I can't help thinking that a lot of anticompetitive cases will be won outside the US now that the US is in all-out trade war with the rest of the universe.
> The US has shown absolutely no willingness to carry out antitrust cases the past many years
Lina Khan's FTC brought cases again Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Mastercard, and more. They also prevented mergers (consolidations) in a lot of different industries. Could they have accomplished more? Certainly, but they did certainly did display a willingness to bring antitrust cases.
It does feel like Lina Khan's FTC was much more willing to play the part in the adversarial system. Don't necessarily agree with every decision but was surprising to see how willing the FTC was to jump into things and make unpopular (to stakeholders at least) decisions
One of the main problems in the US is that the US has an extremely broad antitrust statute:
> Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is
hereby declared to be illegal.
> Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed
guilty of a felony, ...
It was passed in the era of robber barons and meant to be a strong hammer against anti-competitive practices. But because it was so broad, the courts kept chipping away at it over time through reinterpretation because by its terms it would prohibit a lot of things the courts didn't really want to get involved in policing, or they just made bad calls in years when the Court's majority wasn't that smart.
Meanwhile monopolists generally have a lot of money to pay expensive lawyers, so they structure their activities to fit within the loopholes the courts have carved out over the years and that makes it hard for an administration to hold them to account even when they have the will to do it.
Hyper-partisanship also makes this worse, because if everyone is convinced the other side is pure evil then they're going to try to undo anything the other party was trying to do without even considering what it is, which isn't compatible with long-term prosecutions that would have to span administrations.
The sentiment i picked up from HN is that she was more of an activist leader with a grudge against big corporations and that this clouded her judgement. The cases she bought were insubstantial and fell apart. She's a bad poster child for what the FTC should be.
I don't know, but that isn't what i'm talking about. She pursued weak cases, and overstepped her authority. she should have spent more time constructing a better case, or not bringing them in the first place. As it was she accomplished less then she hoped and wasted everyones time and cost the taxpayer money.
> she should have spent more time constructing a better case, or not bringing them in the first place.
I disagree.
As to the former, the case is what the case is: obviously everyone would like to construct the strongest possible case.
As to the latter, the joke about career prosecutors only bringing cases they know they can win to pad their record comes to mind. In a regulatory role, IMHO prosecutors should be as aggressive as the law allows them to be, especially against the largest companies. It's difficult to claim that Google can't afford to mount a vigorous defense for itself.
> i thought it was strategic - to ensure global dominance in tech
I don't like the way this is phrased because it nearly implies that doing this is an advantage to the US population.
"Preventing foreign dominance in tech" is plausibly a legitimate goal. Preventing a foreign tech monopoly is a good thing. But the assumption that this can only be achieved by a domestic one is the fallacy. A domestic monopoly is still a disadvantage compared to a competitive market with a multitude of domestic companies.
Unless you're an authoritarian that wants to leverage the monopoly for the purposes of e.g. censorship. But then you're an enemy whose goal is to harm even the domestic population.
Why do you think Windows, MS Office, MSSQL, Azure, and other MS applications are used extensively in the federal government?
Its to prop up American businesses, and as a form of corporate welfare.
We see this a lot in various vertical industries. The USG could pay and make it free, but they would rather prop up proprietary software as long as its US based.
> Its to prop up American businesses, and as a form of corporate welfare.
You say that like it's an actual policy goal. You don't think it's because those companies donate to the campaigns of the politicians doing it? It's corruption.
I do. There's reasons for that from previous employment that would indicate that as a policy goal.
Red Hat is also technically accepted by US Gov. Technically. But you need to use? They're bypassing all sorts of security shit with ongoing POAMs and doing their own thing.
And yes, I would agree that its corruption as well.
Getting it written down as a policy goal in formal documents or training materials for mid-level bureaucrats is a mechanism of action for the corruption.
It's a matter of whether it would happen even if nobody was writing a check, and it still seems like the answer is no.
A great case example of this corruption is the following:
AC-2 : Kerberos/LDAP/DNS/Shibboleth CAN suffice, but auditors will absolutely look for Active Directory. Most auditors don't even know how to prove Linux this way.
CM-6 : this is just a roundabout way of saying 'do you support GPOs? '. Sure, Puppet can work, as can on-login bash scripts stored on a Windows AD server. But why use Linux clients when you're already using Windows AD?
Now, nowhere in NIST actually says 'MS Windows'. Its just that the control is worded in such a way that proving it on Windows is easy, and Linux is very hard to impossible to prove.
There was a single exception to vendor agnoticism, and that was the requirement of McAfee security software. I can't find the control offhand, but now its called Trellix.
A domestic monopoly might not be the only way to prevent a foreign monopoly, but it is a guaranteed way so it makes sense to let it proliferate.
Look at the state of the industry vertically. There's exactly 1 company that can produce the cutting-edge chip fabs, ASML. TSMC utterly dominates using the fabs to actually produce the chips. That's already 2 foreign-controlled horizontal monopolies on which the rest of the industry relies.
