Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Amazon. I think you defended FB, but I can’t recall why. Might’ve been unrelated to monopoly concerns.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I truly do not understand your point. Do you think Amazon has a monopoly? In what market?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I have a hard time imaging a world in which I would want to defend FB on any grounds.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It is the most anticompetitive company out there. Bork made same argument as you. Consumer benefit is only concern, not anticompetitive actions.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Everybody talks about tech monopolies, no one talks about Bayer/Monsanto or Sinclair.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Can you give some examples of their anticompetitive actions?

I get clients complaining about them all the time, but they are invariably about someone undercutting prices on marketplace, which is typically not Amazon itself and quite clearly competition. People complain about them vertically integrating - usually by pretending Amazon knows something about its suppliers that's different from any large distributor - but that too is pretty clearly competition.

Self-preferencing is the tricky thing, but clearly has consumer benefits too, which is why there hasn't been real enforcement against it yet.

Pretty funny that you think it's a gotcha for Ty to be espousing existing antitrust standards. Yeah, go back to Bork and the Chicago School but they are still the law.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

What does Bayer monopolize?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

(1) What do you think is anticompetitive about Amazon?

(2) You use the words "anticompetitive" and "monopoly" as if they mean the same things, but they do not. You accused me of being an apologist for monopolies, which in light of what I've done for the last twenty years is pretty funny, so I have asked you why you think Amazon is a monopolist. A noncontroversial definition of monopoly is >50% share of a relevant market. In its core business, Amazon competes with like, everyone. How can you define a relevant market that gives them a monopoly share?

(3) Setting Bork aside, I am not wedded to the consumer welfare standard, and probably more open to considering other kinds of antitrust harm than most people. But, if you're going to argue that actions can be anticompetitive even if there's no harm to consumers, you have to explain what you're thinking.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Bayer bought Monsanto.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Here's one view, not an endorsement:

https://www.greenamerica.org/blog/wh...o-bayer-merger

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Bayer was a sizable player in Agri-business and Agri-tech and bought Monsanto, which was already the biggest player in a lot of Agri-business and -tech. It has a huge impact on agriculture.

Other aspects of Ag have also been rapidly consolidating - tractors, feed, etc.

I suspect the last decade has seen more consolidation in ag-related businesses centered in rural areas than in tech. It's true on the buy-side as well, where meat and vegetable packing and distribution businesses have been rapidly consolidating, and on the production side, where there are now a lot of players consolidating agricultural land into ever bigger entities.

Red, rural America is going to kill off a big chunk of its economy shipping all the ag profits out to blue state urban finance centers.

That said, one of my clients made a killing on Brazilian ag land when Trump put in his tariffs. Since the US soy business was dead in the water for 6 months, the land flipped quickly at a multiple. He had a couple parcels each slightly bigger than Rhode Island.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Right after I posted I realized you meant the Monsanto stuff. And yeah, it is scary.

David Chang did a series last year about the Future of Food. Scary stuff. But entertaining and with some hopeful bits.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sbyoZ2KetYo

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I've got a whole bunch of heirloom tomatoes in this year and one of the things you discover is that there used to be a lot more variety and more depth of flavor. Sure, yields are up, and the old very thin profits are being replaced by much bigger profits, but, damn, those old-timey tomatoes taste good.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I blame Ty and his army of Amazon apologists.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Last summer, Whole Foods had the best tomatos near us.

eta: Still waiting for someone to explain Amazon's putative monopoly to me. FWIW, they clearly did not have a monopoly on the retail sale of tomatos in Santa Clara County last summer, but they were outcompeting their rivals on quality.