A federal jury in Missouri recently found the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and several residential brokers guilty of conspiring to inflate commissions on real estate sales. The jury assessed a fine of $1.78 billion. The plaintiffs complained about the commissions they paid to buyer’s agents and alleged that the commission model suppressed competition. The…
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Amazon alleging that the company has engaged in “anti-competitive” activities. But before we can evaluate the legitimacy of this claim, we must first be clear about what it means to be anti-competitive. Unfortunately, anti-trust laws don’t provide us with that clarification. Instead, they are a mish-mash…
Taylor Swift fans, aka “Swifties,” should learn a lesson from Mick Jagger. Specifically, you can’t always get what you want. Many Swifties are upset with Ticketmaster and are suing the company for “anti-competitive” practices regarding ticket sales for Swift’s 2023 tour. According to CNN, plaintiffs are alleging that Ticketmaster forces [bold added] concertgoers to exclusively…
Republicans have long professed support for private property rights and the free market. Increasingly, they are abandoning both principles and are becoming a gang of traitors and hypocrites. Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado, provides a recent example. The Congressman has introduced three bills that will “reform” antitrust laws. Big Tech is among the…
Eleven professional golfers, including Phil Mickelson, have filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the Professional Golf Association (PGA). The players have been suspended from PGA events because they are playing in the LIV Golf Invitational Series. Given the sorry state of our culture, the lawsuit is par for the course. The lawsuit alleges that the PGA…
A Scottish man was recently convicted for sending a tweet that was deemed offensive. The tweet was disgusting, saying that the only good British soldier is a dead one. Freedom of speech protects our right to make offensive and disgusting statements. Rather than prosecute those who are intentionally offensive, we should recognize such statements for…
In 2019 during her campaign to become the Democrat nominee for President, Sen. Elizabeth Warren promised to use the antitrust laws to reverse “illegal and anti-competitive tech mergers.” As examples, she cited Amazon’s merger with Whole Foods, Facebook’s merger with Instagram, and Google’s merger with DoubleClick. “To restore the balance of power in our democracy,”…
Despite the claims of critics of Big Tech, the attacks on Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other technology companies are not about competition, innovation, or free speech. They are about power. The critics of Big Tech think that certain companies have too much power. But these critics are doing more than equating economic power with political…
For months, conservatives have been increasing their calls to use the antitrust laws against Big Tech. These calls are filled with contradictions, such as the claim that Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies are endangering free speech by blocking conservative content. Another contradiction is expressed by Will Chamberlain, publisher of Human Events. Chamberlain writes that…
The persecution of Google for antitrust violations is an unabashed attack on success. Having risen to the top of the technology industry, the company is now a target for the envious and mediocre. A chief complaint against Google is that its algorithms and data accumulation give it an unfair competitive advantage. In other words, because…
Texas Senator Ted Cruz (among others) has been accusing “big tech” of censorship. On Fox Business, Cruz said, Big Tech has gotten really bad with censorship, manipulation, open political bias. Google is by far the worst. Google is naked and brazen. Big Tech is a monopoly. I think they’ve brazenly violated the anti-trust laws. It is…
In The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives, Michael Heller argues that Private ownership usually creates wealth. But too much ownership has the opposite effect—it creates gridlock. Gridlock is a free market paradox. When too many people own pieces of one thing, cooperation breaks down, wealth disappears, and…