If you want any sort of control in the industry (and not be bullied for access like we do to China), you need to be the biggest buyer / operator of those chips. And so we encourage US mega-tech companies buying up all the GPUs, so those other monopolies aren't used to cripple us (or at least they'd cripple the whole chain if they tried).
> A domestic monopoly might not be the only way to prevent a foreign monopoly, but it is a guaranteed way so it makes sense to let it proliferate.
It isn't in any way guaranteed, and you just listed an example of it failing. Intel used to be the world leader in fabs and now it's TSMC, because that's what happens if you let the domestic market consolidate until the incumbents feel they can rest on their laurels and then a foreign competitor throws down the gauntlet.
> If you want any sort of control in the industry (and not be bullied for access like we do to China), you need to be the biggest buyer / operator of those chips.
Or you need an actual diverse competitive market so that that sort of bullying doesn't work for anyone.
Suppose the GPU market had a dozen or more companies with significant market share and four of them were in the US. Then it doesn't matter where the other ones are, nobody can deprive the US of GPUs because the US can always get them from the US vendors or have them increase production.
It would mean that the US can't do the bullying anymore because then others could buy from the non-US vendors, but what is the rest of the world doing not causing that to happen on purpose?
It's necessary to distinguish between the things that happen and the things we would prefer to happen as citizens if we want to get from one to the other.
I just read the prospectus investment strategy, and it looks like it trails the trades by up to 30-45 days? Seems like the majority of that upside might be gone by then, no? They explicitly list that in Reporting Delay Risk.
Also I didn't see any info on whether the fund manager can beat hft et al to the punch once disclosure happens.
It would interesting to know how it performs relative to other index funds even with the delay risk. A few people have been saying Nancy is getting better returns than Warren Buffet
Big Tech isn't exactly Trump's base. Trump collects wins[1] for his base at the expense of his non-supporters. Not sure how this makes Trump "not smart".
1 - Regardless of what you think of tariffs, his base largely considers them wins.
Trump collects wins for himself and his base flip-flops along with him and his every whim.
It's not about smart or not, he doesn't care beyond what he can get from it. He doesn't care about any retaliations and he knows he has his base eating outta the palm of his hand. Smart doesn't play into any of it, it's not needed. The Project state takes care of the smarts part of the administration
I strongly doubt that US-Australia trade relationships played any role in the judges decision on this case (and, of course, everything else in this case occurred before Trump was even re-elected). Judges aren't in a role where they are negotiating, or particularly care about, international trade at all. Judges are intentionally separated from the political wing of the state in just about every western democracy.
In some ways you are probably right, however do not discount the fact that America’s relative weakness has opened up avenues for this type of action that otherwise would have likely not happened out of internal pressure due to concerns about that relationship, external pressure on the government to scuttle these kinds of efforts, and/or general lack of alternatives to the American market.
Especially with the rise and seeming power of BRICS there is surely a sense that the pressure is a bit off from the USA, America will be unwilling to add on to pressure against Australia that is close to core BRICS, etc.
Do not discount the rising awareness of the real weakness the “American” empire finds itself in suddenly.
I agree with this. I think potentially someone may have suggested the federal court sit on the decision until the 10% tariff was confirmed a couple of weeks ago. Mostly because the announcement pre Tariff might have resulted in a long Truth Social post from DT followed by a knee jerk reaction. But I highly doubt it would factor into the decision.
Australia is also in the process of regulating platforms and I'd expect it to end up a little closer to Europe/Japan in the next couple of years anyway. They will watch to see what loopholes Apple/Google exploit and try to deal with that in the regulations upfront.
Important context for anyone not aware is that Australia is one of the few countries that US runs a large trade surplus with.
Lol at you believing courts or judges don't follow their countries dictates. Most of the time such cases would be routed to a judge that will do what is asked without making any noise.
Where I come from, there is no need to route cases. I used to believe in Western justice systems, but as I've grown older, I've come to realize that much of the corruption money from Asia, Africa, and South America is parked in these same Western countries. Many of the corrupt officials who have fled their home countries are now living in these same Western countries, and in many cases, their families have been granted citizenship. The behavior of the ruling elite in Western countries tells me all I need to know about their justice systems. It seems that a large portion of the population has willingly, maybe unknowingly, put on blinders to their own countries' systems and behaviors.
Judges don't get elected in the US (except for some state and local judges) and yet the US is a superpower. I don't think judicial selection plays a major factor in determining superpower status.
Can you name any country that has ever been a superpower where judges (of the national judiciary if it has separate judiciaries for constituent parts from the national one) were predominantly democratically elected?
I do think this is a great counterexample, but it is largely a bug in the law specific to patents that was closed in 2017. Even then, IIUC on appeal your case would still be randomized.
