telecoms.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060628-7152.html

Hate to repost, but it's definitely discussion worthy. Even if the collusion is happening (and I doubt enough hard evidence exists to prove it), does anyone actually expect bought and paid for judges and politicians to do anything about it?

6/28/2006 3:19:16 PM

well, the idea of the supreme court is that they're not influenced by politics. not to say that's absolutely true or anything. . .

6/28/2006 3:20:36 PM

The idea that the justices are bought and paid for is stupid. Once you graduate college and get into the real world, you'll realize that corporations and private interests aren't evil.

Don't tell your sociology professor I said so.

6/28/2006 3:38:41 PM

Quote :

"The idea that the justices are bought and paid for is stupid. "

Money buys the people that are in office who vote to confirm judges, so I'd certainly say they are bought and paid for.

Quote :

"Once you graduate college and get into the real world, you'll realize that corporations and private interests aren't evil."

Excuse me, did you really just say that? I'll give you a chance to clarify before I dismiss you as an idiot.

6/28/2006 4:14:51 PM

Quote :

"Excuse me, did you really just say that? I'll give you a chance to clarify before I dismiss you as an idiot."

Or you could, gee, I don't know, make a counter-claim and provide support showing that corporations and private interests are evil. Or not. Maybe you're just not into the whole "intelligent discussion" thing.

6/28/2006 4:21:37 PM

Quote :

"provide support showing that corporations and private interests are evil"

enron
tyco
ect...

the corporations aren't evil, just the people that run them.

6/28/2006 4:25:13 PM

2 examples.

Thus all corporations are evil.

Well done.

6/28/2006 4:30:22 PM

I only needed one case to debunk his claim. And as already pointed out, those examples are so glaring that I had to beg for clarification because I can't believe that anyone would be so clueless to think that coroporations aren't greedy and evil.

Since this thread is about collusion, what about the memory makers scandal. Clearly those guys aren't evil.



[Edited on June 28, 2006 at 4:50 PM. Reason : asd]

6/28/2006 4:49:16 PM

^ Is greedy the same as "evil"?

Besides, you evidently believe that just because one corporation was Evil, thus all of them are? I'm sure at least one labor union is run by an evil man, does that make all of them evil?

That said, collusion should not be crime, in my book. If they want to collude then more power to them. Mind your own business and let them mind theirs. No force, no fraud, then no crime.

6/28/2006 4:54:20 PM

Quote :

"Besides, you evidently believe that just because one corporation was Evil, thus all of them are?"

How do you pull this out of what I have stated? I don't think one is evil - they all are if they have to be. I think they all play the game and the consumers and the American public is an afterthought, always.

Quote :

"That said, collusion should not be crime, in my book. If they want to collude then more power to them. Mind your own business and let them mind theirs. No force, no fraud, then no crime."

Huh? So you're cool with monopolies even if it errodes your purchasing power, stifles innovation, and limits your choices as a consumer? You're a fool if you think the free market can overcome this, especially when the bought and paid for decision makers amplify the power.

6/28/2006 5:04:14 PM

corporations are all evil

politicians are in their pockets

judges are in the politicians pockets



Do you actually believe this bullshit or are you trolling? Either way, you fall in the same category is salisburyboy and jerrygarcia [ignore]

6/28/2006 5:56:05 PM

http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9302/030326memoinsupinlimi.pdf

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C03E1DB1139F934A35750C0A963948260



[Edited on June 29, 2006 at 8:35 AM. Reason : l]

6/29/2006 8:25:48 AM

Quote :

"you'll realize that corporations and private interests aren't evil."

Corporations and private interests are not the same thing. Without the public interests, corporations would not be able to exist. As for the evils of corporations, I'll post this to start off with:

http://www.50years.org/cms/ejn/story/85

6/29/2006 8:40:10 AM

Bechtel's 27.5% of the story:

http://www.bechtel.com/newsarticles/65.asp

6/29/2006 9:20:24 AM

ha my dad used to work for Bechtel

oh and net neutrality is much more interesting

6/29/2006 9:57:33 AM

Quote :

"Huh? So you're cool with monopolies even if it erodes your purchasing power, stifles innovation, and limits your choices as a consumer? You're a fool if you think the free market can overcome this, especially when the bought and paid for decision makers amplify the power."

You are right, in-so-far as the government interferes at all then monopolies are a great evil causing all the things you have stated.

But true "monopolies" are an oddity, rarely if ever produced in a free enterprise system and short lived through history. The largest and most destructive coerced monopoly in American history was the Southern Pacific Railroad, a product of the California Legislature which repeatedly stopped the construction of any other Railroads in the state. The Legislators in California wanted a railroad network they could control, in hopes of maintaining the other state run agricultural monopolies. It was the existence of this poorly run railroad that eventually prompted the regulation of railroads nationally (and a few literary best sellers).

Standard Oil is the common example of a free-market monopoly, but it was nothing of the sort. While it occupied up to 90% of the U.S. market it faced fierce international competition from oil producers in Russia, claiming only half or so of the international market. It was this international competition which set U.S. prices and drove the elimination of U.S. competitors as in a pre-automotive age there was simply not enough demand to service more than one producer efficiently (the whole of the U.S. oil industry was less than 1% of the U.S. economy). It was also an age short lived as the introduction of the automobile dramatically increased demand and the discovery of oil deposits in Texas introduced new larger competitors, Gulf Oil and Texaco. By the time Standard Oil was ordered broken up in 1911 its market share had already fallen to 64%.

So yes, you are right that business owners owe it to themselves and their shareholders to try and build trusts and monopolies, but in a free economy such behavior is to the benefit of customers in both lower prices and innovation. Compare this to the damage done by the Government in pursuit of anti-trust cases, which is very real. When Alcoa, the U.S.'s sole producer of Primary Aluminum, was convicted there was no finding that it had done anything more than be efficient. But in 1945 Circuit Court Judge Learned Hand explained that it was Alcoa's "skill, energy, and initiative" that "excluded" competitors in aluminum production. If Alcoa had been less efficient there would have been "more competition" and no violation of the antitrust law. In one of the most outrageous statements in antitrust history, Alcoa's industrial virtues were condemned as an illegal restraint of trade. We will never know how many businesses in the 20th century purposefully avoided opportunities to make their products better and cheaper under threat of imprisonment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoa

6/29/2006 10:06:13 AM