This is the Obama that Scares Me
I don’t like this at all:
Democrat Barack Obama said on Sunday he would pursue a vigorous antitrust policy if he becomes U.S. president and singled out the media industry as one area where government regulators would need to be watchful as consolidation increases.
“I will assure that we will have an antitrust division that is serious about pursuing cases,” the Illinois senator told an audience of mostly senior citizens in Oregon.
“There are going to be areas, in the media for example where we’re seeing more and more consolidation, that I think (it) is legitimate to ask…is the consumer being served?”
The philosophy of antitrust law is this: Monopolies are awful, awful things, so nobody can have one except, of course, the Government. (It reminds me a little of the old Butch Hancock quote: ”Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.”)
Our governments (local and state) have monopolies when it comes to military and police force. They has a monopolies when it comes to lotteries. Delivering first class mail. Printing currency. Providing education. (You can buy private education, but you still have to pay for public education). Ever been inside a national park. It’s like monopoly city in there.
And even though the Government purports to be anti-monopoly in the private sector, it hands out monopolies like they’re party favors. You want to drive a cab—you’ll need a medallion. Want to practice law—better pass the bar. Want to practice medicine—pass your boards. Want to braid hair—better get that cosmetologist license. If you have a job that doesn’t require a license, just wait … you’ll need one soon enough. All of these measures limit competition and create monopolies of one kind or another, whether it’s the ABA or the AMA or some other combination of letters that wants to squeeze out the competition.
Now, someone like Obama might concede that the Government has monopolies, grants monopolies, and limits competition, but still argue that this is okay because the People have an electoral check on their Government, and if the Government abuses its powers, the People can vote leaders out of office. But this assumes that the People have a right to control the use of property owned by Individuals. I don’t believe that I should have a right to tell a man with a car that he can’t turn it into a cab. If I don’t like the way he does business, I might exercise my right in a free market to refuse his services. But if someone else want that cab driver to give him a ride, I don’t believe that I should be able to use police force to stop him. That’s where I differ from people like Obama.
The Bush administration has been pretty lax on antitrust (thankfully), but look at two cases where it asserted itself. First, with the Whole Foods/Wild Oatsmerger; second, with the XM/Siruis merger. Okay, both of those mergers went through (or on the way to going through), but not without a lot of pain and suffering. Did anyone ever thing that either merger really was bad for consumers? The opposition to the merger came from competitors who were more worried about competition, not less. I don’t look forward to more and more of this kind of nonsense under Obama.
More and more people are buying Macs for home and business use? Can anyone show any evidence that this is because of the Microsoft antitrust action in the 1990s? Doesn’t everyone pretty much agree that Apple has just out-designed and out-performed Microsoft? If delivering better products was all it took to compete against Microsoft, then what was that action for? If the antitrust case against Microsoft didn’t deliver new innovation and better products, what did? Oh, that’s right: the free market. The thing Obama doesn’t seem to trust.
More antitrust action means more corporations lobbying politicians to pressure the FTC to oppose mergers because they are afraid of competition. And more government power, as Obama seems to crave, means more and more government monopoly. I’m tired of the Government’s monopoly on defining and allowing or denying monopolies. Someone needs to bust that trust. Obama just busted mine.