I think what might happen is all these other markets are going to end up “playing fair” while the US remains an abused ecosystem- because it’ll be the only place left Apple and Google can push their advantage.
That was the ‘old’ DOJ, Tim Apple was in the Oval Office a few days ago to pay tribute in gold… it got them exemptions from tariffs and I wouldn’t be surprised if the DOJ dropped this case soon.
Grovel? I thought it was making fun of the POTUS. What made it even funnier was that it'd go right over DT's head. Excellent messaging- pleases the wanna be monarch, shows investors that he's willing to work with any country's heads to ensure the success of Apple, and makes a mockery of the office with such a gaudy display.
> Cook presented Trump with an engraved piece of glass designed by a former Marine Corps corporal who works at Apple. The base of the glass plaque was made of 24 karat gold, Cook said, as he set it up on the Resolute Desk in front of Trump. “You’ve been a great advocate for American innovation and manufacturing,” Cook told Trump. Apple, Cook said, is “going to keep making investments right here in America and we’re going to keep hiring in America.”
> the actual publicized investment plans are barely any different
On the contrary.
> The base of the glass plaque was made of 24 karat gold
My recollection, which may be way off, is Biden preferred fine grade silver dinner ware and free Uber passes...
It is amazing how quickly centralized power can not just become deeply and openly corrupt, but operate free of credible challenge. The centralization in this case being years of tightened coordination within one party, acting on all three branches. The internal leverage created by such processes provides a natural habitat for final consolidation by an opportunistic individual.
And suddenly the standards of governance are unrecognizable. The unsurprising result of successfully centralized power.
It has long occurred to me that by not having limits on party power (seat limits? term limits? Cross state limits? Cross branch limits?), the US Constitution left a huge power coordination loop hole, free of checks and balances.
That loophole holds up an eternal carrot of legal one party rule. Temporary one party rule in theory, but the constant drive for that grinds down bipartisanship and respect for any shared power.
No one party should ever have a dominant majority of congress, much less dominate all three branches.
At that point, in-party incentives overwhelmingly push party solidarity above any other issue.
(Another great side effect of party seat/term limits would be the breakup up of the party duopoly which even when "working" lowered the bar for each party to the floor, i.e. neither party needed to do much but not be the latest disappointing incumbent. And a duopoly is incapable of providing choices reflecting a complex reality. They are reduced to competing via team identification/shibboleths.
Lots of ways to achieve that. I am not going to pick here. That’s an interesting discussion in its own right. But simple examples that demonstrate limits: parties can only operate in 10 states or less (for congressional candidates). Or parties can only hold 30% or less of congressional seats in either house. Etc.
In the short run, it enforces bipartisanship,
In the long run, it kills long term incentives to attempt to achieve single party rule temporarily, permanent or effectively permanent. Which has been a very destructive incentive driving tremendous organized partisan efforts. (Even when not achieved, the pursuit kills bipartisanship and competition on policy, in pursuit of a lasting hold on power.)
And it would open up elections to more parties, more choices, and force more flexibility, adaptation and collaboration from all parties, instead of more two party polarization and entrenchment.
Limits on parties like you discuss are a dumb idea, because they are trivially evaded by factional alliances that aren't formally parties.
OTOH, you wouldn't even need to have a reason to consider them if you simply had an electoral system that didn't lead to national duopoly frequently consisting of regional monopolies, e.g., if the legislative branch was elected in multiseat districts with a system structurally providing roughly proportional results, like Single Transferrable Vote.
The social technology of democracy has advanced since the 18th Century, but the most important parts of that advance, have been ignored in the US, at least at the federal level and statewide levels, though some local use is seen.
Maybe, but if Trump wanted this to go away he's had a good 7 months to make that happen and he got a million dollars cash gift for his inauguration, certainly worth more than a gold bar trophy stand. This antitrust stems from a 2019/2020 congressional investigation into "Big Tech" that occurred during his first term too.
That investigation in 2019/2020 came from the Democrat-majority House Judiciary - not from the DOJ. The DOJ was likely investigating in the background but nothing of public substance actually happened until 2024 when they filed suit. And looking at the docket now, every one of the DOJ attorneys who had filed that initial suit in 2024 have left the DOJ.
Several states joined the suit so things very well may continue but the stench of corruption is pretty thick on everything the current DOJ touches.
Compared to Europe, the US has significantly more neutral enforcement of laws for domestic prize jewels. The EU, by contrast, barely enforces its own provisions (such as anti-bribery law) against shining European stars.
If you really want to talk aviation, Boeing pled guilty and settled and got fined billions of dollars and had to change safety practices. Compared to Airbus which was well known to be a major briber abroad and was protected in the EU until the US eventually brought FCPA action after it got ridiculously out of hand and EU regulators did nothing.
The administration has indicated that the EU shakedown efforts are going to be addressed. It's reasonable to assume that EU crown jewels like LVMH are going to be subject to a reciprocal shakedown.
