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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Insitu who wrote (47034)	6/20/2000 12:16:00 PM
From: miraje	Respond to of 74651

From: cato.org ...All antitrust laws should be repealed. The most important argument against antitrust is that laws designed ostensibly to restrict monopolization have been repeatedly employed by the government to restrict and restrain the competitive process. Businesses that innovate, market aggressively, and increase production while lowering prices have been a primary focus of antitrust enforcement. Comparatively, government licensing, certificates of public convenience, legal franchises, and foreign and domestic quotas (the real monopolistic abuse in the system) have been almost entirely immune from antitrust scrutiny. No Golden Era Antitrust enthusiasts have never re-solved the massive economic irrationalities buried in the case law. Some belatedly admit that specific cases like Alcoa (1945) and Brown Shoe (1962) were a mistake. Rulings in those cases found companies guilty of monopolistic practices not because they raised prices but merely because they took ad-vantage of every opportunity to expand capacity and meet customer demands. The rulings were blatant attacks on economic efficiency. Most antitrust supporters continue to believe in some golden age of enforcement when antitrust was magnificently pro-consumer. Yet a review of two of the most influential early cases in antitrust history, Standard Oil (1911) and American Tobacco (1911), reveals that neither of the accused firms monopolized or "restrained" trade; on the contrary, both firms expanded outputs enormously, innovated continuously, and generally lowered prices for consumers. Thus, the antitrust assault on successful firms like Microsoft is not a recent policy aberration. It is entirely endemic of the history of antitrust regulation.

To: Insitu who wrote (47034)	6/20/2000 12:40:00 PM
From: miraje	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Read the Alcoa Supreme Court case from the 1940's. The monopoly case law has been clear at least that long. Re: Alcoa heritage.org ...Past judicial decisions on antitrust issues only cloud the already foggy legal environment. For example, in a 1945 case, United States v. Aluminum Company of America (148 F.2d 416 (3rd Cir. 1945).) (Alcoa), an appeals court decision penalized a firm for being too competitive. Judge Learned Hand wrote in his opinion: "[Alcoa] insists that it never excluded competitors; but we can think of no more effective exclusion than progressively to embrace each new opportunity as it opened and to face every newcomer with new capacity already geared into a great organization, having the advantage of experience, trade connections and elite of personnel." (148 F.2d 416 at 427.) Thus Alcoa was punished not because it used illegal means to attempt to "monopolize" its industry, but because it used experience and aggressive business strategies to take advantage of market opportunities. This landmark decision has been the basis of many other court decisions and its perverse view of efficiency has held back many firms.