Good to see the Beats acquisition by Apple back in the headlines... the real and/or imagined controversy was starting to quiet down.
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EU Regulators Expected to Decide on Apple's Acquisition of Beats By July 30
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"Why did we make a movie about the French Revolution?" - Kirsten Dunst, American Actress and Convention Panel Member, Marie Antoinette (2006)
Because god forbid that a private company allocate their capital in the way that they think would best benefit them and therefore their customers. At least I'm not paying for that mess too...
"and therefore their customers"?? Seriously? "Therefore"? You actually think anything that benefits a company benefits it's customers? Yeah, that's how capitalism works...
Yeah, I'm sure bad headphones are worse than racists propagating their hate. Nothing is compelling you to run out and grab a pair of these "muddy mess" headsets, so I'm not sure why you care. I don't. Derail elsewhere.
The ones incessantly crying racist is what has watered the expression down into meaninglessness. Now about those headphones ...
I am angry and confused about how things work in the real world!
Man, the 21st century is going to be very, very disappointing for you.
Nope. Another swing and a miss.
That is true if consumers have alternatives that they can use to influence the erring party. With a monopoly or lack of alternatives, that alignment between customers needs and products offered goes off the rails. Think of the cable industry, wireless networks and entertainment industry as prime examples in the US.
While Apple Beats may not be risking a monopoly anytime soon, just assuming that companies will align with customers out of good faith is not tenable. Regulations have a role in keeping enough players active in the market to not enable any one to abuse their customers to kingdom come.
You mean you miss the idea of a person you never met, which you created based on things you read on the internet. And yes, your Steve would never do things like use illegal drugs. Except when he did.
ol·i·gar·chy noun \ˈä-lə-ˌgär-kē, ˈō-\
: a country, business, etc., that is controlled by a small group of people
: the people that control a country, business, etc.
: government or control by a small group of people
What does the oil industry have to do with Comcast now owning 75%+ of the cable market in the United States? They don't have a monopoly, but they do have an oligarchy, with more lobbyists thus control thus dictating policy (ex. internet censorship, price gauging, control of available media, etc)
We called it an oligopoly when I did economics many many moons ago.
What makes you think that this would be any different than with GE and Honeywell?
1.) The right of a company to control assets IT owns is now dependent on what is good for people who do NOT own the asset. It belongs to the company and you have NO right to FORCE a company do do anything with it. If you want to FORCE them to charge less, that is theft. You have NO right to dictate what price you will pay for your rent, your groceries, etc. If you did have that right, then the assets wouldn't actually belong to the company, they would belong to the voters at whatever price they voted they would pay, and THEY would control the assets through the FORCE of their government. That's fascism. It's evil.
2.) Prices do NOT *always* go up with the presence of a monopoly. If apple wanted to start charging 100% 200% 300% etc margins for their beats headphones, then what would stop a competitor from being created to compete with then at the 50% 150% 250% margin price point? and then why not a 25% 75% and 150% competitor after that? IF a company with a "monopoly" was stupid enough to think it could control prices, the margins would become thick enough to the point where it would attract as many competitors as would be needed to put the "abusive" company out of existence. I would challenge anyone to tell me how a company with a monopoly would be able to FORCE high prices on its customers, and keep competitors out of its market, (without the use of the government banning competitors from that space, which is the only time when true monopolies actually exist) and when there are no legitimate examples, I'll rest that case.
Would you voluntarily buy something from a company if they were abusing you? How would that company many ANY money if they weren't providing value t their customers? So yes. That's how capitalism works. Seriously.
They may or may not align out of good faith, but the good, efficient companies will make their interests align out of their motive to profit. As I've said before, if you raise prices too high, you will get competitors, and lose market share. Bad for business. Regulations don't need to be there for people to want to make money on a high margin business.
