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Yeah, it’s not just failing to break up monopolies, it’s allowing mergers to go through that would’ve been laughably doomed to fail to pass regulatory muster in
by vundercind 2y ago
Yeah, it’s not just failing to break up monopolies, it’s allowing mergers to go through that would’ve been laughably doomed to fail to pass regulatory muster in earlier decades.
- ethbr1 2y agoWell, there was arguably a point to be had in the 90s for relaxing standards. The web was new. It was allowing over the top and disruption of a lot of legacy businesses. It wasn't clear what constituted a market in those times. However, by 2009, standards should have been reimposed. That largely didn't happen. Regulators simply got used to letting things go through, and so they kept doing that.
- vundercind 2y agoIf that was the reason, they should have restricted it to tech companies. Instead, things like traditional media and food became harmfully consolidated over the same time.
- ethbr1 2y agoThe thinking was, and IMHO there's some merit to this, "giant new tech companies are going to be created by this thing called the web, so maybe legacy companies need to divest / merge to meet the competition." And I'd argue a lot of non-defense government philosophy was also following DoD's "the Cold War is over, budgets will shrink, so defense companies need to merge to survive."
- thfuran 2y agoStock buybacks didn't used to be allowed either, but trillions of dollars have been pulled out of companies to pump stocks in the last several years.