Tag Archives: regulation

Monopolies

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The FCC thinks it has a problem with the pending T-Mobile-Sprint merger, worrying that such a thing would anti-competitive and lead to rising prices for consumers.  The WSJ‘s editorial board demurs from the FCC’s attitude.

But greater economies of scale in industries with high fixed costs can create efficiencies that benefit consumers. DOJ’s position should evolve as markets and technology have.

Indeed, and the FCC’s regulators presently are illustrating another problem with government intervention in the market, whether by Republican or Progressive-Democrat regulators. The FCC’s regulators’ worries are purely speculative, not realized fact.

It’s also true that the converse—a particular merger leading to increased competition and lower prices—is just as speculative.

That’s the problem, though. Our anti-trust laws bar abuse of monopoly power, not the possession of it, and those laws have the mechanisms for enforcing and taking corrective, including punitive, action against companies that do abuse their monopoly power.

The right answer here is for government to get out of the way of a purely business decision made in a free market, even though it should watch carefully to ensure that abuse does not occur or is corrected should it occur.  Let the market do the speculation in the meantime.

Speculative intervention in the present case is solely in the mindsets of regulators.

Mores and the Patent and Trademark Office

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The Supreme Court has taken up the case of Iancu v Brunetti and heard oral arguments Monday.  Erik Brunetti wanted a copyright on the label for a clothing line of his that he’d named FUCT, an acronym for Friends U Can’t Trust.  Iancu is Andrei Iancu, who is duel-hatted as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  Wearing that second hat, Iancu and his fellow USPTO bureaucrats said they were scandalized and morally offended, and they denied Brunetti’s copyright application.  The Wall Street Journal, at the link, said

On [last] Monday the Justices will consider whether to broaden First Amendment protection to trademarks that offend moral sensibilities.

More correctly, though, whether the Justices recognize this or not, they’ll be considering whether to protect trademarks that offend the particular sensibilities of a few Government bureaucrats.

What constitutes scandalous is inherently subjective and depends on cultural mores….

This, on the other hand, is overbroad. Again, what constitutes scandalous behavior (what is scandalism?) in Government permitting doesn’t depend on cultural mores so much as it depends on the mores of a few Government bureaucrats and on how those bureaucrats choose to interpret what they personally view as the nation’s cultural mores.

It’ll be instructive if Brunetti doesn’t get a unanimous favorable ruling.

The Federal Reserve Bank and Presidential Pressure

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“A string of central bankers,” the entire Precious lot of them, at last weekend’s IMF conference expressed their concerns over the independence of our Federal Reserve Bank System and the members of its Board of Governors.  They think the BoG is being unduly pressured by President Donald Trump because he demurs—enthusiastically—from the interest rate regime they’re setting.

I have to ask, though: what pressure? Trump has certainly spoken zealously and forcefully about what he thinks the Fed ought to do, but he’s made no threats.  He’s just argued.

For others to say Fed personnel feel pressured and the Fed’s independence is threatened is to insult the Fed personnel involved and further, to Congressmen—who in their aggregate are the only ones who can impact the Fed’s independence.

All a President can do is force the resignation of this or that Fed governor (following which, the Senate would have to approve any replacement).  If a Fed man feels pressured by rhetoric or by the thought of not being a Governor anymore, he either puts too much ego in having that particular job, or he’s too timid. Either of those makes him unfit for the job in the first place.

A Recognition

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At last, the racism inherent in affirmative action is starting to be recognized.

Civil rights officials at the US Education Department are requiring the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center medical school to cease factoring race into admissions decisions, putting other institutions of higher education on notice that their continued use of affirmative action policies will draw federal scrutiny.

The rest of the Texas Tech University System has already eliminated the use of racist (and sexist) affirmative action policies in its admissions process.

There’ll continue to be resistance, though, in the “academic” community.  Here’s Peter McDonough, Vice President and General Counsel for the American Council on Education

We do worry that a college or university may interpret a report of a resolution…as saying, “If you take race or ethnicity into account, you can be investigated.”

I certainly hope so.  Neither racism nor the bigotry of ethnicity preference—nor sexism—has any place in American society, much less as a selection criterion for anything.

Next up: completing this evolution by formally and explicitly ridding affirmative action of its inherent sexism.

Then, to saucer and blow this travesty, we need the Supreme Court to stop dithering, recognize that ex-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s 20 years are long expired, and eliminate all vestiges of the use of race, or sex, or ethnicity, or any other non-merit-related discriminant from affirmative action programs.

Regulating State Tax Incentives

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There Ought to be a Law was the title of an old Reader’s Digest humor column: every little pet peeve came in for a jokingly recommended law barring it.  Because More Government is always the solution.

Barton Swaim, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, actually takes that seriously, and he wants to apply it to the idea of States and cities offering businesses tax incentives to get them to build in those jurisdictions.  He wants the Federal government to…regulate…what those State and local jurisdictions can do to entice businesses.

He’s even holding up the European Union as a paragon in this venue.

The European Union imposes significant restrictions on how much member states or regional governments can offer companies to entice them to expand or relocate.

This is the same EU, keep in mind, that is constantly trying to bully low-tax member nations to charge more and higher taxes, rather than encouraging high-tax member nations to lower and lessen theirs.

Never mind that, though.

Why couldn’t Congress impose a simplified version of this principle on state and local governments?

It’s true enough that many of those incentive deals the States and locals turn out to be lousy from the States’ and locals’ perspective.  Why, then, shouldn’t the Federal government dictate to the States and local governments what those bodies should do with their own citizens’ and residents’ money? For their own good, you see.  Besides, isn’t it the Federal government’s money, anyway, and not those citizens’ and residents’?

Be more like Europe, and be more infested with central diktats than we already are. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Because, after all, States (and the local jurisdictions within them), to paraphrase John Jay, have the same relationship to the Federal government that counties have to the States: mere political jurisdictions set up to facilitate enforcement of Federal laws.

Federal republic be damned.

Sure.