Whatever Happened to Antitrust?

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

Sadly, Congress is owned by the corporations. They should be required to wear shirts like NASCAR drivers with all their sponsors listed. Bot parties are currently controlled by the Wall Street branch of their parties. Public office is up for sale.

[William Thornton]

I see Robert Reisch is still at it.

Democrats controlled both houses and the presidency a few years ago. Blame them. I hear there's a lot of money sloshing around politics. Seems like the Clintons are getting their share from both home and abroad from gummits and corporations...but vote for Hil anyway.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

The "gummints and corporations abroad" charge about Hillary's fundraising is nothing more than rhetoric and subterfuge from campaigns on the GOP side which have accepted funds from foreign corporate interests and political factions. I haven't seen a report so far this cycle, but I'll bet the Arab shiek that gave a nice wad to Dub during his campaigns has a check with Jeb's name on it. And I'm sure that in addition to the hedge fund operator that Ted Cruz rushed to collect from after announcing his candidacy, the Canadian energy interests in which he is heavily invested, and which have a vested interest in getting the Keystone Pipeline done, are budgeting their contributions to his campaign. The Clinton campaign does have some heavy hitters, though she advocates for extensive campaign reform. Well, you have to get there to make changes, and right now, it takes money to get there. But she also has the largest by far, and one of the most loyal groups of small contributors.

I think there's too much money in the system now to bring about any meaningful change. We are an oligarchy, not a democratic republic any more. In many cases, laws don't really matter much because the culture, driven by money, runs right on past them. And it's really not a partisan issue, either, since if there were any inertia in a movement to shut this down and bring it back, there's been plenty of opportunity to do so. Perhaps a political movement can still make necessary change, but ultimately, it will take the complete unravelling, and collapse, of the system in order for real change to occur.

[ET]

The more regulatory hurdles you place in the business world, the more difficult you make it for start-ups or small companies to compete.

Big companies have deep pockets to absorb regulatory costs. Small companies do not.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

In a lot of places Walmart hasn't moved into the small towns they want to swallow. Instead, they often move just outside the towns, where they don't contribute taxes to municipal government, thereby placing their main-street competitors at an unfair tax disadvantage.

[Tim Bonney]

[ET]