Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/24/brussels-v-collusion.html
…
2 Likes
The US – allegedly a bastion of the “free market” – has one of the world’s lowest levels of economic competition, thanks to the …
The what? Don’t leave us in suspense!
Also, given that US has never actually had a free market, how could it be a “bastion of the free market”? I know that lots of libertarian types would like to see such a thing, but it hasn’t happened yet, and is not likely to happen anytime soon (i.e., ever).
Dirty secret: Repubs like regulated markets just as much as Dems, albeit different regulations and for different reasons.
2 Likes
You can get to the rest of the (more) from the bbs “show full post” link:
1 Like
The US – allegedly a bastion of the “free market” – has one of the world’s lowest levels of economic competition, thanks to the
Not so in Europe, where they’re happy to hand the likes of Google multibillion dollar fines and chase Apple for billions in tax-evasion penalties – and starting in May, they’re going to hand out the corporate death-penalty to the entire ecosystem of surveillance capitalism.
This still all I see…
EDIT
Ah, it’s been updated
1 Like
Thanks - don’t know why that didn’t come up the first time!
While it would be nice to think that the EU is pro competition, cynically, we probably only see this because the competition is from a foreign economy. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, if what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
2 Likes
It’s nice to see anti-trust rules being enforced…somewhere.
In before whaambulance arrives with “EU only punishes US companies to fill their coffers”.
… too late
… and wrong.
-
2006: Unipetrol AS (czech), Eni SpA (italian), Trade-Stomil (polish), Dow Chemical Co. (USA); fines of 519 million euros for forming a cartel; Dow Chemicals fine was 64 million euros
-
2008: Asahi (japanese), Pilkington (UK), Saint-Gobain (french) and Soliver (belgic); 1.35 billion euros fines for forming cartel
-
2016: MAN, Volvo/Renault (French,swedish, chinese), Daimler (german), Iveco (italian), and DAF (dutch); fines of 2.93 billion euros for forming a cartel
-
2017: Scania (german) fined for 880 million euros for forming a cartel
This are only examples. The EU fines EU based companies as often as foreign companies.
10 Likes
I thought that anti-competetive investigations were biased against foreign companies and companies from less developed EU countries.
Thanks for counterexamples!
This is why stateless corporations need trade policies that exempt them from anti-competitive behavior!
And that’s not even accounting for companies that are fined at the national level.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
