DISQUS

There's definitely an aggressive sect of the antitrust community that would jump on any new media merger at this point. The FTC in particular has been trying to rewrite the "rules" of merger review to enable intervention in the narrowest of "markets." The DOJ has been more cautious in recent years, but that will change come January with the next administration (regardless of whether it's McCain or Obama.)

"But search ads will be supplanted by some higher-profit venture tomorrow."

Ah, but antitrust regulators aren't smart enough to know that -- otherwise they'd be working in the industry themselves. The regulators take a static snapshot and use that as a baseline, which inherently makes any change suspect.

"A company may have lots of market share at any particular time slice, but it always has to be looking out for the next tiny startup (like Microsoft or Google once were) to pop out of nowhere and destroy it."

This applies to antitrust as well. Regulators are always looking for the next big theory of antitrust liability -- especially under Section 2 of the Sherman Act -- that will give them unfettered control of the market.

I believe the IRS plans to post the form sometime this month. At least that's what the evildoers told me.

James -- Your point about the dangers of industry-specific regulation is well taken. But I continue to be amazed at your defense of the FTC and antitrust. If there's "actual economics" going on at the FTC, I haven't seen it. All I've seen is a bunch of individuals and businesses who've been ruined by vindictive Bureau of Competition staffers. (If there's anything productive about the FTC, it's at the non-antitrust Bureau of Consumer Protection.)

And how exactly is "consumer welfare" a better standard than "public interest"? Frankly, most FTC cases I've seen use those two phrases interchangeably. The problem is "consumers" in the FTC's mind can mean large insurance companies, while the "criminals" are individual physicians or even self-employed management consultants who violate the FTC's mysterious and vague rules.

My real point here is not that the FTC is better or worse than the FCC. There's subjective value at work here. If you're the one getting screwed by the FTC, the FCC's abuses are irrelevant, and vice versa. But I have a real problem with this half-assed attempt to rationalize antitrust regulation--such as calling it "actual economics"--simply to make the FCC look worse by comparison.

Well, I could be convinced that the FCC is worse than the FCC, but I dispute this statement:

"Also, the FTC is willing to examine problems after the fact and not engage in preemptive regulation of industry behavior of market structures."

That's absolutely false. I've documented a number of industries where the FTC has engaged in preemptive regulation, health care being at the top of the list. The FTC has long forbidden various market structures for physician and hospital groups--based on no empirical evidence--and violated every norm of due process to enforce its views.

If you want an example of technology markets, just look at the FTC's long-running litigation against Rambus. There, the Commission is trying to assert control over patent policy and usurp the roles of not just the patent system but the Article III courts themselves. The result has been a litigation disaster that's enriched many lawyers at the expense of all industry participants. And Rambus is a case where the FTC definitely regulated first and asked questions . . . well, never.

Also, Gattuso's claim that we can "apply the same antitrust rules that apply to everyone else" is false and misleading. The very nature of antitrust is that different rules are applied differently based solely on the political judgment of regulators. If anything, it would be better for the FCC to simply make up a bunch of "neutrality" rules and enforce them semi-consistently than to give lawyers a total free hand in manufacturing antitrust claims after-the-fact.

How does further empowering the FTC, an agency with a long history of prosecutorial abuse, economic ignorance, and a violent opposition to private property rights constitute a good thing?

It's amusing, however, that today's Post contains a long article bemoaning the lack of more state regulation over food safety. Apparently cartels are bad when it comes to prices, but not in other areas.

It's worth noting that this film was financed with a "grant" AAI obtained from a court settlement in one of the vitamin "price fixing" settlements. It's common in class-action cases to bypass the alleged "victims" and distribute funds directly to pro-antitrust groups and academics.