- cross-posted to:
- antitrust
- cross-posted to:
- antitrust
At the beginning of the year, the New York Times reported the Antitrust Division is getting ready to file a complaint against Apple, a three trillion dollar corporation. This story came on the heels of Apple attempting to kill a small messaging firm called Beeper, which produces an “iMessage-compatible Android app,” a move so brazen that multiple Senators demanded an investigation of the electronics giant.
The potential suit against Apple is one of many Antitrust Division investigations that are slowly reordering our economy away from the consolidated mess we’re living through. There are possible suits against rent-fixing software firm RealPage, Visa, UnitedHealth Group, Ticketmaster and hospital giant University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. And of course, there are the existing suits, most notably the multiple cases against Google that are being litigated this year.
Since the turn against antitrust in the 1980s, U.S. Congress has been cutting the funding of the Antitrust Division, such that it has 230 fewer employees today than it did in 1979, despite a much larger economy. Few pro-consolidation politicians said “I like monopolies,” instead they just defunded the cops.
In the first few years of the Biden administration, this Antitrust Division budget changed slightly but meaningfully, going from $185 million in 2021 to $225 million in 2023, an increase of about 15% in two years, without adjusting for inflation. But is it enough?
division of the department of justice. sigh.
Why of course they would. Competition is for suckers, after all.