  |
| Home | Rule of Reason Weblog | Initium | Philosophy | Campaigns | Take Action | Media Center | Contribute Online |
|
|
| Home | Rule of Reason Weblog | Initium | Philosophy | Campaigns | Take Action | Media Center | Contribute Online |
Philosophy
Campaigns
Media Center
Feedback
Contribute
Rule of Reason Archives:
|
Saturday, May 24, 2003 ::: Antitrust News: IUPUI's Confession The over-named Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis managed to earn itself a place in antitrust lore by turning itself in for "price-fixing": IUPUI has agreed to refund about $500,000 to more than 46,000 current and former students to avoid prosecution for alleged price-fixing at its bookstores. And I think we call all breath a sigh of relief now that those students are getting their $5 back. Of course, it would have been interesting to see whether the DOJ would have actually pursued the matter, given that it amounted to a $5 per student "injury." ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 11:28 PM | link
| donate |
Friday, May 23, 2003 ::: Politics: Addicted to Taxpayer Funds If you thought campaign finance "reform" was bad, consider an even more appalling concept: Taxpayer-subsidized advertising against candidates and ballot initiatives. And more appallingly, this is being pushed by Republicans: House Republicans are attempting to lift long-standing restrictions on a $1 billion anti-drug advertising program in a move that would allow the White House to use taxpayer funds to engage in partisan political activities and campaign against candidates or ballot measures favoring the legalization of drugs. The impetus for this legislation, H.R. 2086, came from a controversy that developed in last year's elections, when White House Drug Czar John Walters openly used taxpayer funds to campaign against medical marijuana initiatives in Nevada and other states. The Marijuana Policy Project, a group supporting the initiatives, filed a federal ethics complaint against Walters earlier this year, charging him with violating the Hatch Act, which broadly prohibits officeholders from using their position and government resources to campaign in state elections. Last month, Nevada's attorney general formally rebuked Walters, but then held he lacked the authority to prosecute a federal official. MPP's lobbying managed to postpone a committe vote on H.R. 2086, but that's not the end of the story. The legislation actually re-authorizes the Drug Czar's office itself, so it's likely to pass in some form. hopefully without the advertising provision. Ideally, of course, Congress would not vote to re-authorize the Drug Czar's office and the entire operation would pass into the night. There's simply no legitimate role for a government-funded lobbyist who goes around harassing states and citizens who so much as try to debate the issue of drug decrimininlization. And if you want to extrapolate a larger theme, consider the Drug Czar's campaigning a warning sign for what will happen if the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill is ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court. That bill restricts the First Amendment rights of citizens to engage in voluntary campaign activity. If the law survives, it will directly encourage further regulation in the form of taxpayer-financed campaigns. This means views not considered "mainstream" by government regulators will be shut out of the political process entirely. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 10:54 PM | link
| donate |
The Culture: You don't see that picture in the news Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old terrorist sympathizer from Olympia, Washington who was killed in an attempt to obstruct an Israeli bulldozer in March has become the new patron saint of Palestine, complete with internet shrines, the publishing of her e-mails to her family about her anti-Israeli activism and other such propaganda. Little Green Footballs reports on how Naomi Klein in the Toronto Globe and Mail has the audacity to compare Corrie with Private Jessica Lynch. ::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo
at 4:51 PM | link
| donate |
Health Care: Physicians Obtain Big Settlement Aetna Inc. Thursday broke ranks with other major health insurers, announcing a $470-million settlement of a suit filed by 700,000 doctors. Now, some parts of this settlement rub me the wrong way, particularly the $20 million Aetna will pay to create a "foundation to focus on eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care." I mean, I can tell you how to do that for free�restore capitalism to the health care market. But overall, it's a good thing the physicians were able to get one major insurer to break ranks and settle. When you think about it, this settlement�which deals most with conduct rather than damages�amounts to a collective bargaining effort by the nation's physicians. This lawsuit probably would not even be necessary if the FTC and Justice Department would simply get out of the way and allow physicians to collectively negotiate with insurers in the first place. After all, it's a lot harder for an insurance company to screw physicians out of their contractual rights when they're able to respond with a group boycott. But under the almighty antitrust laws, the doctors' needs are secondary to the FTC's policy preference for maintaining the monospony power of insurance companies. Still, the only long-term solution to the physicians' grievances is to put the government-sponsored HMO cartels out of business for good. This settlement is a good first step, but the doctors need to follow up, not just by maintaining their lawsuit against the remaining insurance companies, but by getting behind CAC's effort to exempt physicians from the antitrust laws. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 1:01 AM | link
