Are Antitrust laws good or bad in your opinion?

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Schadenfroh

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Mar 8, 2003
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This kind of government regulation is very constructive, when conducted properly.

An important role of government is to provide us a free (as in freedom), safe, orderly environment in which to conduct our business transactions.

Competition has proven to be one of the best motivators for advancing humanity, both on individual and national levels.

A government should prevent domestic monopolies by blocking select corporate takeovers or by breaking companies up that achieve monopoly status. They should also protect domestic firms from foreign monopolies, foreign government owned / heavily subsidized companies using trade barriers like tariffs.

In order to avoid conflicts of interest, we should avoid having the regulating body (government) controlling companies or major stakes in companies. In effect, it would produce companies regulating themselves, which typically leads to no real regulation.

This is a general strategy and there are exceptions, it is why we should tread lightly with free-trade-pacts with countries that do not think the same way.
 

dmcowen674

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Oct 13, 1999
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Are Antitrust laws good or bad in your opinion?

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-summer/standard-oil-company.asp

Can markets really be free if there is goverment intervention?

I don't think so.

The FTC is after Whole Foods because their products and prices are so good and maybe because John Mackey is pro-market and anti-state.

We've seen the great success of the Bush era de-regulation, the economy was strong then and an absolute disaster under Obummer.

Obama must be replaced by another free market, no taxes for the rich Republican President because the rich clearly trickle down.
 

Vette73

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Jul 5, 2000
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Are perry420 troll threads good or bad in your opinion?


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MayorOfAmerica

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Apr 29, 2011
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http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-summer/standard-oil-company.asp

Can markets really be free if there is goverment intervention?

I don't think so.

The FTC is after Whole Foods because their products and prices are so good and maybe because John Mackey is pro-market and anti-state.

Can the markets really be free if a monopoly exists in an essential industry such that there is NO competition to regulate the free market? It's easy to say "start a business, sell for less, people will flock to you". In practice thats a really hard thing to do. Between a monopoly dictating industry wages and their buying power alone this would be impossible for you to compete with. Nevermind all the other higher operating costs of starting such a business so that you CANT offer your services for less, lets talk about if you could.



If you have an industry monopoly a few of the things they could do to eliminate you:
  • buy you out
  • wrap you up with IP lawsuits so tightly you spend your measly free cash flow fighting the good fight or simply giving up
  • smear you such that your cheaper products are no longer desireable
These are just a few examples of many ways to stomp the competition. Truly free markets will always lead to industry monopolies in large markets. When you have monopolies, the constrictions they place on the market far outweigh and constrictions anti-trust laws place on the market. Free market is a wonderfully naive idea in that it would be great if large free markets worked out the way they are portrayed to. Its a very naive and dangerous idea however that does nothing but benefit the eventual monopolies that would arise because of it. Therefore, some restrictions must be in place to foster competition so that consumers reap the ultimate benefits of competition the free market people love to talk about.

To put it in the context of Matt1970's comment, what antitrust laws give us now are constrictive briefs but what the free market ideology gives us is constrictive briefs that are 5 sizes too small when we thought we were buying boxers.
 
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