asr

Monopolization requires anticompetitive conduct. To prove this, intent evidence is often helpful. For example, in the recent Qualcomm case the judge cited evidence that Qualcomm executives knew their business model created antitrust risk.

But intent evidence is not required. A corporation doesn't have a state of mind. Also, wanting to beat your competitors is fine (and good). So it's tricky to distinguish bad intent from good intent.

Starting with the recent EU decisions is probably a good bet. There are three fines the EU imposed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#EU...

I just double-checked and you are right! Filed Jan. 17, 2019. Apologies. For some reason I thought it was filed a few days after Trump became president, but I was mis-remembering.

Very interesting I had not seen this.

Note there are five ftc commissioners. Christine Wilson is one of three republicans. She is unfortunately the one who seems the most trumpian. She misleadingly quotes a filing her own agency made in this op-ed. Because of that, and a few other turns of phrase in here that appear frequently in Qualcomm PR (such as the factually incorrect statement that this case was filed during the Obama administration--it was actually filed under Trump) I'm willing to bet a lot of money Qualcomm wrote this and gave it to her and she signed off on it.

This is a tangent, but FYI, there is a DRM'd Keurig case, and it is still going! https://www.pbwt.com/antitrust-update-blog/in-long-awaited-o...

The judge essentially paused the case for four years while he ruled on a motion (which is ridiculous) so it's been quite slow. But I'm still watching it...

Broadly speaking, I agree with you, but, FYI, diplomatic status is not just for "diplomats." US government lawyers travel on diplomatic passports for official business (eg depositions in other countries). And all lawyers are "officers of the court" and can be, for example, forced to take random cases pro bono if some judge goes a little kooky and demands it. So it's not as far-fetched as it might sound to give all lawyers diplomatic passports for travel.

There is lots of debate on here about whether or not Apple is right to remove these apps and whether, on balance, Apple should allow apps to use MDM/VPN features "for good" or whether Apple is right to lock down those features.

That debate is beside the point. Apple's timing makes a very strong circumstantial case that Apple is not removing these other apps because they suddenly care that the apps are violating their TOS. Apple is removing them now because Apple now offers a competing app. If Apple had never approved these apps in the first place, or removed them promptly over the years, nobody would have a problem.

Here's an analogy: suppose you live in a small town and the cops have set up a speed trap to catch tourists. They never ticket you because they know you are a local. Years pass, you have children, life is good. Then your daughter dumps her boyfriend, who happens to be the police chief's son. All of a sudden, the cops start ticketing you because "everybody needs to follow the law." Do you believe their explanation?

This article is conflating two separate things: Apple said it should pay less for Qualcomm’s PATENTS. It always liked and never really said bad things about Qualcomm’s MODEMS. Patents != modems.

Also, the article quotes “Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University” without disclosing that Qualcomm funds GMU exactly so it will get favorable press like this.[1]

I expect better from WaPo.

[1] https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/supporters/

If you like that, I would also read Chapter 1 of Bernstein's Four Pillars of Investing. Bernstein's books are all more or less re-writes of the same book multiple times in an attempt to make the Bogle/indexing idea approachable for different audiences. In addition to If You Can, Chapter 1 of Four Pillars is a history of securities returns and is the best thing I've ever read in terms of getting into the right head-space for long-term investing and thinking about risk.

http://www.efficientfrontier.com/t4poi/Ch1.htm

The rest of the book is good, too, but you can just read If You Can instead.

Obviously Google treats "foo" as a placeholder and returns these stories whenever it thinks the user might be interested in a story about a conflict.

What you have described -- a provider who does not try to collect the patient responsibility portion of a bill -- is actually insurance fraud (because the provider has told the insurer the total price for the procedure is $42k, when the provider actually only intends to collect $38k).

I'm not saying that means it didn't happen--things like this are incredibly common--but a reply suggesting you might not have described the full picture and it's possible there is no fraud is not completely out of line or an insult to your intelligence. (I upvoted your original comment, BTW.)

