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I do not know why she gets so much fan fare for a single paper on Amazon. Her entire tenure was nothing consequential about Anti-trust. She was supposed to be q

I do not know why she gets so much fan fare for a single paper on Amazon. Her entire tenure was nothing consequential about Anti-trust. She was supposed to be queen of Trust-busting. Just co-opt the lingo of a movement and forward your career. A walking talking self-promotion shop.

arrosenberg 3y ago
Can you be more specific? Otherwise this comes off as reactionary. Most of her term has been about laying the foundations to do antitrust again, since it has been declining since the 60s and dead since Bush settled the MSFT case. It might take a decade to get a big win on breaking up a giant, so it's good that she has already started.
- WillPostForFood 3y ago
  She has made some attempts, like Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, but they seem to have been poorly thought out and poorly executed.
  - megaman821 3y ago
    Sometimes a philosophy can lead to odd conclusions, but instead of questioning that philosophy people lean into it. Microsoft is a bigger company than Sony, so they get framed as the baddie. Argue that the merger may hurt Sony, even though Sony has much more market share in console gaming. What is a court supposed to do with that when they are expecting to hear something about consumer harm?
- stale2002 3y ago
  To be more specific, pretty much ever anti trust case that she has done has failed. She talks big talk, and yet has zero results. Her arguments in court are also bad. The best example of her failure was the blizzard acquisition where she spent most of her time talking about Sony, and not consumer welfare.
  - arrosenberg 3y ago
    > The best example of her failure was the blizzard acquisition where she spent most of her time talking about Sony, and not consumer welfare. That's what I mean though - the consumer welfare standard is terrible and essentially designed to kill antitrust enforcement in the US. It takes time to change the tide - the consumer welfare standard took 20 years to become fully accepted as the proper standard for enforcement (or non-enforcement, as it were). She needs to keep banging the drum for competitive markets - it's not sufficient for Microsoft to promise to not act anticompetitively - they should not be allowed to have that power at all. "Consumer welfare" (whatever that actually means in this case) is irrelevant. The above standard also has the benefit of being enforceable, unlike the current, nebulous standard that is too easy to satisfy.
    - stale2002 3y ago
      > The above standard also has the benefit of being enforceable, unlike the current, nebulous standard that is too easy to satisfy. Making bad arguments in court isn't the way to make effective anti-trust change. You can't just will your ideas into existence. Either make a new law, or make arguments in court that will actually work. Or I guess keep wasting time, not being effective. Thats what she's chosen I guess. > "Consumer welfare" (whatever that actually means in this case) Its actually very well defined by the courts. It has been the fundamental basis for anti-trust law for decades. Its mostly about whatever causes lower prices. The fact that it is well defined, I think is part of the reason why some people don't like it. Because they can't get around the very straightforward measurement of if prices are going down or not.
      - arrosenberg 3y ago
        > You can't just will your ideas into existence. Either make a new law, or make arguments in court that will actually work. Robert Bork would be shocked to hear you say that. Show me the act of Congress that established the consumer welfare standard. Its not hard to imagine that arguing “market concentration is bad as a rule” will eventually find a friendly judge if you try a few times. The laws, as written, support that very line of argument. > The fact that it is well defined, I think is part of the reason why some people don't like it. Because they can't get around the very straightforward measurement of if prices are going down or not. Some people don’t like it because the math very rarely works as described, acquiring companies often lie, and we have ample proof that it has substantially increased market concentration, avoiding which is entire point of antitrust laws.
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
  She is overly obsessed with big tech when there are much more insidious anti-trust cases like banking, media, and broadband infrastructure. She only goes after what is hot and politically popular (exactly like a lot of founders). Big tech is now the easy punching bag because they made newspapers lose money and politicians blame them for the whole Biden/Trump/Clinton election issue. They are a good distraction from the more entrenched interests. If I were a lobbyist for Goldman/AT&T, there is no better candidate than her. Her appointment in this case is politically charged. People don't usually go straight from academia to one of the highest seats in the executive unless they are put there by the incumbent administration to be an attack dog/push a very specific view of the world. She gives off opportunistic "during a gold rush, sell shovels" vibes, just on the regulatory side.
