Eh, Monopolies aren't all that bad. Sometimes it's better to have one
source to go to. For example: Breaking up the Phone company seems to be
driving prices down and competition up. Making Electric companies compete is
rather silly since most are pricing electricity just above the production
costs anyway. There's no real room to "drop prices and compete".
To globally discuss whether or not goverment has a place in business is
kinda a Catch 22 argument. You can't take something off without adding
something on. The founding fathers of this country had no way of envisioning
the current environment the country is operating in. It wasn't even in their
realm of conception. Rather than chanting the Constitution like a mantra, we
need to realize that it's a 200+ year old Document that was meant as a set of
guidlines for operating a somewhat free and independent society. This is
clearly pointed out in the Preamble. However, we seem to be stuck in a
society of Lawyers where the "Letter of the Law" is killing the "Spirit" of it.
I don't blame the FTC for not stopping the merger of Diamler and Chrysler.
There is no significant hard data to support problems with this kind of
arrangement. Instead, nearly all the data points to an increase in
competitiveness, better products, and lower prices. As for me, I'm wanting to
see DC start beating up on the world car markets by making better, cheaper
cars. When my Dakota Owners Manual has a section in French, I'll know
Chrysler is succeeding worldwide... ^_^
Shaun H.
----original message-----
If you were a consumer (which you are) would you want the government to sit
back and do nothing while the company executives conspired to fix prices
and make you pay more for the product or service than it is worth? If
preventing companies from forming monopolies is "the government telling
people how to run their business", then I'm all for it. Monopolies bad.
Fairness good.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:09:58 EDT