Thursday, July 9, 2009

Innovation, If We Let It

Sorry I haven't been blogging in a while. I've been sort of busy. Today's post will be short. I simply have had a thought over the last few days. I've been reading several stories about innovation in the tech sector. Apparently, Google is coming out with its own operating system. At the same time, Microsoft is scrambling to replace the disastrous Vista. Similar movement is happening in the internet browser market. Conversely, Microsoft is trying to chip away at Google's dominance of the search engine market. Microsoft, despite having immense "market power" as the economics buzz word goes, continually has to innovate for fear of losing market share.

It is amid this whirlwind of creativity that the gruesome specter of ANTITRUST rises from its shallow grave like Jacob Marley, complete with ludicrous Dickensian morality. His Majesty's Justice Department understands Antitrust as the club it really is, and intends to use it as such. Microsoft and Google already need to dance around antitrust in hopes they don't compete too well to be labeled "anti-competitive." Obama is sure to extort some rents from them, the same way that the Clinton White House did with Bill Gates in the 90s. Also, hearings are being held on that pimple on the face of our nation known as Capitol Hill, ostensibly to determine the appropriateness of allowing cell phone makers to grant exclusive offering rights to service carriers, a la the iPhone.

I've said this before. After the murderous thugs at the FDA, anyone who would enforce Antitrust should be next in line for tar and feathering. This is a criminal legal quagmire, whose express purpose is to trap every business in its confusion, thus forcing all to bow to the whim of whatever feckless poll-dancer happens to be anointed our Leader. Draw what conclusions you may from that. I'm going to bed!

P.S.: For some excellent discussion of the current application of antitrust, reading any of ARI analyst Alex Epstein's writings on the subject.

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