Your logic is flawed. Of course a company should be able to do with it's assets what it deems correct. However not when it intends to purchase another company and in the process fundamentally change the market, making possibly essential to the customer products (A monopoly exists when there are no substitutes) more expensive, shutting out a number of consumers. I'm currently consulting a company that produces flu vaccines and that is in the process of being acquired. It is essential that antitrust procedures are started to avoid the flu vaccines going up in price. It is a given that this would happen. Both the acquiring as well as the acquired company agree that this would happen.
A monopoly is a monopoly because there are no competitors and no substitutes. In many cases entry barriers are so high in a monopoly that a new entrant will have no chance, even if they could offer their product at lower prices.
Sorry, but you apparently fail to realise how a pure monopoly works. If there is a true monopoly and the product is essential to you as a consumer than YOU HAVE NO CHOICE but to buy the product or try to live without it. There would be no substitute.
Example: the flu vaccine. In a true monopoly there would be only one company that produces the vaccine. They could price it at any level. People need to buy it or they get ill.
This is of course not the case with Beats and Apple. I'm pretty sure that this will pass the trust assessment.
Wrong again. This might be true for the electronics market, but there are many industries where entry barriers simply are too high. This explains it quite well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry
That's not theft, that's not fascism, that's regulation. If you want to live in a completely laissez-faire capitalist society where the winner takes all and everyone else can go to hell then that's fine, but most of us don't. Even in America most people are in favor of regulation; you must think 99% of people are fascists. Must be scary. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you own multiple guns to protect yourself from them? If I were the type to use absurd, emotive, hyperbolic terms like "evil" I'd describe your free market utopia as such.
If it were the only decent product available, then yeah, I would. Hell, I buy products so yeah, I do. The alternative would be either going without, or going with an inferior solution - in effect suffering for ones principles. If those are your choices as a consumer that's not exactly worked out best for you has it?
As has been pointed out, there are such things as barriers to entry. There are such things as companies abusing their power and wealth to stop anybody from effectively competing with them. It may surprise you to learn this, but people who succeed in a capitalist system aren't guaranteed to be the most moral people. I've even heard it said that capitalism, by definition, rewards greed and the selfish application of cunning.
Unless you want the smartest, hardest working, most selfish and greedy people to walk away with almost all the world's wealth while extorting the ordinary person then you need regulation.
Final note - who says we have an inherent right to "own" resources anyway? That right is granted by society, there's no reason at all it should be absolute and unrestricted.
I don't think Microsoft is really a very good example there. A version of Office or Windows from several years ago is still perfectly usable, and there are other productivity suites and operating systems available. OK, so some people have locked themselves in by using a load of proprietary systems, but that's generally through naive choice rather than MS doing owt especially naughty, isn't it?
The ones incessantly crying racist is what has watered the expression down into meaninglessness. Now about those headphones ...
Meaningless to people it doesn't affect, sure.
Oh ok, that makes a little sense, but have some more questions. So, if a merger is not approved by a foreign entity, then all that means is a ban on their products? What about their respective campuses in said country? Are they still allowed to merge? Would Beats employees in the EU start getting Apple benefits even though the merger was not allowed?
So, it would essentially be my second theory. I understand why two companies like GE and Honeywell would not merge based on the ruling from the EU, but what if they ended up going ahead with it? Would that mean GE and Honeywell would be the same company everywhere EXCEPT the EU? So GE would be banned from selling Honeywell products in the EU and Honeywell (formerly Honeywell's EU division) would be restricted to selling their products ONLY in the EU? Kind of seems like a very confusing and costly endeavor like you mentioned.
I'm not a lawyer but if they really wanted to go ahead even after failing to get EU approval, I would imagine they would have to retain separate corporate entities and operations in Europe, and incorporate a separate merged company in the United States.
But since EU intervention is only triggered for very large mergers (we're talking billions) the costs and logistics involved to abide by the ruling wouldn't ever be worth it, especially since Europe is either the largest or second largest market for most companies.
Since Europe is such a large market, failing to get approval usually will stop the merger completely. For instance, when the EU blocked the Honeywell and GE merger, some officials from the U.S. Justice Department were a little annoyed because they viewed the decision as protectionist.
