Comcast to Buy Time Warner Cable in $44.2 Billion All-Stock Deal, Says CNBC

[Swede Atlanta]

24. There goes competition.......

unless the DoJ grows some cajones and stops this.

Successive DOJs have demonstrated either they didn't learn anything from history or they have been bought and sold by corporate interests.

The Sherman Anti-Trust law was passed in 1890 at the height of the "gilded age" when monopolies and anti-competitive practices dominated American commerce. The big players were Carnegie, Rockefeller, JP Morgan and the like. Teddy Roosevelt who assumed the Presidency after the assassination of President McKinley in 1901 did all he could to challenge and break up the cartels, monopolies and anti-competitive agreements.

The last time there was any real major block or action against monopoly was the breakup of the Bell system. The DoJ started a lawsuit to break up the monopoly in 1974 but it took 10 years before the divestiture was mandated in 1984.

Since then the DoJ generally rubber-stamps anything business wants. They might require a few small concessions such as the NW-DL, CO-UA and recent AA-US mergers. But in general from allowing banks to swallow one another to airlines, etc. the DoJ seems to think bigger is better.

Comcast's acquisition of Time Warner is bad for consumers. It will further consolidate power to the point there are really only 2-3 players.

While the time of the robber barons found in some cases total monopolies, it was also a time when businesses entered into collusive agreements with one another to push out competition. Rockefeller's Standard Oil did deals with the major railroads to charge a premium for the transportation of oil of any of his competitors.

We need real competition not continued concentration.