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    There are hundreds of banks, and no bank has a monopoly on customers. If you mean credit card processing, that's a very different thing (and is one of the areas the FTC is already looking at...). Broadband infrastructure monopolies (and their predecessors, the telephone and utility monopolies) have passed court muster for decades because the primary moat is the intense capital requirements to enter the industry, not the minimal anticompetitive behavior the utilities engage in once they've established themselves. To put it bluntly: even Google, at its zenith, failed in this market because it wasn't willing to put in the capital necessary to properly compete. The newest competitors, like Starry, and SpaceX Starlink, have each spent billions on infrastructure to acquire single-digit percentages of the market. People don't usually go straight from academia to one of the highest seats in the executive The FTC is not one of the highest seats in the executive...Not even close. Even the lowly Secretary of Veterans Affairs, considered a throwaway position, is a higher executive seat than the FTC. The FTC has been regarded as a toothless agency for decades; if anything, appointing an inexperienced academic is proof of its lowly regard.
SpaceManNabs 3y ago
So I had no idea who she was and looked up her background.... She seems wildly inexperienced.... Clearly smart and motivated, but wildly out of her depth. No wonder they failed to prevent the Microsoft + Activision Blizzard merger. Lawyers with decades of experience on her ran around her in circles How did she get that job? Who did she know? Was she set up to fail? What the actual hell is this? I am incredibly disappointed in this corrupt bs. Like this can't be all just because she wrote that thesis on Amazon. No way that justifies her position. I don't care about her ideological positions or wtv, but has she actually succeeded in any anti trust case? I have been rage clicking through her history, and while her academic record is impressive, I see nothing successful during her tenure at the ftc.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > seems wildly inexperienced The real what the fuck moment, for me, was when Khan did "not even provide an estimated actual figure or range for Facebook's market share at any point over the past ten years" [1]. That's the judge! In his opinion! How do you claim monopoly without bothering to calculate market share! [1] https://casetext.com/case/fed-trade-commn-v-facebook-inc#p4 https://casetext.com/case/fed-trade-commn-v-facebook-inc#p4
  - SpaceManNabs 3y ago
    I have been rage researching her all day, and I can understand why sentiment within the FTC lawyers is so low right now lol. BS like this might actually turn me into a Republican because at least the federalist society puts up ideological morons that get the job done.
    - throwaway432123 3y ago
      I’ll probably trigger some people by saying this, so I made a throwaway. It’s because she’s the best woman of color they could find who was remotely qualified for the job. The Biden admin has been preferentially appointing women of color across the board. Look at the demographics of their judge appointees, for instance[0]. I’m not saying this to be inflammatory. There’s crystal clear of evidence of preferential treatment. For many “in the know” in this area, Khan has repeatedly made a fool out of herself, despite those who wish to push a glowing narrative. As many have already pointed out, she’s simply not that effective, and at some point you have to admit that even if you agree with what she’s trying to do (as many of us here do). One of the reasons here, which you mentioned, is the remarkably low staff morale at the FTC which she has caused[1]. Prejudice like this has been happening across the board under Biden, and the vast majority of the picks are, to say the least, underwhelming (Khan isn't really that bad relatively speaking.) Bottom line is: if you or anyone reading think this is crap, you need to get yourself (and others) politically active. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/08/09/biden-has-appointed-more-federal-judges-than-any-president-since-jfk-at-this-point-in-his-tenure/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/08/09/biden-has... [1] see, for example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/13/ftc-lina-khan-rankings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/13/ftc-lin...
deleted 3y ago
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arrosenberg 3y ago

