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To: slacker711 who wrote (130897)	4/14/2012 7:40:40 PM
From: Road Walker	3 Recommendations Respond to of 213177

Should a company, publisher in this instance, be allowed to enforce the retail selling price of their product? ---- I think the answer is yes. However, that is not what this case is about. The question is whether a company can collude with every other major player in the industry to enforce a retail selling price. I think the answer to that question is no. I think it's both collusion and "price fixing". In the end a publisher has a monopoly on a particular title, so collusion on that title is not possible. But enforcing a minimum retail price is, and that's what I think they will try to hang them on. Collusion gets headlines but the reality is everybody colludes to an extent. If Joes Gas is getting $4 a gallon Bills Gas next store is going to be within a few cents, regardless of the COGS. Joe and Bill may never talk but there is an understanding that to cut the other guys throat you are also cutting your own. One thing that's legal in anti trust.... a manufacturer can (and they always do) give volume discounts. So the big guys like Amazon and Walmart get bigger and bigger, and the small guys can't compete and go out of business. It's why the local hardware store, the corner pharmacy, the little electronics retailer have been smothered by Home Depot, Walgreens and Best Buy. Real people can no longer be owners, they can only be employees or stockholders. That's not anti competitive? You bet it is. More than retail price fixing in my humble opinion. But everyone assumes the anti trust laws are righteous... handed down from the Gods. They're not, and again in my humble opinion they have led to a lack of opportunity and a lack of innovation in this country. </soapbox>