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This is a great GAO report from Jan 2023. It dispels an often-asserted claim that the US doesn't need two antitrust enforcement agencies.
Besides the argument ignoring the FTC's history & purpose, both agencies can clearly divide cases for maximum enforcement!
congratulations everyone, the U.S. is the 3rd most dangerous country to drive in with a traffic fatality rate of 12.93 per 100,000
I say we celebrate by rushing super heavy, absurdly large vehicles with insane acceleration and half-baked automation tech to market without adequate safety testing
I am excited to announce the release of two law review articles on the Robinson-Patman Act.
These papers detail the history of this misunderstood law & how reviving its enforcement facilitates a fairer economy.
Paper 1: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4648660]
Life achievement unlocked. My first citation in a federal court decision.
I'm lately thinking about information in nutritional terms.
Feed your brain mostly junk food - social media & insta-hot takes that require zero work/quality from the creator - and you will degrade your ability to think straight and maintain mental sanity.
Feed your brain information that is high quality - ie. nuanced, honest & took real work/care to produce - and it will expand cognition.
Your brain is a physical organ - if you keep choosing to feed it a diet of poison, you will destroy it.
O'Connor's appointment to SCOTUS was important and saving Roe with Planned Parenthood v. Casey was noble given her conservative bent.
But her jurisprudence on antitrust was bad. Bill Kovacic gives a good overview of her impact in the article below.
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/417981/kovacic1supremecourtpapersantitrustmagazine2006.pdf
The Office of the Maryland Attorney General recently announced that the state is actively investigating resale price maintenance (RPM) violations under Maryland’s state antitrust law. Maryland’s investigations are notable as it is the only US state with a state law that explicitly condemns minimum RPM agreements as per se unlawful.
Between 2010 and 2019, US firms spent 6.3 trillion in stock buybacks and 17.3 trillion on mergers.
That's nearly 24 trillion of wasted spending that (even a third of this value) could have gone to enhance productive capacity, research and development, and worker wages.
Karl Bode
David Sirota