What's the Poli Board's stance on U.S. antitrust laws/policy?

Lack of antitrust laws = Mexico.

There is no debating this. Antitrust laws are absolutely essential for a society to thrive. Otherwise, see above.

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There is no debating this. Antitrust laws are absolutely essential for a society to thrive. Otherwise, see above.

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we desperately need them enforced here, specifically around telco. Wayyyyy too much concentration.

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It seems like this could be a divisive issue, even among conservatives.

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Monopolies are a market failure, therefore in theory I have no problem with intervention there.

There are many who believe monopolies are not possible without govt though. I don't agree, although it does happen that way often. There is also the argument that even monopolies topple in the medium & long-run due to constant innovation in tech and processes, and that government intervention isn't worth it overall although it may help in the short term.

Guess I don't have strong opinion on our antitrust system in particular- I'm basically ok with it.

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The vast majority of anti-trust lawsuits are from competitors, not consumers.

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Why would one expect to see consumers filing anti-trust suits in any significant numbers? If you know about particulars of our system that affirmatively harm true competition, please talk about them. My opinion here is certainly far from fully-informed or solidified.

No offense, but I should have known better than to click a Mises link. That was basically a tirade where that guy briefly characterized a bunch of cases as he saw fit, and complains about a few personalities. And of course, he doesn't talk about the laws in particular at all.

What he started to say about the shoe company with 1% market share being prohibited from buying another with the same share could have been interesting, and could have pointed to one of those particulars I asked about, but he glossed right past it without further explanation. That article to me read as nothing more than bunch of conclusory statements with a bit of shallow evidence- IOW, advocacy.

The IBM story suggests evidence for that medium-long-term futility argument I mentioned in tech, but he even glosses over what happened there. This all reeks strongly of handwaving, particularly when the ideological slant is obvious.

He might be right and all of those cases may in fact back him up, but with his overt bias, I don't trust the way he describes the cases and the article is not ultimately convincing.

That is why I asked if YOU could talk about it. The bit you said about prices tending to fall as market share is gained is... exactly the way market share is gained. That's not the problem- the problem is what the rational response of the firm becomes once it has that grip on the market.

Finally, and what makes me most suspicious of his argument, he claims that antitrust on the whole has "never done anything but render American industry less competitive while inflicting great harm on consumers."

No model, and nothing but anecdotes.

And this guy's an economist?

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For them to a point. If the anti-trust laws are to be applied, it has to be clear that 1) It's a true monopoly and 2) That monopoly is not competing against but inherently preventing other companies from entering into the market. And usually when that's the case, there are some federal laws that are propping them up.

In the case of Amazon, it's not a monopoly (for starters, I can go to B&N online and have). And there's nothing preventing anyone from competing against Amazon, although it's a tough compete against their distribution network.