I've never seen anyone cite convincing evidence that there was a real problem with students declaring bankruptcy to get out of their loans.[0]

On the other hand, having our bankruptcy system not apply to a meaningful portion of U.S. lending does create some incentive problems, like the fact that lenders have no incentive to make sure you'll be able to handle repayment, so you can take out huge student loans and find out at the end you have earned a worthless degree and that it will be massively difficult or nearly impossible for you to repay the loan.[1]

[0] For example, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg52412/html/CHRG-11...:

Currently, a debtor may discharge student loans in bankruptcy only upon establishing that repaying such loans would impose an undue hardship, but this has not always been the case. Prior to 1977, student loans were automatically discharged in bankruptcy.

Perceived abuse of the bankruptcy system, as opposed to any real abuse, drove Congress to change this state of affairs. A 1976 GAO report had found that less than 1 percent of all federally insured and guaranteed educational loans were discharged in bankruptcy. In other words, no abuse.

[1] For example http://law.emory.edu/ebdj/content/volume-32/issue-1/comments...

The SEC does not enforce the antitrust laws. Do you mean the DOJ?

If you are going to take unsubstantiated potshots at government agencies you would sound more credible if you at least picked the right agencies.

* * *

On the substantive question here, I agree that small businesses already band together to lobby the government for special treatment. It's not an antitrust violation to ask the government for things, even if you couldn't get together and do those things directly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noerr%E2%80%93Pennington_doctr....

It's worth noting that in Europe things like this are illegal: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/overview/index_en.....

So the idea that it would just be too hard to make this illegal (which I see in at least a few comments) is wrong. We could have laws at the federal level that prevent it. (I'm sure there would be constitutional challenges but that's a separate--and in my view surmountable--issue.)

Defined benefit plans have large drawbacks (risk to the firm, risk to retirees if the plan fails, etc.), but there is zero evidence they were born of a desire to kick the can down the road. They simply came first (at the time, as far as I'm aware, nobody had even thought of a defined contribution plan, and there would have been no tax reason to have one instead of just paying workers).[0]

Let's debate what works without pretending everyone who disagrees with us has terrible motives. Defined benefit plans provided huge benefits to many workers who have not managed the switch to defined contribution plans well.[1] That does not mean that pensions are sustainable, or even that they are a good idea, but their proponents are not just con-men.

[0] https://www.thebalance.com/the-history-of-the-pension-plan-2...

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/20/l-it-the-401k-is-a-failure.h...

Yeah, I agree with the sentiment of your comment, but your facts are wrong because you haven't really internalized the fact that lawyers are a medieval guild. The reason you see "this is not legal advice" on posts by lawyers is that lawyers can get in trouble for giving legal advice in a HN post--they could be sued for bad advice, and someone could also very easily file a complaint with their state bar, and the state bar will take it seriously and could revoke the laywer's license unless they have been very, very clear that they were not giving legal advice.[1]

Is this really done to protect the public (as opposed to because state bars want to try to protect lawyers as the only people qualified to talk about the law)? I have my doubts, but I'd like to stay employed.

[1] Look at this example I found in 20 seconds of googling to see how talking about legal issues in a public forum can lead to a headache for lawyers: https://www.nvbar.org/wp-content/uploads/opinion_32.pdf. It looks like sanity ultimately prevailed (you don't form an attorney-client relationship by calling into a radio station), but I'm sure whichever lawyer did this spent years dealing with potentially having their career ended while this moved through the California State Bar's system.

No, until now, you were not allowed to fork just because you agreed not to install Google apps on that phone -- you were only allowed to fork if you didn't want to install Google apps on any phone you made. So, for example, Samsung couldn't decide to offer an Android phone without Google unless it was willing to shut down its entire current business.

The allegation is that because of this, anyone looking to fork Android had a very hard time finding good OEMs to make their phones. E.g., maybe the Amazon fire phones would have worked if they could have gotten a Tier 1 OEM to make the phones so they could have put out a better product. But nobody would agree to stop making all of their current Android phones to see (I assume; there is no public version of the decision yet so I'm making up the example).

