So Google’s a monopolist, so are Amazon and all the rest. Well, mebbe. But then we get this:
Beyond individual policies, the Democratic party also has the chance to attempt something grander: resurrecting the zealous monopoly-busting spirit of its New Deal and Great Society heyday. That means sidelining the “golf-buddy Democrats”, to borrow a phrase from the constitutional lawyer Zephyr Teachout, once and for all. By returning the party’s central constituency to the actual producers of goods, Democrats can pursue a full agenda of antitrust reforms, from hiking fees for big mergers to forcing companies to divest from lines of business that conflict with each other.
Monopolies are good for the producers of goods. It’s consumers who get screwed by them. So, she’s justifying antimonopoly actions as being worthwhile because they’re good for the producers of goods. This is to be an absolute fucking moron.
The New Deal screwed the US economy until well after the war. Before Pearl Harbor it was British gold that resurrected their industries.
Why is there still some romantic notion that it actually did any good ?
By the way
Off Topic ish
A nice article in Zerohedge – a sort of Kids Guide to Rare Earth Metals for us hard of thinking types
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/geopolitical-tensions-are-transforming-rare-earth-market
Can we remove those who fetishise FDR’s New Deal from the internet for spreading false information about how good it was?
“ Frequent changes in the tax laws plus FDR’s anti-business rhetoric (“economic royalists”) discouraged people from making investments essential for growth and jobs. New Deal securities laws made it harder for employers to raise capital. FDR issued antitrust lawsuits against some 150 employers and companies, making it harder for them to focus on business. FDR signed a law ordering the break-up of America’s strongest banks, with the lowest failure rates. New Deal farm policies destroyed food — 10 million acres of crops and 6 million farm animals — thereby wiping out farm jobs and forcing food prices above market levels for 100 million American consumers. FDR’s Folly spells out much more in startling, sometimes hilarious detail.”
https://www.cato.org/commentary/fresh-debate-about-fdrs-new-deal
And that’s before we start on how money was syphoned off to the Democratic Party.
And that’s before we start on how money was syphoned off to the Democratic Party
But that was the primary point of it. The second was providing plenty of grift opportunities to the well-connected. It worked perfectly.
Same as how increasing public sector employees pay increases their union dues and thus allows the unions to donate more money to the Labour Party.
So more zephyr than teach, then?
I’m thinking wind not car…
I find it surprising that she thinks that anyone producing actual goods would be mad enough to vote for the current Democrats…
People on the left who claim to be anti-monopoly never seem to apply the logic to governments or trade unions. It’s just one gf the great mysteries of life.
Maybe they think once they split them up, the monopoly power of the government and trade unions will have an easier time screwing them??
Boganboy,
Screwing us.
Those of us remember the ‘60s and ‘70s don’t need to (re)learn what happens when governments run monopoly businesses. The goods are shit, on the rare occasions the unionised workforces can be bothered to work.
I’m guessing she’s talking about ‘the workers’ (vs middle/upper management) rather than producer firms as whole entities. I assume the former don’t benefit all that much from monopoly power, net or gross,but happy to be corrected.
Whether there’s actual concern there, or just Marxism repackaged again, I’ll leave to the reader.
This kind of transformative pivot is already under way thanks to arguably the most populist plank of President Biden’s legacy: his appointment of intrepid regulators such as the FTC chairperson, Lina Khan.
Yes, grateful American proles are dancing in the streets because a senile paedophile appointed foreign studycunts to plum Regime sinecures. Maybe Joe’s drooling face will be on Mount Rushmore yet.
Populism!
but to paraphrase a term of art from Harris, we are not going back.
To paraphrase another term of art from Harris, those BJs weren’t free.
I assumed this person was some kind of made-up name but she exists – ‘Zephyr Teachout’
Her wikipedia bio:
‘Teachout was among the minority of Democratic congressional candidates who endorsed Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries. She was also among the first candidates Sanders endorsed. He subsequently endorsed her for attorney general of New York in 2018, and Teachout endorsed him in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. In a January 2020 opinion column in The Guardian, Teachout wrote that Sanders’s Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden had “a big corruption problem” arising from his relationships with donors over the course of his Senate career. Sanders apologized to Biden for the article, saying: “It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way.”
Teachout’s platform for her House campaign included a higher minimum wage, increased spending on public infrastructure, a ban on fracking, an increase in manufacturing jobs, property tax cuts, increased investment in rural infrastructure, an end to Common Core and high-stakes testing, and campaign finance reform (specifically working to overturn Citizens United v. FEC). ‘
I will say she is spot on on the corruption of Biden, if nothing else.
VP – I’m sure Zephyr Teachout has two heads and a girlfriend called Tricia McMillan.
Zephyr Teachout?
Sorry, but I refuse to believe this is the actual name of a real person.
Even Americans can’t be that bonkers.
forcing companies to divest from lines of business that conflict with each other
Er… won’t that create monopolies?
@Peter – they are.
“Hiking fees for big mergers”
I think this is the first time I have ever heard anyone say that lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers and investment bankers should get paid more
Peter McFarlane
How very dare you sir !
Let me introduce you to my children : Zodiac and Corsair.
Ottokring: It’s little Probe I feel sorry for.
Seems to me there are some delightful regulatory controls that could be imposed. For example, every search engine provider could only operate a couple of days each week, but would otherwise be forced to turn it off on other days. That’ll spread the advertising dollars around. Many years ago when they were going after Microsoft because too many people were using Explorer, they could have come up with some other arrangement, such as assigning browsers to people alphabetically based on their surname, month they were born in, or some other criteria. Think of what a fair and just society we would have.
Zephyr Teachout’s boyfriend is called Breeze Learnsnowt.
It must be true because Wokeypedia says so.
TD: You are Doctor Strabismus (whom God preserve) of Utrecht, and I claim my five pounds.
How much money did Google give to the democrats? Doesn’t seem to have been that well spent.
«Let me introduce you to my children : Zodiac and Corsair.»
Did Consul become an Escort? And is it true that the digestive transit is a medical term for the van that delivers the biscuits?