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

To: Michael L. Voorhees who wrote (63741)	12/14/2001 12:21:39 AM
From: _scar_face_	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 74651

Dare to go back a few years before the attack on msft? Theres nothing wrong with defending one self in areas so grey as antitrust. 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. Scholarly Support Revisionist case analysis nicely corresponds with recent scholarship concerning the actual origins of antitrust law. The original rationale was that before the Sherman Act of 1890, monopolistic abuse laced the economy. Yet Thomas DiLorenzo, Thomas Hazlett, and others have shown that market outputs were expanding and prices falling relative to the rest of the economy in many of the "trust" industries prior to 1890. Thus, antitrust laws and antitrust cases are more accurately seen as special interest legislation designed to protect less efficient organizations and redistribute income. Its pretty transparent.

To: Michael L. Voorhees who wrote (63741)	12/14/2001 7:54:37 AM
From: John F. Dowd	Respond to of 74651

Good then they seem to be learning an ugly game that their competitors have used all too successfully to date. It was not the consumer who agitated for this Anti-trust suit. The cabal of unsuccessful marketeers are the culprits. It is too bad MSFT has been forced from their innocense in this regard. JFD