Robert Reich: Warren is correct about busting up big tech

[Omaha Steve]

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Senator Elizabeth Warren announced Friday she wants to bust up giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon

ROBERT REICH
MARCH 16, 2019 11:29AM (UTC)
This originally appeared on Robert Reich's blog.

Presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren announced Friday she wants to bust up giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.

America’s first Gilded Age began in the late nineteenth century with a raft of innovations – railroads, steel production, oil extraction – but culminated in mammoth trusts run by “robber barons” like JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and William H.(“the public be damned”) Vanderbilt.

The answer then was to bust up the railroad, oil, and steel monopolies.

We’re now in a second Gilded Age — ushered in by semiconductors, software and the internet — which has spawned a handful of hi-tech behemoths and a new set of barons like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

The answer now is the same: Bust up the monopolies.

FULL story: https://www.salon.com/2019/03/16/warren-is-correct-about-busting-up-big-tech_partner/

[Ohiogal]

1. She is my favorite candidate

You go, Ms. Warren!

[Tetrachloride]

2. What parts to break where ?

Breakup is a nice feel good idea. But I have the same feeling about buying a house. Nice idea but in which neighborhood, what price and how to pay for it.

Practical ideas are welcome.

Amazon can be broken up geographically and according to some business which can be self-supporting.

For the other tech giants, I welcome ideas on break up strategies.

[comradebillyboy]

3. It is nothing more than a feel good slogan. What is the legal basis

to break up a corporation? Exactly what will breaking up those companies achieve? Has Warren proposed any specific legislation to accomplish her goals?

[Omaha Steve]

4. On breaking up tech companies

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/15/702707734/sen-elizabeth-warren-takes-longtime-fight-for-a-level-playing-field-to-2020-race

"Amazon operates this platform. That's cool. I'm for that. But Amazon does a second thing. They suck up information from every single transaction — information about buyer, information about the seller. And they then can use that information to make a decision to enter the marketplace themselves.

"So you're running Pet Pillows, and you're making a nice little business — you had a great idea. Amazon sees how profitable you're becoming. And Amazon says, 'Oh I know what we'll do. We'll become Amazon Pet Pillows.' Put it on that platform. And by the way, move you back to Page 6 and move Amazon Pet Pillows up to Page 1. The consequence of that is that Amazon can and often does destroy the competition on that marketplace and suck up more and more of the value for itself.

"And so my proposal is just to say, look, this is kind of like baseball. You can run the platform — that is, you can be the umpire — or you can have a team in the game — that is, you can be Pet Pillows or Amazon Pet Pillows. But you don't get to do both at the same time because that's not a level playing field for anyone else."

[comradebillyboy]

5. So I ask again what is the legal basis for her proposal? Where is her proposed legislation

that would allow her to break up all the banks and tech companies she want to punish?

[Omaha Steve]

6. Enforcing existing antitrust laws already on the books

Like Judge Green did to the Bell company in 1983. Same laws. Simple.