This is not right. The EU only outlaws monopolies which do illegal things, just like the US:

"Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position ... shall be prohibited...."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_102_of_the_Treaty_on_t...

There is a difference in terms of how you go about proving "abuse," but it's a difference of degree, not of kind; in the US, there is more weight placed on "effects" analysis where you see if you can prove something bad actually happened, while in the EU it is often sufficient to show that the actions are the kind that are likely to result in bad things. But this is a generalization and both kinds of proof are considered in both places.

I can make exactly the same point in reverse: "It's the manufacturer's phone. If Google doesn't want to offer its OS on terms that comply with EU competition law, it's free to go the Apple route and simply build all of its own phones. Nobody is forcing Google to do anything."

Google and its smartphone partners are both in the business because of each other. If Google had kept Android closed and limited to its own phones, it would not have become the #1 mobile OS -- we'd be using Palm or Microsoft or Nokia or someone else's product.

> anyone is welcome to fork

This is wrong. One of the three major pieces of this case is the allegation that Google has hindered those who wish to fork by preventing them from making phones with any of the major phone OEMs:

"In particular, Google ... has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called 'Android forks')."

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm

Upvoted because you are correct that I didn't watch the video (and I usually hate commenters who don't look at the linked content so I get you). But I can't just start watching videos at work... and I posted my comment under a link to the related article, so I think it was fair to comment after reading the article but not watching the video.

I am interested to see your original comment if you want to repost (including whatever caused it to be flagged if you like, now that this thread is old I doubt anyone will care/notice).

This article says that Techspot has obtained the 9900 (without being bound by an NDA, as others are), and that Intel is releasing misleading results while other reviewers are bound by an NDA, but that Techspot is not going to show their own benchmarks--which could refute the misleading results Intel has authorized for public release--out of a sense of "professionalism."

Actually, any "professional" journalism outfit would show the public the newsworthy results, not withhold this information from readers because of a desire not to piss off industry contacts.

Ah yes, I'm sure the whole thing would have worked politically if only they'd also tried to set up a system in which rich parents paid poor parents in order to get better start times. Conveniently, this would also mean that the students would be income-segregated so rich students would not have to be mixed in with poor students.

</snark>

... I also took economics in college. To me it seems obvious that calling a fanciful solution like this "obvious" except for "human pride" is woefully inaccurate.

Note that this is not merely theoretical, or unique to the internet:

https://m.dw.com/en/eu-to-reactivate-blocking-statute-agains...

Well, this judge would decide that motion, so it seems like he's told them they would be wasting their time. The realistic options are (1) file for a say ASAP with an eye toward asking the court of appeals to grant the stay after this judge denies it, (2) keep litigating after the deal goes through, or (3) admit defeat. I'm no expert in #1 but I assume it is also very unlikely to work in time to stop the merger (otherwise I think the DOJ would have gone that route).

That leaves litigating after the merger goes through, or just giving up. Often the FTC or DOJ will chose not to keep litigating mergers if they lose in district court because even if they win later, they don't think they will be able to get a very effective remedy--the deal will have gone through and it won't be possible to put everything back to the way it was. (If you are an antitrust lawyer, you for some reason have to talk about this using the phrase "you can't unscramble the eggs.") But it does happen sometimes--Whole Foods/Wild Oats was a good example where, if I remember correctly, Whole Foods had to sell of some of the stores they purchased from Wild Oats years later after winning their merger case in district court but losing the appeal.

Average or median, the more fundamental problem is that this number is just wrong. Wedding industry statistics are spin from wedding-industry-affiliated companies, who have a tremendous incentive to convince you that it's normal to spend this kind of money on your wedding (as an average U.S. household--make sure you spend more if you are above-average!).

