One of Clarence Thomas' "owners", Harlan Crow, has 1) Gobbled up thousands of rental properties throughout the country and then 2) used rigged price-fixing software to set prices 30% to 50% higher than they should be.
"Despite being a raving commie loon, Smith's observation was so undeniably true that regulators, policymakers, and economists couldn't help but acknowledge that it was true. The trustbusting era was defined by this idea: if we let the number of companies in a sector get too small, or if we let one or a few companies get too big, they'll eventually start to rig prices."
Hopefully this does something about its being heavily underreported. Google's kept The Algorithm™ under wraps for YEARS, because "otherwise the spammers would win" (h/t @pluralistic ):
"Think for a moment about the fact that the USG is -at this very moment -trying to break up Google -largest #tech co in the history of the world, & there's been virtually no press about it. This is a gigantic story -literally the biggest bus story ever. It's practically a secret.
This week the US DoJ filed a wide-ranging antitrust case against Apple. The company’s share price tumbled on the growing threat to its highly profitable walled garden, while its cult-like fanboys assured themselves everything would be okay.
One of the world's richest companies is now under fire from the #UnitedStates govt. #Justice & 16 states filed a #lawsuit against the Silicon Valley giant on Thurs, accusing the company of abusing its #power as a #monopoly to edge out rivals & ensure customers keep using its products.
The lawsuit centers around claims that #Apple stopped smaller companies from accessing the #hardware & #software in its #iPhones, which led to fewer options for #consumers.
Apple is worth ~$3T, making it one of the highest valued cos in the world. & its iPhone is one of the most popular phones on earth, dominating the global #market, acc/to market analyst firm IDC. The #DOJ alleges it's by no coincidence that Apple was able to ensure its place at the top.
We've fined Apple over €1.8 billion over abusive App Store rules for music streaming providers.
For a decade, Apple abused its dominant position by restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem.
Apple has very publicly told you to go fuck yourselves with its malicious compliance. What you do next will decide whether malicious compliance is acceptable in the EU or not.
Cory Doctorow has an opinion piece in the Financial Times? The Financial Times is ready to consider the scourge of enshittification? 🤩 Well done, @pluralistic !
This brings me hope for a de-enshittified future. May we all come together to "disrupt" enshittification!
There's a great throwaway line in 1992's Sneakers: Dan Aykroyd, playing a conspiracy-addled hacker/con-man, feverishly tells Sydney Poitier (ex-CIA spook) about a 1958 meeting between Eisenhower and aliens where he said, "look, give us your technology, and we'll give you all the cow lips you want."
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Crucially, the report lays out the role that the weakening of #antitrust, the dismantling of tariffs and the strengthening of IP played in the history of the current moment. The failure to enforce antitrust law allowed for monopolization at every stage of the #semiconductor industry's supply-chain.
The brains behind Trump's stolen #SupremeCourt have detailed plans: they didn't just scheme to pack the court with judges who weren't qualified for - or entitled to - a SCOTUS life-tenure, they also set up a series of cases for that radical court to hear.
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If there was any doubt that Congress created the agencies as flexible, adaptive hedges against new threats, then the history of the #FTCAct should dispel it.
Congress created the #FTC through the FTCA because the courts kept misinterpreting its existing #antitrust laws, like the #ShermanAct. Companies would engage in the most obvious acts of naked, catastrophic fuckery, and judges would say, "Welp, because Congress didn't specifically ban this conduct, I guess it's OK."
Rs brought #Greed first: America has devolved from being a relatively open market economy & a functioning democracy into a largely monopolistic one with a bought-off pol system. When Bork said the only thing that mattered was the price to the consumer & SHLDR’s profits he never considered: value of good food freshly made in a local restaurant as opposed to things arriving from across the country-.
Smaller companies are more reliant on individuals, but as they become huge, organized labour becomes more like a challenger than a partner, driving up costs and negotiating fairer wages.
Preventing monopolization is great for society and labour. A publicly traded company is required to pull in maximum benefit (profit) for their shareholders, so they're almost required to fight labour.
Last week, William Young, an 82 year old federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan, blocked the merger of #SpiritAirlines and #Jetblue. It was a seismic event:
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Seismic because the judge's opinion is full of rhetoric associated with the surging #antitrust revival, sneeringly dismissed by corporate apologists as "#HipsterAntitrust." Young called America's airlines and "#oligopoly," a situation he blamed on out-of-control mergers. As @matthewstoller writes, this is the first airline merger to be blocked by the DOJ and DOT since deregulation in 1978:
Life comes at you fast, links come at you faster. Once again, I've arrived at Saturday with a giant backlog of links I didn't fit in this week, so it's time for a #linkdump, the 14th in the series:
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Take #Apple. They just got their asses handed to them in court by #Epic, who successfully argued that Apple's rule requiring everyone who sells through the App Store to use Apple's payment processor and pay Apple 30% out of every dollar they bring in was an #antitrust violation. Epic won, then won the appeal, then SCOTUS told Apple they wouldn't hear the case, so that's that.
Just in time for #Davos, here's 'Taken, not earned: How monopolists drive the world’s power and wealth divide," a report from a coalition of international tax justice and anti-corporate activist groups:
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As the report documents, the wealthiest people in America funneled a fortune into neutering #antitrust enforcement, through the "consumer welfare" doctrine.
This is an economic theory that equates monopolies with efficiency: "If everyone is buying the same things from the same store, that tells you the store is doing something right, not something criminal." 40 years ago.