Administration's Anti-Trust Chief Gets Pushback From... The Administration.
,
This is kind of ironic, isn't it? Politicians are worried about losing the support of big business, because big business gives big campaign contributions. And why do they need big contributions? To win campaigns. And what do you need to win campaigns? Votes.
Wouldn't you think they'd see how easy it would be to cut out the middleman and simply make the voters happy? I mean, what could be more of a crowd-pleaser than taking on the cable companies and their high-priced monopolies?
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s top antitrust official and some senior Democratic lawmakers are preparing to rein in a host of major industries, including airline and railroad giants, moving so aggressively that they are finding some resistance from officials within the administration.
The official, Christine A. Varney, the antitrust chief at the Justice Department, has begun examining complaints by the phone companies Verizon and AT&T that their rivals — major cable operators like Cablevision and Cox Communications — improperly prevent them from buying sports shows and other programs that the cable companies produce, industry lawyers said.
At the request of some lawmakers, notably Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, Ms. Varney is examining whether small agricultural operations are being hampered unfairly by large food processors, particularly in the milk industry, congressional aides said.
Ms. Varney has also challenged agreements that the Federal Trade Commission and consumer groups say discourage pharmaceutical companies from marketing more generic drugs. And she is examining a settlement between Google and book publishers and authors to make more books available online.
The more aggressive antitrust policy was described in interviews with officials at the White House, the Justice Department, other agencies and Congress. It is a major policy reversal from the Bush administration, which did not prosecute cases in which some dominant companies engaged in potentially anticompetitive behavior, often because those officials maintained such behavior was not harmful to consumers.
Democrats have spent years trying to gain the support of businesses, and the policy changes under way may have long-term political implications for their party. Some companies would like to see more aggressive antitrust enforcement against their rivals, while others could be hurt by it.
In some cases, though, the new approach is being opposed by administration officials. Some fear that the crackdown is coming at a bad time, as corporate America reels from the recession. Other officials embrace the Bush administration’s view that larger companies and industry alliances can provide consumer benefits by making their businesses more efficient.
One clash played out recently when the Transportation Department, rejecting many of Ms. Varney’s recommendations, approved an antitrust immunity request involving a global alliance of nine airlines; Continental Airlines wanted to join the alliance to share routes, marketing and revenue.
The antitrust division argued the immunity was unnecessary for approving the newly reconstituted alliance and that it could lead to rates rising from 6 to 15 percent for many routes, according to public filings. The Transportation Department rejected that analysis for most of the routes and instead endorsed a policy popular during the Bush administration that favored such industry agreements out of a desire for efficiency.
I will believe the antitrust action when I see it, in the rearview mirror.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
NOT!!!
Some stuff you can't make up!
Where is the antitrust for the Banksters. Break them up and send the crooks to jail.
BY THE BUSLOAD.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
goldmanSux
Some stuff you can't make up!
was right.
(I think I'll make some bumper stickers of that one...it's good).
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
...should be happy enough with the immunity that Obama and Chimpy granted unto them for spying on us.
Now they want more, more, more...they sound like banks a little bit...
Verizon and AT&T can go to hell. I'm rooting for the cable companies...at least they dont help criminals in our govt spy on us...
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
Easy to say until they turn over surfing records to Holder.
You can thank our beloved VP for that!
when Verizon and AT&T picked up most of the tab for the Democratic Convention.
We have democracy, we do not have representation.
Winning campaigns is good, but for many, government
serviceself service is a ticket to a very lucrative career as a lobbyist.Campaigns spend enormous sums, which they get from big business, in hoodwinking the electorate.
It is Madison Avenue, it is mind control and it works.
You need to get out more.
This is a Corporate State with a sophisticated propaganda program.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
They also have a GREAT benefits package!! Mercedes Benz Health Care and a Pension for life....
Not bad if you can get it....
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Obama, yes we Cannes!
