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To: wbmw who wrote (241418)	9/28/2007 11:46:17 PM
From: Petz	Respond to of 275872

re: anti-monopoly laws are written to protect THE CONSUMER! I agree actually! The problem is that the harm to the consumer might be delayed until long after all competition has ceased. Selling below cost certainly doesn't hurt the consumer immediately; it's money in his pocket. But in markets where the cost of entry is very high, it could eliminate the competition, eventually resulting in much higher prices and poorer products. Petz

To: wbmw who wrote (241418)	9/29/2007 1:19:42 AM
From: fastpathguru	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Re: We've been over this many times. It is absolutely not necessary to prove this. For one thing, consumers don't buy microprocessors, OEMs do. Except, anti-monopoly laws are written to protect THE CONSUMER! You seem pretty sure of yourself. Got a link? 'Cause, in reality, "antimonopoly laws" are actually designed to protect competition. It is a subtle, but very important distinction. Protecting consumers is one of many desirable effects that occur when competition is protected... It's important because all of the nit-picking about whether this price helped or harmed that consumer when and where and how etc. etc. etc. are integrated and wrapped up in a nice, simple rule: When competition is harmed, it is assumed that consumers are harmed. en.wikipedia.org findarticles.com MIT economics professor Franklin Fisher: (Read this, very carefully. Then read it again.) """ To answer the specific claim made in the Independent Institute's advertisement, Fisher explained that the point of antitrust policy is to prevent harm to competition. "It is true that while we care about competition for the consumers' sake, antitrust policy is not directly about consumers," he said carefully, "that competition is good for consumers is the foundation of microeconomics, and therefore of (I would say) all economics - of, to be grand about it, Western capitalism itself." While competition alone is unable to solve such problems as air pollution, which require regulation, Fisher maintains that antitrust policy was drawn up to ensure that individual firms didn't make those sorts of decisions for themselves. "In general, any departure from pure competition is harmful to consumers," he said. """