No bailout without busting! As we, the taxpayers, continue to prop up failed companies, a new definition of anti-trust is coming into focus. If a company is so critical to the country that the government is compelled to bail it out to keep it from failing, then that company has, de facto, anti-competitive power in the marketplace. In exchange for saving the company, we should insist the company be broken up, or given the status of a franchised monopoly and regulated. For example, if we bailout the U. S. auto industry, break the companies into smaller firms; or concede they are a franchised monopoly on grounds of economies of scale and regulate them. Obviously, our standards of trust-busting have failed our markets, leaving the consumer both paying the price and holding the bag.
November 10, 2008