The suckers bought it hook, line and sinker.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I want to hear the wingnuts try to tell us how Obama is a socialist. Hell, if he's a socialist then I'm Karl Friggin' Marx
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
George Carlin
Gangster/Banksters, and their propaganda cover are still sacking the US Treasury for BLOODYISRAEL. We had a soft coup de etat in 2000 just as bloody, just as vicious, just as greedy, just as blood-thirsty, as Burma and the exact M.O. as the Hondures coup. This faction that now controls DC coalesced in their cesspool in 1932, but Gen. Smedly Butler turned them in. The BushCrimeFamily has been working their evil agenda since then, and Bush1 was so-called 'Head of the CIA' and was in Dallas in 1963, so was bastard Cheney.
"Gangster/Banksters, and their propaganda cover are still sacking the US Treasury for BLOODYISRAEL."
I beg your fucking pardon?
and are very actively working at it. In this blog they discuss Reports that AT&T is now blocking 4chan.org’s «/b/»-section.
note: the specific boards at 4chan that are blocked are NOT SAFE FOR WORK.
From the blog:
ATT has their arm very deeply up the butt of the Obama administration, so much so that, well, posts like the above re: Ms Varney appear here...
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
yes indeed.
° ° ° °
Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations… and their buddies.
Some corporations, that is. More hack work.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
And this is NOT blocked at all. Maybe you should check YOUR internet provider.
What the hell I had to threaten legal action to stop them from come to my door ever week. There so shameless they tried to gang up on my mom when she was in the front garden, you know when your talk to one tell them no then next thing you know your being pressured by 3 or more sales reps.
Fuck you AT&T I don't want Uverse Getting the government to help you fight the cable companies isn't going to change my mind. Get the high powered laser satellite that can pierce any weather which are still a dozen years off, and say five-ten more years or so to miniaturize it to a house size dish system and then we will talk till then I'm stick to my cable.
This is one company using the government because their BS ads and extremely aggressive singing up campaigns haven’t chipped away at cable. Sure cable has an unfair monopoly in some areas and that should be stopped but not so another just as bad if not worse company can make there own Monopoly.
These freaks are the last to be helped out let them FAIL remember these are the guys that say only the strong should survive. They are interested in one thing and one thing only put the Government in a position to fail making sure they are in the position to take over and RUIN it like everything else they SCREW up for the bottom line case and point the PRIVATIZED American JUDICAL system prisoners for dollars make more criminals for more bottom line. Privatized EDUCATION total failure again bottom line DUMMY down AMERICA for the BOTTOM LINE. let the BASTARDS F A I L.
I've wondered for the last several years, as these large mergers took place, what had happened to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. I find it ironic that the stimulus program gave sufficient capital and authority for those "to big to fail" the means that allowed them to buy out those that were "not quite big enough to fail"; thereby becoming even more powerful. Now that there is someone attempting to serve the public interest by reigning in these powerful corporations, the politicians immediately concern themselves with their own self-preservation rather than retaining a balance among our democratic processes.
an absence of competition constitutes efficiency?
Wonderful.
In what buisness school does the theory that the larger the company is the more efficient it is? Oh that's right "economies of scale". It's been my experience that the larger a company is the more innefficient it is.
Also since we're on the subject it seems the only way our large corp.'s seem to be able to save money is to lay-off employees. Well if that's the case, the ceo's mommies and daddies aren't getting their monies worth out Wharton, Harvard, Yale, et-al when they pony up for juniors grad school tuition. That is if lay-offs are the most creative way they have to make money.
Also, not to beat a dead dog on the subject; maybe ooffshoring is the way to go, and if that's the case maybe we should ooffshore some executives and the shareholders could get a break from the salary packages these robber barons are making.
In what buisness school does the theory that the larger the company is the more efficient it is? Oh that's right "economies of scale". It's been my experience that the larger a company is the more innefficient it is.
Also since we're on the subject it seems the only way our large corp.'s seem to be able to save money is to lay-off employees. Well if that's the case, the ceo's mommies and daddies aren't getting their monies worth out Wharton, Harvard, Yale, et-al when they pony up for juniors grad school tuition. That is if lay-offs are the most creative way they have to make money.
Also, not to beat a dead dog on the subject; maybe ooffshoring is the way to go, and if that's the case maybe we should ooffshore some executives and the shareholders could get a break from the salary packages these robber barons are making.
"It's been my experience that the larger a company is the more innefficient it is."
That has definitely been my experience also. And I've seen it again, and again, and again, and again........
