Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 17:08:58 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@aa.net>, Joseph Scott <joseph.scott@owp.csus.edu>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why anti-trust law? Message-ID: <15219.2554.597252.164723@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <20010809184100.A93453@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0108090854340.17197-100000@pebkac.owp.csus.edu> <rh4rrhno3d.rrh@localhost.localdomain> <20010809184100.A93453@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> types: > On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 10:24:22AM -0700, Gary W. Swearingen wrote: > One of the claims made was that the government actually helped create the > AT&T monopoly, and that the USPS is also a monopoly. I think the second is > a poor example, but the first would merit some investigation. Why do you think the USPS is a poor example? Because it's provided for by the constitution? As for AT&T - the government set it up as a monopoly because they decided universal, interoperable phone service would be a good idea. The government mandated price structure had long distance and business users subsidizing low-end residential users to achieve that goal. A lot of people complain that the breakup caused a lot of headaches - which it did - and was thus a bad thing. I doubt that we'd be able to buy long distance at 2 cents/minute today if we had to buy it from AT&T, which makes the breakup a good thing. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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