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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dragonfly who wrote (437)	4/17/1998 2:24:00 AM
From: synchro	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 5853

There are myriads of accusations and allegations out there. Alas, you, like a lot of people out there, are depressingly vague when you say Microsoft "violated the law" or "cross the line." What law? What line? Scott McNealy's line? Clark Barksdale's line? But then it's not really a surprise. Because the anti-trust laws themselves are vague and un-followable. What do you think if I tell you that the Justice Department is inventing new anti-trust laws as it goes along prosecuting Microsoft? If you are referring to the Sherman anti-trust laws, I say these laws are the greatest abomination in a free market society. It criminalizes business people (who can not exert physical force on other people thru what they do) at the same time making it impossible for them to follow the law. Raising prices? You are a greedy monopolist gauging customers or in "price collusion" with your fellow oligarchs. Lowering prices? You are "anti-competitive" Signing a consent decree does not mean Microsoft is wrong and the Justice Department is right. If you are a businessman facing the unlimited resources of the government of the United States of America, the most rational thing to do might very well be to compromise your principles and enter a deal with the gov't. MSFT's $250 billion mkt cap, great as it is, is still no match for an entity that extract greater than 30% of an economy's annual GDP. I find it somewhat strange that Netscape chief Clark Barksdale is claiming MSFT is a monopoly, yet when he so cleverly asked for a show of hands in the Senate hearings on people whose use the Netscape browser, a great many number of people raised their hands. What a farce. What budding oligarpolists like Barksdale and McNealey are really claiming is that their companies are entitled to a fair share of the market--regardless of whether they have a better mousetrap. They actually want MSFT is raise prices on the Explorer browser, if you follow their claims to their logical conclusion. I think these traitors of capitalism simply lost their nerve to compete and lost their faith in their own products. And it's a crying shame for these ex-entrepreneurs to sink to the level of a Ralph Nader or Robert Reich.