The ONLY benefit(and reason for being for that matter) of larger corps is to concentrate the profit to fewer people. It really is that simple.
Are you mad? Since when do the little people fly us to St. Andrews to play golf or Fiji for the month it gets cold in DC?
I mean, really. Be reasonable.
s/ Foghorn W. Blowhard III (Moron) Tixis
"The official, Christine A. Varney, the antitrust chief at the Justice Department, has begun examining complaints by the phone companies Verizon and AT&T that their rivals — major cable operators like Cablevision and Cox Communications — improperly prevent them from buying sports shows and other programs that the cable companies produce, industry lawyers said."
I'm the last person to want to maintain or expand the rights of customer-screwing monopolies, but why shouldn't a cable company have the right of exclusivity for the programming they create themselves?
So tell me, who runs the US?
Think hard about that for a bit, then get your sorry butts back to work slackers. There are plenty of unemployed people waiting in the queues for your job so make sure you work hard.
Other officials embrace the Bush administration’s view that larger companies and industry alliances can provide consumer benefits by making their businesses more efficient
Larger companies and industry alliances means less competition and inflated prices and that is exactly what the pro-business, anti-consumer Republicans and Blue Dog Republicans Light want. They all, from Bernanke to the lowest ranking members of Congress talk about "what the market will bear". It's obvious that if a product, such as oil, water, food, health care, that is necessary to human life, are all owned and distributed by one or a very few corporate CEOs, the market will bear prices that soon become unsustainable for most of the people.
The only time they break up companies is when those who pay the bribes complain that they are not able to confiscate the technology for their own profit. Remember Bell and Microsoft. It just seems really suspicious that these 2 companies and maybe a couple others were broken up, but at the same time, newspapers, tv stations, radio stations, all across the country were allowed to be purchased by a half dozen of the richest people in the world until we are all spoon fed the same stories and lies in every "market" in the country. Manufacturing Plants were bought up by by a few rich men and the prices went up and jobs lost. So Pepsico owns half and Coke owns half. All the brands of food are owned by two or three companies marketed under both the brand label and the store label, all sold by the same few companies. Now, mostly made in China or India or Mexico, because those who are supposed to be working for us are lining their pockets with corporate bribes and selling us down the river while taking our money as a "bonus" or a tip.
No one tells the truth about anything anymore. We have to pay very close attention and pick out the truth for ourselves. But then we don't have the money, opportunity or means to get the truth out.
Really, that piece had almost no real info, just vague statements of opinion.
Suzie, I understand that your agenda is to push the idea that Obama is a sellout who is screwing us all, and is barely better than Dummya, but could you at least supply us with facts when you tee off on him? This kind of vague, alarmist nonsense is what I'd expect from GOPer journalist hacks.
consolidation and that is seen as a good thing even though when it creates companies that are "too big to fail" it then becomes a problem that the taxpayers will then be called on to correct when the free market fails. What we need now is some kind of common sense regulation and for, perhaps, there to be some, gasp, limits, and regulations set on businesses so that they don't become this giant, taxpayer headache of a problem. The Bush years forged ahead like a bull in a china shop and broke up every little last bit of regulation that they could and the damage has been such that it almost completely sent the economy over the brink. We have, thankfully, a different mind set in government now and one that knows that we need to get back to some sense of law and order and it wants to go there but at the same time it is timid to do so. You can't want it and then stop it from happening. That's psychotic. There shouldn't be any business that is exempt from anti-trust legislation when it can be proved that there are good reasons for that legislation. All businesses should be scrutinized for unfair practices, and competition should be encouraged and monopolies should be broken up when it is proved that they are detrimental to the economy as a whole.
Christine Varney should be allowed to do her job. The department that she heads, should, unlike during the Bush years, be allowed to do its job. She and her department should be given the authority to do what they need to do. It may not be a bad or unhealthy thing for business lobbyists to have a governmental body that they have to contend with. Let business lobbyists continue to throw around money and attempt to exert influence and pressure as they always have. But, no business should be exempt from laws that protect the economy and consumers, and the government of, for and by "the people" should have governmental bodies that are there to protect and serve them, not business for all the wrong reasons.
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