mapbox is interoperable with Google Maps. But that didn't stop Google from threatening Mapbox's customers and bundling its products to destroy competition. These platforms are simply not governable in their current size and scope.
3. Businesspeople are terrified of these firms. I hear from them all the time. Facebook killed Wired's traffic after Wired did a negative story on Zuck. Claimed it was a glitch. Does anyone actually expect Mark Zuckerberg to stop trying to dominate?