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>Standard Oil held down prices which was good in theory for customers, but it was devastating for competitors and their employees Uh, are you saying that Stand

by jbuzbee 11y ago

>Standard Oil held down prices which was good in theory for customers, but it was devastating for competitors and their employees Uh, are you saying that Standard Oil should have made business decisions based on what was good for their competitors? This starts to get into collusion. And I understand that the theory was that Standard Oil would hold prices down, running at a loss in order to kill off all competition, then raise prices as high as it wanted in a non-competitive market. But this doesn't seem to apply to Google's situation as customers can easily move to searching Amazon, eBay, etc. when shopping.

travisp 11y ago
>Uh, are you saying that Standard Oil should have made business decisions based on what was good for their competitors? This starts to get into collusion. This is exactly what some critics of antitrust law say happens: > Under the Antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does. For instance, if he charges prices which some bureaucrats judge as too high, he can be prosecuted for monopoly or for a successful “intent to monopolize”; if he charges prices lower than those of his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “unfair competition” or “restraint of trade”; and if he charges the same prices as his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “collusion” or “conspiracy.”
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
The problem wasn't just Standard Oil, it was the society around it. A purely free market society would see what the company was doing and close the books at that, but the government has a broader base of concerns. Namely, constituents of oil-producing regions who elected representatives to protect them. Think of it like Wal-Mart: it may provide jobs and cheaper goods to a community, but the wealth is a net outflow towards the Walton family. Local businesses tend to recirculate their profits within the community through investment and higher spending, resulting in a broader standard of life increase. Europe as a whole is much more concerned with quality of life than America, so it makes sense to see why they would view Google's homogenization of habit as a potential threat. I think it's worth considering other societies' values when debating their laws compared to your own. There's a lot that America does right that Europeans want no part of, and vice versa. It really depends on who you are as a person.
- jbuzbee 11y ago
  > Think of it like Wal-Mart: it may provide jobs and cheaper goods to a community, but the wealth is a net outflow towards the Walton family Providing jobs and cheaper goods to the community sounds like it's putting wealth into the pockets of the community to me. If you can buy a gallon of milk for the kids cheaper at Walmart then you can at the corner store, you have extra money for school supplies, medicine, etc. >Europe as a whole is much more concerned with quality of life than America Sorry, I have to roll my eyes at that comment and move on...
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    1: Unless Wal-Mart sells literally everything (health insurance, higher education, etc), then proprietors of other kinds of businesses will be hurt because average incomes have gone down. Milk may be cheaper but getting a contractor to tile my roof isn't. 2: Go to, say, Ravenna, Italy, and try to get a drink after midnight and on a weekday. You can't. The people there would rather all be on the same schedule (espresso for breakfast, big lunch with the family, work till evening, late dinner, then a stroll around town) instead of having their friendships and families be separated by the graveyard shift. As a hungry American at 2AM it was an inconvenience, but overall it works and people are happy. If you're still unconvinced, ask a European what they think of paid parental leave, month-long vacations (inb4 productivity argument, Germany offers much longer vacations than America and has higher productivity per worker), national single-payer health care...I could go on. If Americans really, really cared about these things, we would have them by now.
    - jbuzbee 11y ago
      > 2: Go to, say, Ravenna, Italy Not to pick on Italy, but: http://ycharts.com/indicators/italy_youth_unemployment_rate_lfs http://ycharts.com/indicators/italy_youth_unemployment_rate_... So I wouldn't exactly want to model my economy on Italy. >If you're still unconvinced, ask a European... I've spent a lot of time in Europe and had long discussions in the pubs. Great times, nice folks, and I look forward to visiting again. but I still prefer the US.

by jbuzbee 11y ago

travisp 11y ago

>Uh, are you saying that Standard Oil should have made business decisions based on what was good for their competitors? This starts to get into collusion. This is exactly what some critics of antitrust law say happens: > Under the Antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does. For instance, if he charges prices which some bureaucrats judge as too high, he can be prosecuted for monopoly or for a successful “intent to monopolize”; if he charges prices lower than those of his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “unfair competition” or “restraint of trade”; and if he charges the same prices as his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “collusion” or “conspiracy.”

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

The problem wasn't just Standard Oil, it was the society around it. A purely free market society would see what the company was doing and close the books at that, but the government has a broader base of concerns. Namely, constituents of oil-producing regions who elected representatives to protect them. Think of it like Wal-Mart: it may provide jobs and cheaper goods to a community, but the wealth is a net outflow towards the Walton family. Local businesses tend to recirculate their profits within the community through investment and higher spending, resulting in a broader standard of life increase. Europe as a whole is much more concerned with quality of life than America, so it makes sense to see why they would view Google's homogenization of habit as a potential threat. I think it's worth considering other societies' values when debating their laws compared to your own. There's a lot that America does right that Europeans want no part of, and vice versa. It really depends on who you are as a person.

jbuzbee 11y ago
> Think of it like Wal-Mart: it may provide jobs and cheaper goods to a community, but the wealth is a net outflow towards the Walton family Providing jobs and cheaper goods to the community sounds like it's putting wealth into the pockets of the community to me. If you can buy a gallon of milk for the kids cheaper at Walmart then you can at the corner store, you have extra money for school supplies, medicine, etc. >Europe as a whole is much more concerned with quality of life than America Sorry, I have to roll my eyes at that comment and move on...
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  1: Unless Wal-Mart sells literally everything (health insurance, higher education, etc), then proprietors of other kinds of businesses will be hurt because average incomes have gone down. Milk may be cheaper but getting a contractor to tile my roof isn't. 2: Go to, say, Ravenna, Italy, and try to get a drink after midnight and on a weekday. You can't. The people there would rather all be on the same schedule (espresso for breakfast, big lunch with the family, work till evening, late dinner, then a stroll around town) instead of having their friendships and families be separated by the graveyard shift. As a hungry American at 2AM it was an inconvenience, but overall it works and people are happy. If you're still unconvinced, ask a European what they think of paid parental leave, month-long vacations (inb4 productivity argument, Germany offers much longer vacations than America and has higher productivity per worker), national single-payer health care...I could go on. If Americans really, really cared about these things, we would have them by now.
  - jbuzbee 11y ago
    > 2: Go to, say, Ravenna, Italy Not to pick on Italy, but: http://ycharts.com/indicators/italy_youth_unemployment_rate_lfs http://ycharts.com/indicators/italy_youth_unemployment_rate_... So I wouldn't exactly want to model my economy on Italy. >If you're still unconvinced, ask a European... I've spent a lot of time in Europe and had long discussions in the pubs. Great times, nice folks, and I look forward to visiting again. but I still prefer the US.