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The worst possible antitrust outcome

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Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#91

Post by bpt3 »

nielsbot wrote: post #38
culopatin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do when all the money goes away to countries that don’t tax them that hard?

I say "see ya!" and wave goodbye. You think people living in NYC, for example, the financial (and one of the major cultural capitals) of the entire world (not to mention all the other benefits of US residency) are going to bother with packing up their lives and moving overseas because the taxes are too high? Not to mention these people will still have obscene wealth in all likelihood. Some might, but I don't think we…

Yes, they've been moving to Florida in droves for the last decade plus.

Eventually you'll run out of other people's money to spend, and will be forced to face the reality of your own self-sufficiency.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#92

Post by rufo »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #78
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #54

> One of the facts established in the verdict was that Google had been slipping Apple more than $20b/year in exchange for which, Apple forbore from making a competing search engine. Didn't Apple say that 1) they weren't interested in being in the Search Engine business 2) (in testimony) Google was by far the best search engine that they were going to use anyway ? Certainly, $20B/Y weighs on the scale, but knowing App…

His quote is stunningly disingenuous, I'm surprised to hear that coming from Doctorow. That Google has paid Apple to be the default search engine was a business deal that has been open knowledge for a decade or more. Other search engines could've paid to be the default. Apple didn't have a search engine when they created the iPhone, and why would they start? Ever? MS didn't do so well. And why would Apple want to mak…

> One of the facts established in the verdict was that Google had been slipping Apple more than $20b/year...

While the payments were public knowledge and there was speculation about the amount being somewhere between $8B and $12B, the number had never been confirmed until unsealed in the case, was more than the previous speculation, and was something both Google and Apple wanted to keep under wraps: https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/2/24147007/google-paid-apple...

Thus, it's a fact that was established in the verdict. "Slipping" is possibly a stretch, given the deal itself was at least publicly known? - though the fact both parties wanted to avoid discussion of the deal since its inception makes it feel at least somewhat evasive, so I can see what the word choice gestures towards.

> ...in exchange for which, Apple forbore from making a competing search engine.

From https://www.justice.gov/atr/media/1402141/dl?inline=:

> Cutting off all search-related payments from Google to Apple would strongly alter Apple’s incentives. Rem. Tr. 3825:7–3829:2 (Cue (Apple)) (Apple’s SVP of Services “can’t say [he] would disagree” that “it was a disincentive for us to do a search engine based on the payments that we were receiving from Google”)

> forbear: politely or patiently restrain an impulse to do something; refrain

That seems like a reasonable description of what Eddy Cue stated to me. It certainly wasn't part of the wording of the deal, but if I were Eddy, I'd probably refrain from building a search engine in his shoes.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#93

Post by bpt3 »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #64
hollerith wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the reason it is the financial capital of the entire world is that historically the tax regime let people keep most of the money they earned.

Income tax rates and corporate tax rates were higher during the post-war era than they are now.

Effective tax rates weren't much different, which is what matters.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#94

Post by heavyset_go »

culopatin wrote: post #33
JKCalhoun wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need strong laws that reduce the voice of money and increase the voice of individuals. Seeing the how flaccid "strong" laws have become, I prefer we go back to reducing the voice of money by taxing it away. Maybe our country could then finally have nice things.

What do you do when all the money goes away to countries that don’t tax them that hard?

The point of being wealthy is that you don't have to care about shit like that. You can be taxed at 90% land still have more money than you could spend in a thousand lifetimes.

Until the early 1980s, the highest tax bracket was taxed at 70%, and before that even more.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#95

Post by bpt3 »

nielsbot wrote: post #47
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans have allowed the rich to become too wealthy. This consistently happens in a very specific way. A corporation that dominates a concentrated market becomes excessively large, which makes its early shareholders billionaires. In other words, if you want to change this, you need to enforce antitrust laws and break up large corporations.

As well as tax like we used to in the 50s. (Ok, we can argue about the specifics, but you get the idea)

Look at the effective tax rates and get back to me.

You have a lot of thoughts on something you know very little about.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#96

Post by rtpg »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #78
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #54

> One of the facts established in the verdict was that Google had been slipping Apple more than $20b/year in exchange for which, Apple forbore from making a competing search engine. Didn't Apple say that 1) they weren't interested in being in the Search Engine business 2) (in testimony) Google was by far the best search engine that they were going to use anyway ? Certainly, $20B/Y weighs on the scale, but knowing App…

His quote is stunningly disingenuous, I'm surprised to hear that coming from Doctorow. That Google has paid Apple to be the default search engine was a business deal that has been open knowledge for a decade or more. Other search engines could've paid to be the default. Apple didn't have a search engine when they created the iPhone, and why would they start? Ever? MS didn't do so well. And why would Apple want to mak…

> Apple didn't have a search engine when they created the iPhone, and why would they start? Ever?

