During the last "regime", antitrust suits were just this side of extinct. Bush & Co. felt that monopolies were good for the consumer, business would never ever ever do anything that was bad for the country....look at Enron--it was a good thing. Well, we now have a democratic President and a return to the laws of the country. President Obama’s top antitrust official, Christine Varney, along with some Democratic leaders, are beginning to reduce a number of industries, including airline and railroad giants.
The New York Times reported that Antitrust suits might be back in fashion. Ms. Varney is the antitrust chief at the Justice Department, and began inspecting complaints by Verizon and AT&T that their competitors, major cable operators, are blocking their ability to purchase sports shows and other programs that the companies produce, although I find it kind of ironic that AT&T is filing anti-trust suits. She is also examining how large agribusiness is restraining small farms from being able to compete in the market, partially due to Senator Bernie Sanders bringing this problem into the view of the justice department.
Ms. Varney is also taking on drug companies that have inside agreements between companies not to market more generic drugs. Both the FTC and consumer groups have wanted these agreements examined under anti-trust laws. Although Ms. Varney is supported by the White House and some democratic legislatures, others are not as pleased with her.
Repbulicans have always voted in the favor of business...and that means more money for those campaign war chests. Democrats have spent a lot of time and effort to get some of those campaign funds for themselves, only to worry that these policy changes of an aggressive antitrust enforcement, could hurt their chances at the corporate money changers.
But, also, some of the administration officials see this as coming at a bad time due to the economic climate. Others actually agree with Bush & Co. and think that larger companies provide consumer benefits and healthier, leaner companies.
The White House also discussed an effort to overhaul financial regulation, but at this time, have decided against using antitrust legislation to reduce the size of corporations that are "too big to fail".
“The struggles between the expert agencies and the Justice Department get to the heart and soul of exactly what the competition policy of the Obama administration will be,” said Mark Cooper, an antitrust expert and director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group.
He added: “Now you have an antitrust division that cares about competition, and it is running up against the expert agencies that haven’t changed their attitudes yet.”
Ms. Varney was in private practice for over 10 years, but was tapped to be on President Obama's transition team. Her background is in internet law. Varney was a Cabinet Secretary under President Clinton and he later appointed her to the Federal Trade Commission where she served for 3 years. She left the FTC and started an internet law division at a Washington, D.C. firm, Hogan and Harston.
She has pushed for regulations to protect consumer privacy over the internet and argued against legislation that would have made it more difficult for companies to go to arbitration with consumers. She was a registered lobbyist for the Online Privacy Alliance until 2006.
Another area that the division is opening inquiries into are the wireless phone industries; deciding wherther or not it is legal for phone makers to offer a specific model to only one carrier(such as the iPhone or Palm Pre). It is exploring the rapid increase in text-messaging rates at several phone companies and also investigating obstacles imposed by the phone companies on low-price rivals like Skype.
I think its about damn time that our government gets back to governing for the "natural" citizen instead of the artificial person of the corporations. As these corporations became "more efficient" by outsourcing American jobs, moving the proverbial mail box to the Camen Islands( or UAE for Haliburton) to sleaze out of paying taxes for the use of our commons, finding ways out of paying for polluting the environment and trying to destroy the Amercian middle class, its about time we start reining these criminals in!
Good Luck and Good Hunting Christine Varney!
No comments:
Post a Comment