| donate |
Rights & Reason: The Gender Wars Continue The Associated Press reports on a curious new Wisconsin law: Wisconsin fitness centers can bar men or women from joining their clubs under a bill Gov. Jim Doyle signed Monday that exempts the gyms from the state's anti-discrimination laws. I'm not sure what's worse: Robson using a specious sex discrimination claim to argue against a bill women asked for, or Governor Doyle tying the constitutional right of free association to some government-approved cause like promoting "physical fitness." ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 12:51 AM | link
| donate |
The infamous compact disc price-fixing settlement nears final approval: PORTLAND, Maine - A federal judge plans to rule next week on the proposed settlement of a music antitrust lawsuit that would put roughly $12.60 in the pockets of 3.5 million consumers. This case is first and foremost about enriching attorneys. No serious person would argue consumers suffered a legal injury because they chose to buy a CD at a given price. Whether or not the record companies agreed to set minimum prices is irrelevant, since it's their product to sell in the first place. This settlement effectively grants consumers a government-coerced rebate. The state attorneys general behind this case win on every front: they enrich their trial lawyer buddies, who in turn will support their future election campaigns; consumers get a warm fuzzy over the $12 and change they get for doing absolutely nothing; and a group of major companies lose a chunk of their hard-earned wealth, thus further eroding America's belief in capitalism as the proper basis of society. All in all, not a bad day's work if you're a parasitic state attorney general. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 12:43 AM | link
| donate |
Thursday, May 22, 2003 ::: Rights & Reason: Servicing Kerry John Kerry must be desperate if he's already playing the "public service" card: The United States would be strengthened at home and abroad by a fresh emphasis on public service, Senator John F. Kerry said yesterday, as he outlined a citizenship program whose hallmark would be a free public-college education for anyone who spends two years as a volunteer. Taking money from corporations that earn it to subsidize volunteers who are leeching off the government. Sounds like a fine way to instill a sense of perpetual dependency in our young. As blogger Joanne Jacobs opined about Kerry's proposal: "I envision eager youths and cheerful seniors marching off to their work assignments, singing patriotic songs. Only they're singing in Russian, for some reason." ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 8:00 PM | link
| donate |
Antitrust News: Pate Aces Confirmation Test I'll have more to say later today on the confirmation hearing of R. Hewitt Pate, the soon-to-be permanent head of the DOJ's Antitrust Division. For now, here's the Washington Post's take: R. Hewitt Pate yesterday moved closer to becoming the permanent chief of the Justice Department's antitrust division when he breezed through a Senate confirmation hearing. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 12:38 AM | link
| donate |
Wednesday, May 21, 2003 ::: The Culture: Danny Glover's Lethal Weapon Maybe it's just me, but it seems that despite general approval of MCI's release of actor Danny Glover as their pitchman, more than one commentator I've read does not approve of the use of boycott to oppose an ideological foe. It's as if hitting a guy in his livelyhood is seen as just too much of a stab. ::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo
at 12:51 PM | link
| donate |
Tuesday, May 20, 2003 ::: Here's a happy thought from our favorite assistant attorney general-to-be: Hewitt Pate, acting head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, says the new white-collar sentencing law means a price fixer previously eligible for a three-year sentence could now get 23 years if he is also convicted of obstructing justice. Pate says this should get the attention of potential corporate offenders: "Even very large fines imposed on corporations may be seen as a cost of doing business. Prison sentences are the single most effective deterrent." Prison sentences will do nothing to deter antitrust violations, since no businessman actually knows what conduct will run afoul of the law. Under Mr. Pate's watch, the antitrust laws are violated if two businessmen in the same field merely exchange price information. Few Americans think such behavior warants one day in jail, much less 23 years. But to be fair, Pate is not responsible for the new sentencing rules. You can thank a panicky post-Enron Congress for that. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 10:14 PM | link
| donate |
Antirust News: Verizon Wins a Round In the fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an antitrust appeal brought by telephone giant Verizon over a Second Circuit decision forcing the company to stand trial over antitrust charges brought by a competitor�s disgruntled customers. Today, >another antitrust case against Verizon went better for the company: A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a judge's dismissal of Cavalier Telephone's $635 million antitrust lawsuit against Verizon Virginia. There is an underlying conflict between the 1996 Telecommunications Act and the antitrust laws, the result of Congress� deliberate decision not to incorporate an antitrust exemption into the 1996 law. This has led to significant confusion among the federal courts on whether violating the 1996 law�which imposes a number of burdens on the �Baby Bells� to open their networks to competitors�can justify an antitrust claim. In 2000, the Seventh Circuit in Chicago