"My conservative economic religion is founded on the rock of competition, which since Teddy Roosevelt's day has protected small business and consumers against predatory pricing leading to market monopolization." - William Safire, NY Times, Jan. 20, 2003.
Quite apropos, don't you think? Free market advocates like to give the markets the ability to determine winners and losers, but as these media giants continue to consolidate and grow, they jeopardize the spirit of competition, and in fact use their monopolized positions to increase costs to the consumer.
Comcast isn't being generous of spirit and heart by buying out NBC/Universal; to the contrary everyone knows they're doing this to increase their profit potential, not diminish it. However, part of the equation is getting a return on their investment, which has always included increasing fees or finding ways to get consumers to pay for goods that were previously given away for free.
Bill Safire was correct 6 years ago - may he rest in peace - and he's still correct today. Media gigantism is an epidemic of a runaway market that has been effectively deregulated by those free market advocates like Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers and others. Through 26 years of deregulation we have had 4 asset bubbles: S&L, Dot-Com, Energy and Mortgage.
It's time to say, "NO" to this laissez faire approach to regulation.
No comments:
Post a Comment