5 ms·

Three businessmen are sitting in the hallway of a court, waiting for their trial. After some time, one of them starts lamenting: "because my prices are way high

Three businessmen are sitting in the hallway of a court, waiting for their trial. After some time, one of them starts lamenting: "because my prices are way higher than my competitors, those bastards want to convict me for profiting from a monopoly!" "Well, that's interesting" replies the second one, "because I'm also here for an antitrust case: I charge way less than my competitors and they say that I'm doing predatory pricing to kill the competition." The third one starts laughing hysterically: "Believe it or not, guys, I'm here for the same reason as well! But my prices are exactly the same as my competitors, so they want to convict me of price collusion and profiting from a cartel!"

deleted 18y ago
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Goladus 18y ago
Funny, but the purpose of an investigation is to determine the truth. It probably sucks to get dragged into an investigation when you've done nothing wrong, unfortunately history is not on their side. If they're looking for someone to blame, blame the monopolies, cartels, and predators that abused public trust so badly that laws had to get made.
- corentin 18y ago
  Well, as far as I'm concerned the real, evil bastards are the ones attacking their competitors through the government using lawsuits instead of working to improve their products and services.
  - msg 18y ago
    http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/10/steve-ballmer-s.html http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/10/steve-ballmer-s.ht... Plus I heard that the DoJ settlement's API documentation has been delayed to next year. Or was that Duke Nukem Forever? Plus ca change...
  - Goladus 18y ago
    I agree that sucks, but the laws wouldn't likely be there if people hadn't pushed those boundaries to begin with. I'm sure people were quite happy in the pre- Sarbanes-Oxley US but Enron went ahead and screwed that up for everyone.
    - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
      The laws were put there by politically connected businessmen who didn't like dealing with more efficient competition. Read about the original trust busting movement. Market losers resorted to using their friends in power against the winners.
    - corentin 18y ago
      Your logic is broken; it's a little bit like saying that the Third Reich or the Apartheid wouldn't have existed if the jews and blacks behaved nicely.
lolb 18y ago
GASP You mean there are multiple ways for a company to abuse its position as a monopoly or part of an oligopoly?!? Get out, lolbertarian shithorn, government intervention to break up anti-competitive collusions and companies is a necessary response to market failure.
dreish 18y ago
And what about Bill, down the hall from those three, who only offers his best price when he charges his customers for every computer they sell whether it comes with Bill's product or his competitor's? (I.e., RTFA.) You do understand how this abuses a monopoly position, don't you? I have a feeling this subject hits a libertarian-crank nerve, though.

deleted 18y ago

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Goladus 18y ago

Funny, but the purpose of an investigation is to determine the truth. It probably sucks to get dragged into an investigation when you've done nothing wrong, unfortunately history is not on their side. If they're looking for someone to blame, blame the monopolies, cartels, and predators that abused public trust so badly that laws had to get made.

corentin 18y ago
Well, as far as I'm concerned the real, evil bastards are the ones attacking their competitors through the government using lawsuits instead of working to improve their products and services.
- msg 18y ago
  http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/10/steve-ballmer-s.html http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/10/steve-ballmer-s.ht... Plus I heard that the DoJ settlement's API documentation has been delayed to next year. Or was that Duke Nukem Forever? Plus ca change...
- Goladus 18y ago
  I agree that sucks, but the laws wouldn't likely be there if people hadn't pushed those boundaries to begin with. I'm sure people were quite happy in the pre- Sarbanes-Oxley US but Enron went ahead and screwed that up for everyone.
  - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
    The laws were put there by politically connected businessmen who didn't like dealing with more efficient competition. Read about the original trust busting movement. Market losers resorted to using their friends in power against the winners.
  - corentin 18y ago
    Your logic is broken; it's a little bit like saying that the Third Reich or the Apartheid wouldn't have existed if the jews and blacks behaved nicely.

lolb 18y ago

GASP You mean there are multiple ways for a company to abuse its position as a monopoly or part of an oligopoly?!? Get out, lolbertarian shithorn, government intervention to break up anti-competitive collusions and companies is a necessary response to market failure.

dreish 18y ago

And what about Bill, down the hall from those three, who only offers his best price when he charges his customers for every computer they sell whether it comes with Bill's product or his competitor's? (I.e., RTFA.) You do understand how this abuses a monopoly position, don't you? I have a feeling this subject hits a libertarian-crank nerve, though.