dismissed an antitrust complaint against Ameritech, holding that the antitrust allegations were inseparable from the Telecommunications Act allegations, and that alone could not sustain the antitrust claim. This ruling was something of a judicial standard until the Second Circuit�s contradictory decision in the Verizon case now before the Supreme Court. In one sense, it would actually be better if Verizon loses its Supreme Court case, because then Congress would be forced to deal with the mess it created. The antitrust establishment already recognizes the potential disaster that would result if telecommunications companies were subject to antitrust suits for alleged violations of the 1996 Act. The Federal Trade Commission, in fact, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court calling for the Second Circuit�s decision to be reversed, citing concern that the lower court�s precedent would �improperly trivialize the antitrust laws� by encouraging parties to �seek antitrust remedies for ordinary commercial and regulatory disputes.� This is an odd charge coming from an agency that routinely pursues trivial matters, such as the ethics codes of private honorary societies. Of course, what the FTC really means to say is that only they should engage in such trivial pursuits; letting everyone in on the fun would simply paralyze our court system, and by extension our economy. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 10:07 PM | link
| donate |
Conservatives want to break up the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit because they consider the judges too liberal as a group. But the real reason the Ninth Circuit should be split in two was demonstrated Monday when eleven judges of that court voted to rehear a case en banc and yet failed to produce a majority. They needed 12 judges to grant rehearing. Given the 9th Circuit's large size�28 active judges at full strength�and the accompanying caseload, it's simply bad jurisprudence to keep the entire court intact, because even in cases where there's significant momentum for rehearing en banc, the sheer number of judges required makes such a task impossible in all but the most obvious of matters (i.e., those where there's an unavoidable conflict between the circuit's opinions.) KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge, with whom PREGERSON, REINHARDT, T.G. NELSON, HAWKINS, THOMAS, McKEOWN, WARDLAW, W. FLETCHER, FISHER and BERZON, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc: Taking Judge Kozinski's warning a step further, just imagine the potential lawsuits for reviewers and critics of all types if they were subject to "disparagement" lawsuits: an angry film executive sues Roger Ebert for giving her film a "thumbs down"; a restaurant owner files a defemation claim against a magazine reviewer who didn't like the fish; or, to take a real life example, a talk show host gets sued for doing a show on the potential dangers of tainted beef. The reason the law requires "actual malice" is to separate basic acts of free speech from actual torts. The courts must vigorously defend objective standards against efforts to water them down, rather than simply letting things proceed to trial in the hopes the jury will figure it out. Eugene Volokh, a former clerk for Judge Kozinski, discusses the substance of this case and Kozinski's dissent in this excellent post ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 12:28 AM | link
| donate |
Monday, May 19, 2003 ::: Antitrust News: Restraining Technology The Justice Department's Antitrust Division isn't opposed to technology, so long as it doesn't help producers exchange price information: The Department of Justice today said that it cleared a proposal by Texas-based BroChem Marketing Inc. (BroChem) to establish a computer database aimed at giving chemical distributors efficient access to the information they need when marketing chemicals sold to them by chemical producers. The Department approved the proposal after BroChem agreed to make substantial modifications to address the Department's competitive concerns. In other words, it's okay to have a database so customers can access price information, so long as producers can't learn the prices their competitors are charging. Now in the real world, exchanging information is not a crime. But in the world of antitrust, anything that could be used as a "restraint of trade" is presumed illegal. Here's another way to look at it: If I download information off the Internet on how to build a bomb, that's legal so long as I don't act upon that information and actually build a bomb. But if I'm a chemical manufacturer, I'm banned from even asking my competitor what he charges for his product, even if I never act upon that information. In the DOJ's mind, there's no divorcing thought from action, and mere acts of speech are considered overt acts for purposes of labelling behavior legal or illegal. The other interesting thing about this story is that the DOJ actually reviews business practices in advance. According to the DOJ: "Under the Department's business review procedure, an organization may submit a proposed action to the Antitrust Division and receive a statement as to whether the Division would challenge the action under the antitrust laws." Well isn't that a wonderful policy? Again, in the real world, prior restraints of this kind are frowned upon, if not outright forbidden. But in the antitrust world, businessmen may act only by government permission. Incidentally, "Acting" Assistant Attorney General Pate has been nominated to take over the Antitrust Division permanently. The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a prefunctory confirmation hearing this Wednesday morning. at 10 a.m. I plan on attending, so if you're in the neighborhood of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, stop by and say hello. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 11:50 PM | link
