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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (6514)	12/15/1997 4:39:00 PM
From: kech	Respond to of 152472

Wow Maurice - Agreed -Many women are already a monopoly! They could get even better contracts though if they had an agent. Having children is tough work -- the scarcity value of this factor of "production" seems to be increasing. I like the CO2 idea too - have you sent your idea to Al Gore? Alcoa was just a reference to an anti-trust case against Alcoa (yes aluminum) presided over by no less than Judge Learned Hand. In 1912 it sold 91% of the virgin ingot in the U.S. In 1937 the govt. brought suit. It has been argued that Alcoa achieved a monopoly over aluminum production in the 1920's by "acquiring power over price principally by foreclosing competitors from two necessary inputs - electricity and bauxite." I.e. cheap electricity - it locked up rights to a lot of cheap hydroelectric power in Niagara and Quebec. It bought this power with the exclusive contract that the power providers could not provide power to their competitors. This raised its rivals' costs significantly, prevented entry and expansion by competitors, and provided the opportunity for Alcoa to extract monopoly profits in Aluminum for many years. It also owned 1/2 of known aluminum bauxite reserves known to exist in 1940. Sound familiar? Is it ok? It does matter who gets the monopoly profits - I would rather not have it all concentrated in B.G's portfolio. Even if he gives it away that is irrelevant. He has had the opportunity to control it during his lifetime and possibly keep more efficient competitors with novel ideas out of the market place in the meantime. It is the dead hand of inefficiency that results when monopolists control the market and prevent competition that is the more serious problem. Witness Ericsson's heinous behavior in our neck of the woods - not a monopoly but if Frezza had been more pursuasive and Ericsson a little more power over providers in Korea or the U.S. -- CDMA could easily have never had a chance.