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To: IceShark who wrote (7935)	10/7/1998 1:19:00 PM
From: Monty Lenard	Respond to of 86076

Jeez, SI is overwhelmed again. When are they going to add more servers? Don't look for it to happen myself. This is the price we pay so the new owners can pay off their debt incurred to acquire SI. :-( Monty

To: IceShark who wrote (7935)	10/7/1998 1:56:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86076

Hi Iceshark, Justice Department brief seems to be that Visa and Mastercard are both offered by same group of banks (they didn't say cartel, guess they didn't want bad puns - - cardel, get it?) and that these banks pressure merchants that accept Visa and Mastercard not to accept other cards, e.g., American Express, Discover, etc. [Both claims true, I think.] They extrapolate from these facts the following bad effects for consumers: lack of competition causes less credit available, SmartCard technology delayed for decade, development of secure internet transaction technology delayed. [I would say credit is far too available, and point to people charging stocks, even at margin, on credit cards, and bail bonds, and so on. I have handled the occasional bankruptcy, and a lot of divorces, and I know that many American consumers simply don't take credit card debt seriously; of course, many do. Also, re: SmartCards and internet transactions, my understanding is that the real holdup is development of encryption technology, which can be laid at US government's doorstep, for good or ill.] Reno and other lawyer, Klein?, seemed pretty excited. My take on their body language, they know this is going to be big, which is what really attracted my attention. I think Reuters will post something on the announcement soon, Yahoo had a headline not long ago. Hope I can post this, I keep "freaking out" the web server. "Bummer, man." CobaltBlue