I mean Apple Maps happened. Is it the same scale of problem? No, because Street View is harder than search in some sense! In all seriousness it's not the same problem, but it's something.

$20B/year is real money, and I have a very easy time imagining that squashing the idea at all (even if the intent on Google's side is "simply" to maintain dominance, and not squash out competition from Apple specifically)

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#97

Post by rayiner »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #54

> One of the facts established in the verdict was that Google had been slipping Apple more than $20b/year in exchange for which, Apple forbore from making a competing search engine. Didn't Apple say that 1) they weren't interested in being in the Search Engine business 2) (in testimony) Google was by far the best search engine that they were going to use anyway ? Certainly, $20B/Y weighs on the scale, but knowing App…

I can’t think of a single legitimate reason why Google should be allowed to pay Apple to use its search engine. Google is using the proceeds of its monopoly to exclude competition to maintain its monopoly. How is that norm per se antitrust violation? (That said, I’m not an antitrust lawyer and find it quite unintuitive, lol.)

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#98

Post by Workaccount2 »

p_j_w wrote: post #89
Workaccount2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your 401k is their social fabric contribution.

How does a 5 year old use their 401k to increase the quality of their education?

Probably should allow parents to open college investment accounts for kids at birth. Even $5k invested at birth would be $50k at 25, enough to mostly pay off a state school degree.

So yeah, generally I think that would be a good idea.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#99

Post by pdonis »

teachrdan wrote: post #26
pdonis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action Not in a free market. In a free market, people have the option to refuse to accept your money if they don't want to give you what you want to buy from them with it.

> people have the option to refuse to accept your money... This is the contradiction, isn't it? A free market that you or I might define requires safeguards like a social welfare net to make sure individuals are truly free to decline an offer that is harmful to them. Without such a welfare net one is compelled to accept an offer that is harmful (to one's health, morality, etc.) because the alternative is to lose your…

> A free market that you or I might define requires safeguards like a social welfare net to make sure individuals are truly free to decline an offer that is harmful to them.

That depends on how the safeguards are implemented. If they are implemented through coercive taxation, you don't have a free market, because people don't have the right to refuse to pay taxes, even if they disagree with how the money will be used.

> Without such a welfare net one is compelled to accept an offer that is harmful (to one's health, morality, etc.) because the alternative is to lose your dignity and all of your belongings, or worse.

Can you give an example?

> the owning class

What you're saying here is something different from what you said above. The problem you're now pointing to is not that rich people have power because they're rich, but that they have power because own too much other than just money. For example, they might own all the housing in the area you want to live in, so you either have to look elsewhere or accept renting on whatever terms they offer.

The solution for that isn't a "social welfare net". It's to restrict how much non-monetary property a rich person can own. And also to make it easier for people who aren't rich to own more things--for example, to own homes.

By the way, your use of the term "owning class" implies that ownership is somehow a bad thing, or that it's naturally restricted to a certain class of people. But that's not how things should be. Ownership gives you control. For example, if you own the home you live in, you're much better protected from various possible bad things forcing you to move, than if you rent. But that also means people need to be willing to accept the responsibilities that come with ownership. It appears that many people in our current society aren't--but they also don't want to accept the tradeoffs of giving up ownership. That's not a stable situation. You can't get something for nothing. And the best "safety net" a person can have is to own as many of the things they depend on as possible.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#100

Post by pdonis »

Yizahi wrote: post #36
pdonis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action Not in a free market. In a free market, people have the option to refuse to accept your money if they don't want to give you what you want to buy from them with it.

It is theoretically and practically impossible that free market could exist. Every unregulated market will be quickly monopolized by a biggest player and it will stop being free by definition. It's like saying that humans can fly unassisted. Sure, we can jump in the air and for a few milliseconds remain completely in the air. But we can hardly call that process a flight, if it can last for extremely short period of t…

> unregulated market

A free market is not unregulated. It's regulated by the voluntary choices of all market participants.

The alternative is to have the market regulated by those who aren't participants--i.e., who have no skin in the game and who suffer no consequences if the regulations are bad. That's basically the situation we have now. Anyone who thinks that's a good thing isn't living on the same planet as I am.

> will be quickly monopolized by a biggest player

The claim that this is a problem of free markets, as opposed to non-free ones, is historically false. Virtually all monopolies, historically, have been due to government intervention in markets to give special privileges to certain players. THe original meaning of the word "monopoly" was permission from the king to be the sole seller of a particular product or service.

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