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Thread: Rand Paul's Audacious Antitrust Proposal

  1. #1

    Rand Paul's Audacious Antitrust Proposal

    Rand Paul's Audacious Antitrust Proposal

    BY LOGAN ALBRIGHT
    March 30, 2016

    Antitrust law doesn’t get a lot of attention these days. People tend to take for granted that monopolies are bad, and that government needs to intervene in markets to prevent them, as well as any other behavior that could be considered anticompetitive or bad for consumers. Hence, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and various other agencies have been charged with enforcing antitrust laws without any serious scrutiny from the people.

    Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), however, is not content to let the status quo go unchallenged. His new bill, entitled the Anti-Trust Freedom Act, would dismantle 125 years of antitrust law in a single paragraph, making all voluntary economic agreements between individuals or groups of individuals legal notwithstanding longstanding statutes like the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914.

    The implications of such legislation would be huge. So much so that we probably can’t fully anticipate all of them. The question is, would the results be good for consumers and the economy, or bad? Conventional wisdom holds that antitrust laws prevent evil monopolists from abusing and exploiting consumers, but there are plenty of reasons to doubt that this is actually the case, and to suppose that, in fact, antitrust laws do more harm than good.

    ...
    read more:
    http://www.freedomworks.org/content/...trust-proposal



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  3. #2
    Bravo, open the discussion.
    "The Patriarch"

  4. #3
    Interesting....

    Much historical relevance to changing trust law in this country. Big changes are afoot.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  5. #4
    I hope some journalists press Cruz to take a position on this.

  6. #5

  7. #6
    I take it that this has zero chance of passing.
    Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. -Douglas Hofstadter

    Life, Liberty, Logic

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Crashland View Post
    I take it that this has zero chance of passing.
    so does end the fed but at least we made it newsworthy

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

    Awareness is the Root of Liberation Revolution is Action upon Revelation

    'Resistance and Disobedience in Economic Activity is the Most Moral Human Action Possible' - SEK3

    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...


  9. #8
    If we end the antitrust laws, some bankers might get together and form a monopoly on printing currency.
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

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    The Income Tax Is An Excise, And Excise Taxes Are Privilege Taxes

    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    If we end the antitrust laws, some bankers might get together and form a monopoly on printing currency.
    You can always trade with me for some real money .

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    You can always trade with me for some real money .
    I think I'll take my chances with the Jews.
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

    Short Income Tax Video

    The Income Tax Is An Excise, And Excise Taxes Are Privilege Taxes

    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    I think I'll take my chances with the Jews.
    I know a guy in Tel Aviv I used to buy some US gold coins from , Banker , I can see if he is still around , I dunno if he is Jewish , I never asked .

  14. #12
    Aw $#@! I was hoping he was going to remove the exemptions the medical industry has.
    In New Zealand:
    The Coastguard is a Charity
    Air Traffic Control is a private company run on user fees
    The DMV is a private non-profit
    Rescue helicopters and ambulances are operated by charities and are plastered with corporate logos
    The agriculture industry has zero subsidies
    5% of the national vote, gets you 5 seats in Parliament
    A tax return has 4 fields
    Business licenses aren't a thing
    Prostitution is legal
    We have a constitutional right to refuse any type of medical care

  15. #13
    Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), however, is not content to let the status quo go unchallenged. His new bill, entitled the Anti-Trust Freedom Act, would dismantle 125 years of antitrust law in a single paragraph, making all voluntary economic agreements between individuals or groups of individuals legal notwithstanding longstanding statutes like the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914.


    The implications of such legislation would be huge. So much so that we probably can’t fully anticipate all of them. The question is, would the results be good for consumers and the economy, or bad? Conventional wisdom holds that antitrust laws prevent evil monopolists from abusing and exploiting consumers, but there are plenty of reasons to doubt that this is actually the case, and to suppose that, in fact, antitrust laws do more harm than good.
    Indeed they do.

    Monopolies/cartels are impossible in a free market.

    Anti-trust law is nothing but a bludgeon with which a more politically connected company can attack a less politically connected competitor.

    ...as it was designed to be, by the politically connected companies who lobbied for its creation.

    In short, anti-trust law is actually anti-competitive, and we'd all be better off without it.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by idiom View Post
    Aw $#@! I was hoping he was going to remove the exemptions the medical industry has.
    The medical industry isn't cartelized because of voluntary agreements.

    It's cartelized because of a whole series of governmental interventions:

    -ban on imported drugs
    -FDA approval for new drugs
    -no inter-state insurance
    -licensing requirements
    -difficulty of accreditation of medical schools

    And, the big one, medicare/medicaid, which makes the government (i.e. a price-insensitive buyer in thrall to the big politically connected sellers) the single largest buyer in the market.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by jct74 View Post
    ,,.The implications of such legislation would be huge.
    Would they be huge, or would they be yuge?

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    The medical industry isn't cartelized because of voluntary agreements.

    It's cartelized because of a whole series of governmental interventions:

    -ban on imported drugs
    -FDA approval for new drugs
    -no inter-state insurance
    -licensing requirements
    -difficulty of accreditation of medical schools

    And, the big one, medicare/medicaid, which makes the government (i.e. a price-insensitive buyer in thrall to the big politically connected sellers) the single largest buyer in the market.
    Yeah I would love an anti-trust based attack on the govt interventions
    In New Zealand:
    The Coastguard is a Charity
    Air Traffic Control is a private company run on user fees
    The DMV is a private non-profit
    Rescue helicopters and ambulances are operated by charities and are plastered with corporate logos
    The agriculture industry has zero subsidies
    5% of the national vote, gets you 5 seats in Parliament
    A tax return has 4 fields
    Business licenses aren't a thing
    Prostitution is legal
    We have a constitutional right to refuse any type of medical care



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  20. #17
    Rand Paul wants to legalize cooperation

    By Logan Albright, contributor
    April 28, 2016, 11:30 am

    There's an old economics joke about three guys sitting in a jail cell together, asking what the others are in for. The first one says, "I'm in for price gouging. My prices were too high." The second guy says, "I'm in for predatory pricing. My prices were too low." The third guy says, "I'm in for price fixing. I charged the same as everyone else."

    This sounds absurd, because it is. Antitrust laws make all sorts of pricing behavior illegal, usually based on arbitrary criteria. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) thinks this is silly, and has introduced legislation that would essentially roll back more than a century of antitrust laws. His point is that voluntary economic transactions, where free people get together and choose to cooperate, shouldn't be prohibited by the U.S. government. That just doesn't make any sense from either a liberty, or an economic, point of view.

    In reality, while antitrust laws seem well-intentioned, they actually cause a lot of problems that make it harder for people to compete or to innovate. Let's take a look at a few of these.

    ...
    read more:
    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blo...ze-cooperation

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Monopolies/cartels are impossible in a free market.
    This is true, but the United States is far from a free market and is awash in monopolies/cartels. Rand has to keep that in mind when talking about this legislation and needs to couple it with other bills that attack the laws that have created our fascist big business cartels in the first place. Otherwise it comes across as, "we need to let these giant monopolies that collude with the government to screw you over even more power".



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