Can you be more specific? Otherwise this comes off as reactionary. Most of her term has been about laying the foundations to do antitrust again, since it has been declining since the 60s and dead since Bush settled the MSFT case. It might take a decade to get a big win on breaking up a giant, so it's good that she has already started.

WillPostForFood 3y ago
She has made some attempts, like Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, but they seem to have been poorly thought out and poorly executed.
- megaman821 3y ago
  Sometimes a philosophy can lead to odd conclusions, but instead of questioning that philosophy people lean into it. Microsoft is a bigger company than Sony, so they get framed as the baddie. Argue that the merger may hurt Sony, even though Sony has much more market share in console gaming. What is a court supposed to do with that when they are expecting to hear something about consumer harm?
stale2002 3y ago
To be more specific, pretty much ever anti trust case that she has done has failed. She talks big talk, and yet has zero results. Her arguments in court are also bad. The best example of her failure was the blizzard acquisition where she spent most of her time talking about Sony, and not consumer welfare.
- arrosenberg 3y ago
  > The best example of her failure was the blizzard acquisition where she spent most of her time talking about Sony, and not consumer welfare. That's what I mean though - the consumer welfare standard is terrible and essentially designed to kill antitrust enforcement in the US. It takes time to change the tide - the consumer welfare standard took 20 years to become fully accepted as the proper standard for enforcement (or non-enforcement, as it were). She needs to keep banging the drum for competitive markets - it's not sufficient for Microsoft to promise to not act anticompetitively - they should not be allowed to have that power at all. "Consumer welfare" (whatever that actually means in this case) is irrelevant. The above standard also has the benefit of being enforceable, unlike the current, nebulous standard that is too easy to satisfy.
  - stale2002 3y ago
    > The above standard also has the benefit of being enforceable, unlike the current, nebulous standard that is too easy to satisfy. Making bad arguments in court isn't the way to make effective anti-trust change. You can't just will your ideas into existence. Either make a new law, or make arguments in court that will actually work. Or I guess keep wasting time, not being effective. Thats what she's chosen I guess. > "Consumer welfare" (whatever that actually means in this case) Its actually very well defined by the courts. It has been the fundamental basis for anti-trust law for decades. Its mostly about whatever causes lower prices. The fact that it is well defined, I think is part of the reason why some people don't like it. Because they can't get around the very straightforward measurement of if prices are going down or not.
    - arrosenberg 3y ago
      > You can't just will your ideas into existence. Either make a new law, or make arguments in court that will actually work. Robert Bork would be shocked to hear you say that. Show me the act of Congress that established the consumer welfare standard. Its not hard to imagine that arguing “market concentration is bad as a rule” will eventually find a friendly judge if you try a few times. The laws, as written, support that very line of argument. > The fact that it is well defined, I think is part of the reason why some people don't like it. Because they can't get around the very straightforward measurement of if prices are going down or not. Some people don’t like it because the math very rarely works as described, acquiring companies often lie, and we have ample proof that it has substantially increased market concentration, avoiding which is entire point of antitrust laws.
KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
She is overly obsessed with big tech when there are much more insidious anti-trust cases like banking, media, and broadband infrastructure. She only goes after what is hot and politically popular (exactly like a lot of founders). Big tech is now the easy punching bag because they made newspapers lose money and politicians blame them for the whole Biden/Trump/Clinton election issue. They are a good distraction from the more entrenched interests. If I were a lobbyist for Goldman/AT&T, there is no better candidate than her. Her appointment in this case is politically charged. People don't usually go straight from academia to one of the highest seats in the executive unless they are put there by the incumbent administration to be an attack dog/push a very specific view of the world. She gives off opportunistic "during a gold rush, sell shovels" vibes, just on the regulatory side.
- gamblor956 3y ago
  There are hundreds of banks, and no bank has a monopoly on customers. If you mean credit card processing, that's a very different thing (and is one of the areas the FTC is already looking at...). Broadband infrastructure monopolies (and their predecessors, the telephone and utility monopolies) have passed court muster for decades because the primary moat is the intense capital requirements to enter the industry, not the minimal anticompetitive behavior the utilities engage in once they've established themselves. To put it bluntly: even Google, at its zenith, failed in this market because it wasn't willing to put in the capital necessary to properly compete. The newest competitors, like Starry, and SpaceX Starlink, have each spent billions on infrastructure to acquire single-digit percentages of the market. People don't usually go straight from academia to one of the highest seats in the executive The FTC is not one of the highest seats in the executive...Not even close. Even the lowly Secretary of Veterans Affairs, considered a throwaway position, is a higher executive seat than the FTC. The FTC has been regarded as a toothless agency for decades; if anything, appointing an inexperienced academic is proof of its lowly regard.

SpaceManNabs 3y ago

So I had no idea who she was and looked up her background.... She seems wildly inexperienced.... Clearly smart and motivated, but wildly out of her depth. No wonder they failed to prevent the Microsoft + Activision Blizzard merger. Lawyers with decades of experience on her ran around her in circles How did she get that job? Who did she know? Was she set up to fail? What the actual hell is this? I am incredibly disappointed in this corrupt bs. Like this can't be all just because she wrote that thesis on Amazon. No way that justifies her position. I don't care about her ideological positions or wtv, but has she actually succeeded in any anti trust case? I have been rage clicking through her history, and while her academic record is impressive, I see nothing successful during her tenure at the ftc.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> seems wildly inexperienced The real what the fuck moment, for me, was when Khan did "not even provide an estimated actual figure or range for Facebook's market share at any point over the past ten years" [1]. That's the judge! In his opinion! How do you claim monopoly without bothering to calculate market share! [1] https://casetext.com/case/fed-trade-commn-v-facebook-inc#p4 https://casetext.com/case/fed-trade-commn-v-facebook-inc#p4
- SpaceManNabs 3y ago
  I have been rage researching her all day, and I can understand why sentiment within the FTC lawyers is so low right now lol. BS like this might actually turn me into a Republican because at least the federalist society puts up ideological morons that get the job done.
  - throwaway432123 3y ago
    I’ll probably trigger some people by saying this, so I made a throwaway. It’s because she’s the best woman of color they could find who was remotely qualified for the job. The Biden admin has been preferentially appointing women of color across the board. Look at the demographics of their judge appointees, for instance[0]. I’m not saying this to be inflammatory. There’s crystal clear of evidence of preferential treatment. For many “in the know” in this area, Khan has repeatedly made a fool out of herself, despite those who wish to push a glowing narrative. As many have already pointed out, she’s simply not that effective, and at some point you have to admit that even if you agree with what she’s trying to do (as many of us here do). One of the reasons here, which you mentioned, is the remarkably low staff morale at the FTC which she has caused[1]. Prejudice like this has been happening across the board under Biden, and the vast majority of the picks are, to say the least, underwhelming (Khan isn't really that bad relatively speaking.) Bottom line is: if you or anyone reading think this is crap, you need to get yourself (and others) politically active. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/08/09/biden-has-appointed-more-federal-judges-than-any-president-since-jfk-at-this-point-in-his-tenure/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/08/09/biden-has... [1] see, for example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/13/ftc-lina-khan-rankings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/13/ftc-lin...

deleted 3y ago

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