The source here, valuepenguin.com (which is trying to sell you wedding insurance), cites three data sources. Once source is no longer online. The other two sources (TheKnot and Costofwedding.com) claim to have conducted surveys. But The Knot just surveys people on its own website (not representative). Anyone want to venture a guess as to whether a representative number of courthouse-ceremony-and-lunch-buffet-afterwards weddings are counted in these figures?[1]

Meanwhile, Cost of Wedding is "owned and operated by The Wedding Report, Inc." and reports the results of a survey The Wedding Report did. And The Wedding Report has this gem in its methodology description:

We take a bottom up approach to "Average Wedding Cost." The total "Average Cost" is calculated using "Weighted Demand Average (WDA)," which is; average spent times demand equals the weighted demand average. Sum of weighted demand average for all items equals the average wedding cost. Using WDA instead of a summed average gives a better calculation, because it takes into account all items that couples may or may not purchase.[2]

As far as I can tell, this means the average cost is calculated by first determining average costs for each item you might possibly purchase, and then adding them all up as if every couple purchases every item! Umm... no. That's not how you do math.

[1] "Respondents were recruited throughout the year from TheKnot.com membership." https://xogroupinc.com/press-releases/the-knot-2017-real-wed...

[2] https://www.theweddingreport.com/index.cfm/action/home/view/...

I don't quite get what you are talking about -- Elizabeth Holmes was charged with fraud: https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-charges-theranos-and-founde...

Others may be charged in the future, I assume.

Is your complaint that she didn't go to jail?

This has been interesting to chew on. Let me say that if there are actually delays, obviously those impose other costs (as a sister post explains here) and so the cost-benefit calculation may come out differently. But your original post was only about whether it's worth risking lives to avoid lurching trains, which is why I thought it was interesting.

I think the problem with your cost-benefit analysis is that you are using different methodologies to value the cost and the benefit. If you value the benefit of non-lurching trains by asking what people would pay, then you need to use a value for human life that asks what people would agree to receive to be killed--which I believe is much more than $6 million.

Conversely, if you are going to value a human life based on lost earnings/support to family/etc., or some other figure which might produce results in the ballpark of $6 million, then on the other side you need to consider only the lost earnings/hard economic costs of an annoying train ride, which are $0 -- there is no economic loss caused by lurching into a station.

I agree with your point, but strongly disagree with your example. You think DC should be running the risk of accidents which kill riders because of trains that lurch into stations? Loss of life is a massive cost, even if only economic factors are accounted for. Please show me a cost-benefit analysis where that is outweighed by lurching trains (even many millions of lurching trains).

Also, it's incorrect to say that we could have used decades of problem-free operation to extrapolate and predict a low risk of similar accidents in the coming decades. The 2009 crash was caused by an aging system, and unless your solution involved replacing all the switches/sensors, we would have seen new failures at a more frequent rate.

Finally, the 2009 accident highlighted an inherent problem with the old system: putting a human operator in a train who is only responsible for acting in an emergency will not work. Just like the recent self-driving car fatality. It wasn't a case where we knew and should have accepted the risk, it was a case where the crash caused us to understand that the prior risk assessment was wrong (because it assumed that a human operator could prevent these kinds of accidents, when that's just not going to happen). So it was appropriate to change operations.

Belatedly... yes, you are right, I haven't described any shift in the demand curve. But so what? I was responding to a suggestion that the reason there is a housing "issue" is that demand is relatively inelastic, and exceeds supply, which is also relatively inelastic. My point is simply that demand could actually be fairly elastic, and so we should not describe the problem in this simplified way, because if that's the case, increasing supply will not reduce price very much, and so increased housing won't solve many of the problems the YIMBY cause is hoping to address which are caused by high housing prices.

In the road analogy, congestion on roads is akin to a price--people are paying for trips with their time. I was trying to make the point that adding more roads doesn't bring down the "price" of a trip substantially, just like adding some more housing in SF may not bring down the price of housing substantially.

OP responded by noting that, in their view, having more people in SF is a good thing in and of itself. If you agree, then we have no argument (this is almost surely a result of building more housing). But if you think that adding more housing would be good because it would allow low-paid workers to live closer to where they work, or many of the other reasons advanced in this thread, my point is simply that the analysis of this policy proposal requires more nuance than the kind of N > M analysis OP was conducting.