| donate |
Foreign Policy: A Coalition of the (Constitutionally) Unwilling The Bush administration is now backing an international anti-tobacco treaty: The announcement represented an about-face for the administration, which said in March it could not accept several key provisions of the draft accord related to packaging, labeling, advertising and sales, among other things. Interestingly, Secretary Thompson never said his initial constitutional reservations were unjustified, only that the U.S. wouldn't press the issue for the sake of preserving the treaty. The message I take from that is that the Bush administration is putting international popularity ahead of constitutional principle. That's an interesting reversal from the administration's war policy. Ironically, this also sounds like the peer pressure argument that teenagers use to get their friends to smoke: You know it's wrong, but everyone else is doing it, so why don't you give it a try? ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 7:15 PM | link
| donate |
Foreign Policy: Zionism and Racism Yesterday in Washington, a group of self-proclaimed Jewish and Christian Zionists held a "leadership summit" to discuss the state of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Several speakers commented on the source of Israel's legitimacy: Gary Bauer, president of American Values and a Republican presidential contender in 2000, declared, "The land of Israel was originally owned by God. Since He was the owner, only He could give it away. And He gave it to the Jewish people." And the last thing God wants is Muslims on His chosen people's land: Calling the peace proposal "a Satanic road map," Earl Cox, executive producer and host of Front Page Jerusalem, a radio program, asked, "Do any of you believe [Palestinian leader] Yasser Arafat will embrace traditional family values? There will be a mosque on all the holy sites. How can anyone who's a Jew or a Christian support such a proposal?" The sad thing about this is Israel doesn't need to resort to mysticism to defend its right to exist. It certainly can do without the overt bigotry. The Israelis have done a remarkable job over the sixty-plus years taking a barren wasteland and converting it into a modern state that lives according to quasi-Western values (there is still that slight problem separating synagogue and state.) Folks like Bauer do an enormous disservice by, in effect, dismissing Israel's right to exist as nothing more than shifty prophecy. The Bible is certainly a great and important cultural work of mankind, but it is not a land deed. And if mainstream Israeli society chooses to defends its right to exist on grounds of "God says it's ours," then the Palestinians will have been given an opening, however unearned, to seize the moral high ground. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 7:02 PM | link
| donate |
Antitrust News: SBC Appeal Denied From the San Antonio Business Journal: The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by SBC Communications Inc. involving a $20 million judgment for violation of Oklahoma's antitrust laws, according to a Dow Jones news report. You have to love the fake horror at the core of antitrust cases like this one. What I mean is this: Were SBC's competitors legitimately surprised that their opponent would actually seek contracts to restrict their entry into the market? If they were in SBC's position, they would have done precisely the same thing. ::: posted by Skip Oliva
at 6:47 PM | link
| donate |
Rights & Reason: Kentucky Bar Rewrites Ad Rules Law.com reports on new regulations the Kentucky Bar seeks to impose on attorney advertising. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that outright bans on lawyer advertising are unconstitutional, every state has grappled with what lawyers may say about themselves.I think the Kentucky Bar is committing more then just prior restraint. It is placing attorney advertising in the same regulatory ghetto that the commercial speech doctrine places regular commercial advertising. Why is it that speech that advances one's political interests is protected by the First Amendment, but speech that advances one's economic interests is not? I think the real question ought to be, "where is the victim and how was he harmed." Fraud statues alone provide actual victims with protection and redress from false or exaggerated claims. Rather than create paternalistic regulations that assume idiocy on the part of common man, bar associations ought to instead acknowledge that the courts are more than able to protect the people from errant lawyers. Instead of acting like advertising czars, bar associations would be better off instilling in their members an appreciation for the principle of individual rights. ::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo
at 5:13 PM | link
| donate |
Rights & Reason: Virginia's Latest Threat to Reproductive Rights George Mason University student and GMU Objectivist Club member Jim Woods dissects the latest attack on reproductive rights to come out of Virginia at Initium. ::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo
at 11:31 AM | link
| donate |
Sunday, May 18, 2003 ::: Muhammad Al-Shibani, in his May 16th ArabNews.com article "Iraq War: The Agenda Is No Longer Hidden", writes that "Arab governments and peoples are united in their abilities to forget. They have forgotten and abandoned a major Arab country which has now fallen under foreign occupation." ::: posted by Renee Messier
at 12:09 PM | link
| donate |
|
|
Copyright
� 2003 The Center for
the Advancement of Capitalism. All Rights Reserved.
The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism |
