41–50 of 255 posts
Is the SEC and FTC ever going to do their job? They have failed us in the 21st century. Shareholder value over everything else. It would be nice for some regulation to attack all this rent seeking.
The Rockefellers and Vanderbilts of yester-century would be red with envy at the size and power of today's tech companies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point was that we did strive for better, and I can now watch whatever I want whenever I want however I want, for 90% of things. For the rest, like sports and some other live stuff that is stuck in the past, I simply ignore. I would not go after legislation to prevent mergers to prevent locked down devices or restrictions on how you can watch. We already had that without the mergers, so why would that address the s…
It doesn't sound like we disagree. Why couldn't the FEC allow the merger with a mandate that content be available on all (or a reasonable number of) platforms?
The root issue here is excessive copyright terms. Those are the source of the monopoly. We already solved the distribution problem with the internet, now it’s a political issue of reducing copyright lengths. Any other solution will be used by politicians as an excuse to show they did something, or that nothing more needs to be done.
Who cares who buys what once the content is in the public domain. It is a cleaner, resilient, and quicker solution.
Also, it seems unfair that government would be able to dictate what Amazon can and cannot do with its content, but not others, so that is another political fight that can waste time and energy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP didn't even use the word monopoly. You don't have to view it through that narrow a lens. I think it's fair to ask if it is in consumers interest to have to buy an Apple TV to watch Apple produced shows, an Amazon Fire stick to watch Amazon/MGM content, etc. etc. I know that isn't the world we're in right now but the spats you see between e.g. Google and Roku (and Amazon and Google) feel indicative of a likely futu…
Why else would the SEC or the FTC be involved? This isn't rent seeking. That phrase is becoming much too popular with the Apple store debacle.
Is the SEC and FTC ever going to do their job? They have failed us in the 21st century. Shareholder value over everything else. It would be nice for some regulation to attack all this rent seeking.
As I understand it, the test for monopoly is detrimental effect for consumers, not control of a market. Making your company more vertically integrated (by buying a back catalog in this case I guess) probably doesn't trip any alarms. I'm surprised that they don't buy Penguin. Maybe Bertelsmann has no interest in selling. If you think about it, publishers of print/music/movies are essentially built on monopoly given th…
Is the SEC and FTC ever going to do their job? They have failed us in the 21st century. Shareholder value over everything else. It would be nice for some regulation to attack all this rent seeking.
The Rockefellers and Vanderbilts of yester-century would be red with envy at the size and power of today's tech companies.
Same will happen to Bezos, and he'll be the largest share holder of whatever pieces there are.
Is the SEC and FTC ever going to do their job? They have failed us in the 21st century. Shareholder value over everything else. It would be nice for some regulation to attack all this rent seeking.
what job do you want the FTC to do here? I assume you think there is an antitrust angle on this potential acquisition? I am an economist and that is my field. I disagree with your take, if that is what you mean. This is a vertical merger. Vertical mergers are quite different in their welfare effects to consumers than horizontal mergers. Vertical mergers can frequently be welfare-improving to consumers. Indeed, this i…
As can be horizontal mergers given economies of scale and/or network effects.
It's an interesting area of the law (anti-trust) as it strikes me as one of the few really excellent uses for the heavy hand of the government. Lots of cooks in the kitchen of legislation.
It does grate my ears to hear the word 'consumer' rather than 'citizen' but I suppose it's a natural side effect of a country that is made up of decreasingly self-sufficient individuals.
Is the SEC and FTC ever going to do their job? They have failed us in the 21st century. Shareholder value over everything else. It would be nice for some regulation to attack all this rent seeking.
what job do you want the FTC to do here? I assume you think there is an antitrust angle on this potential acquisition? I am an economist and that is my field. I disagree with your take, if that is what you mean. This is a vertical merger. Vertical mergers are quite different in their welfare effects to consumers than horizontal mergers. Vertical mergers can frequently be welfare-improving to consumers. Indeed, this i…
Maybe economists need to get a new take cause this shit is obviously ridiculous
EDIT: see the already pending antitrust litigation against Amazon in EU and US
Here's hoping for a new Stargate TV show! Despite a couple of amazing BSG seasons, SG-1 is just better overall. I don't event want the old crew. Just give us something cool. The only good thing that came out of SG Universe was the opening episode. It was awesome.
1. The plot is pretty thin and always involves a twist. That the twist happens is predictable, and so the contents of the twist become more and more ridiculous to try to reclaim unpredictability.
2. Every episode is a cliff hanger in service of the twist from #1.
3. Unnecessary lewdness means you can't enjoy it with your kids.
4. It probably won't contain the things that made you enjoy the original. What even is fan service if a large number of the fans hate it?
Is the SEC and FTC ever going to do their job? They have failed us in the 21st century. Shareholder value over everything else. It would be nice for some regulation to attack all this rent seeking.
what job do you want the FTC to do here? I assume you think there is an antitrust angle on this potential acquisition? I am an economist and that is my field. I disagree with your take, if that is what you mean. This is a vertical merger. Vertical mergers are quite different in their welfare effects to consumers than horizontal mergers. Vertical mergers can frequently be welfare-improving to consumers. Indeed, this i…
I'm curious how this could possibly turn out to be anything but anti-consumer.
I'm sure that in general and in the past there can be and have been welfare-improving vertical mergers. But this particular one seems questionable.
> What job do you want the FTC to do here?
I would like them to carefully and thoroughly evaluate the welfare effects of this merger, and block the merger if it's not obviously welfare-improving, and not in the Kaldor-Hicks sense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what job do you want the FTC to do here? I assume you think there is an antitrust angle on this potential acquisition? I am an economist and that is my field. I disagree with your take, if that is what you mean. This is a vertical merger. Vertical mergers are quite different in their welfare effects to consumers than horizontal mergers. Vertical mergers can frequently be welfare-improving to consumers. Indeed, this i…
The vertical integration of the distribution of media and the production of media is extremely problematic because of the way copyright operates in this country. I think you have to examine vertical integration in copyright affected industries differently than you would in, say, the vertical integration of steel production with a company that consumes steel. The interaction with copyright invariably creates issues fo…
And addressing it via enforcing separate distributors and producers allows the copyright issue (the real issue) to go unchecked, since politically, it’s harder to attack it as a problem.
It might even be politically necessary for people to feel the pain before we can get back to decent copyright lengths.