Obama's Antitrust Chief Cracking Down Bigtime!!

[Omaha Steve]

http://broadcastunionnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/obamas-antitrust-chief-cracking-down.html

Sunday, July 26, 2009
Obama's Antitrust Chief Cracking Down Bigtime!!

President Obama’s top antitrust official and some senior Democratic lawmakers are preparing to rein in a host of major industries, including Broadcasting and Communication giants.

Christine A. Varney, the antitrust chief at the Justice Department, has begun examining complaints by the phone companies Verizon and AT&T that their rivals — major cable operators like Cablevision and Cox Communications — improperly prevent them from buying sports shows and other programs that the cable companies produce, industry lawyers said. She is also examining a settlement between Google and book publishers and authors to make more books available online.

The more aggressive antitrust policy was described in interviews with officials at the White House, the Justice Department, other agencies and Congress. It is a major policy reversal from the Bush administration, which did not prosecute cases in which some dominant companies engaged in potentially anticompetitive behavior, often because those officials maintained such behavior was not harmful to consumers.

Democrats have spent years trying to gain the support of businesses, and the policy changes under way may have long-term political implications for their party. Some companies would like to see more aggressive antitrust enforcement against their rivals, while others could be hurt by it.

Ms. Varney returned to government after working as a partner at Hogan and Hartson, a Washington law firm. During the Clinton administration she served in the White House as Cabinet secretary and a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission.

The antitrust division under Ms. Varney scrapped the Bush administration’s monopoly guidelines, which had sharply limited the government’s ability to prosecute large corporations that used their market dominance to elbow out competitors.

FULL story at link.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. K&R. Protecting the media conglomerates was the Repukes' reason for ...

delaying the hearings on the new FCC chairman for so long -- nominated in March, confirmed in late June.

[Sanity Claws]

2. Finally!

The Antitrust division should be looking at what's good for the public, not the particular players in an industry. Doesn't anyone believe in the public interest anymore?

[FatDave]

3. Paragraph 4

Democrats have spent years trying to gain the support of businesses, and the policy changes under way may have long-term political implications for their party. Some companies would like to see more aggressive antitrust enforcement against their rivals, while others could be hurt by it.

I'd really love to see the Democratic Party become the undisputed party of small business, and give a big "fuck you" to the giant corporations. Unfortunately, like everything else we want to accomplish, being able to accomplish that hinges on campaign finance reform.

Edit to add: A big "fuck you" to the giant corporations is probably the wrong wording. I've got no problem with big corps, so long as they can be kept from abusing their power. And for the last 3 decades or so, nobody's attempted to restrain them.