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US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

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Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that is what is the law is and even that that is what the law should be. It is also important to note however that the actual title of the Sherman Antitrust Act is "An Act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies ." So it isn't fair to say that anti-competitive practices and monopolies are completely orthogonal (although strictly speaking they are) because monopolies are a perf…

Your quote itself presents the question of lawful monopoly vs unlawful monopoly.

I don't think I implied otherwise.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treasury Direct is for stuff like savings bonds. If you want to donate , it's https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.h... , but they're not directed donations.

It would be pretty interesting if certain departments in the government could get direct payments. For example if the last $100 on your taxes you could choose any department to allocate to.

I've always wondered what government funding would look like if taxpayers could allocate their tax dollars at their own discretion. I don't think it would be all that functional in practice, but the idea of it seems interesting.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#73
post #44
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What theory is this from, some sort of administrative state theory? This has never been the case in any executive branch that I'm aware of.

The vast majority of cases aren’t dropped when you move from one administration to another. However, there’s a great deal of correlation between cases people care about and politics so you’re more likely to hear about the kinds of cases that get dropped.

I agree that most political factions actually agree on most policies, but that doesn’t mean the decision as to whether to proceed is ‘civil service’ rather than ‘political’.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#74
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Election year. They know the judges won't let anything bad happen to their friends so they can pretend to act tough every four years (when the billionaire class's preferred candidate/party is in office of course).

I don't understand people like you. A government agency does something material to help the consumer and you just shit talk and resort to base cynicism. Nothing would ever change if everyone was as apathetic as you are.

> something material

That's the trick. What material thing happened?

Over the years, hundreds of thousands (?) of people have been ripped off.

If I did that I'd be in jail.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is their site - treasurydirect.gov

Treasury Direct is for stuff like savings bonds. If you want to donate , it's https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.h... , but they're not directed donations.

Too bad you can't write conditionals in the memo area:

Not for war, over-criminalization, or tax breaks for megacorps, REITs, or billionaires.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#76
post #24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently, I bought tickets through their web page, and the seat hold timed out prematurely, making me reselect seats. The tickets had been on sale for weeks, but in that 60 second window, scalpers just happened to buy the exact block I wanted out of 100’s of available seats. Of course, ticket master owns some of the scalper companies. Despite the blatant false advertising / auction fixing, I have no way to prove the…

"Ticketmaster and Stubhub Caught Colluding With Scalpers" https://kslnewsradio.com/1891544/opinion-ticketmaster-isnt-c... "Ticketmaster Has Secretly Been Cheating You With Its Own Scalpers" https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/ticketmaster-cheating-...

I’ve posted this before but I was fooled by a StubHub setup that looked like it was the venue itself - and not accidentally. So when I bought a ticket I was shocked to get an email from StubHub.

When I double checked and found the venue I had overpaid by 100% and StubHub refused to refund me.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#77

The FTC and DoJ have been hitting it out of the park recently, unfortunately, there are a lot of judges out there that think corps should be able to do anything they want.

Election year. They know the judges won't let anything bad happen to their friends so they can pretend to act tough every four years (when the billionaire class's preferred candidate/party is in office of course).

DOJ has been filing aggressive antitrust cases throughout the Biden administration’s tenure. If you want to be conspiratorial, you can point to their losing record in court and argue they know the cases will fail, but “it’s an election year” doesn’t make sense. I think the realistic take is the people at DOJ are legitimately enacting the strongest antitrust enforcement they can get away with (and then some).

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#79
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treasury Direct is for stuff like savings bonds. If you want to donate , it's https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.h... , but they're not directed donations.

Pardon me but I'm laughing out loud here. Who is this for?

People who buy into the idea of government being a societal good, and aren't bitter old cynics.

Re: US Justice Department to seek breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster

#80
post #7

What's the typical turn time for a case like this from the time it is filed to the time it is actually in front of a judge/jury? This particular administration only has a guaranteed relevance of about 7 months. It could get extended, or it could get replaced and then cases like this would most likely get dropped. So, why bring it now?

> This particular administration only has a guaranteed relevance of about 7 months. That is a deeply cynical view on the nature of politics. > So, why bring it now? Why help anyone else if you can't score political points off the back of it? Possibly because it's the right thing to do and ideologically motivated people actually do successfully exist in government.

> That is a deeply cynical view on the nature of politics.

How? If the bid for re-election is lost, they leave office Jan 20th. That's not cynical. That's being able to read a calendar.

If you think a new administration, specifically the one that would be coming in, will not immediately reverse a lot of things, then you just have not been paying attention.

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