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TOTM As readers may know, Eric Holder was added to the workshop at the last minute (see the latest agenda here). So the day starts out . . .
As readers may know, Eric Holder was added to the workshop at the last minute (see the latest agenda here). So the day starts out with Holder and Vilsack, and they are joined by Varney and Tom Miller (the Iowa AG) and a host of other politicos including Senator Grassley and Congressman Boswell.
Read the full piece here.
TOTM As Geoff noted, we’re stationed at the DOJ/USDA workshop to witness the goings on and provide some comments. US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack opened . . .
As Geoff noted, we’re stationed at the DOJ/USDA workshop to witness the goings on and provide some comments.
US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack opened this session with a laundry list of statistics concerning rural America and the agriculture sector. The statistics focused on national concentration ratios and national averages, which are tremendously deceiving for understanding the agriculture sector.
TOTM Global warming critics have taken two primary approaches. First, deny the facts based on the incentives for scientists to fudge the data to get prestige . . .
Global warming critics have taken two primary approaches. First, deny the facts based on the incentives for scientists to fudge the data to get prestige and research dollars (see, for example, the East Anglia emails), based on the inherent limitations of humans to build global weather models to predict the temperature 100 years from now, and based on humans’ Chicken-Little tendencies.
TOTM Later this week Mike Sykuta and I will be winging our way to Iowa on behalf of the ICLE to attend the first of the . . .
Later this week Mike Sykuta and I will be winging our way to Iowa on behalf of the ICLE to attend the first of the year-long series of DOJ/USDA Workshops on Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues. You can find the agenda for the first workshop, to be held Friday, March 12 in Ankeny, Iowa, here. Intrepid reporters, we, our plan is to “live blog” the event for those of you unable to attend. This first workshop, in addition to introducing the series, will focus on farming, which means seeds, which means the dispute between DuPont and Monsanto over licensing terms and everyone’s perennial favorite: industry concentration.
TOTM I wonder if that is on a per pinch basis? I refused to believe this is real language, from a real bill. But Professor Bainbridge . . .
I wonder if that is on a per pinch basis? I refused to believe this is real language, from a real bill. But Professor Bainbridge says it is — and doesn’t pull any punches in describing its drafter (or at least leading proponent) Assemblyman Ortiz in NY as an “officious pig and an ass.” But rest assured, Assemblyman Ortiz assures the good citizens of New York that the bill is really about giving consumers more choice, and “more control over the amount of sodium they intake,” and “the option to exercise healthier diets and healthier lifestyles.”
TOTM Looking for something to blame for the Greek debt crisis, some observers are pointing their fingers at credit derivatives. An article in yesterday’s New York . . .
Looking for something to blame for the Greek debt crisis, some observers are pointing their fingers at credit derivatives. An article in yesterday’s New York Times makes the case that credit default swaps (CDS), and specifically their sale by Goldman Sachs, are somewhat to blame in part for Greece’s problems.
TOTM TradeComet’s antitrust suit against Google has been dismissed by the S.D.N.Y. Court in which the case was being heard. The opinion is available here. The . . .
TradeComet’s antitrust suit against Google has been dismissed by the S.D.N.Y. Court in which the case was being heard. The opinion is available here.
The holding…
TOTM The WSJ implies that the answer is yes in an interesting article describing the Obama administration’s changing views on behavioral economics and regulation. The theme . . .
The WSJ implies that the answer is yes in an interesting article describing the Obama administration’s changing views on behavioral economics and regulation. The theme of the article is that the Obama administration has eschewed the “soft paternalism” based “nudge” approach endorsed by the behavioral economics crowd and that received so much attention in the blogs — especially as it related to Cass Sunstein’s appointment to OIRA, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and a few other issues — in favor of harder paternalism and “shoves” including recent proposals for “regulating health-insurance rate increases, separating commercial banking from investing on behalf of their own bottom lines, and prohibiting commercial banks from owning or investing in private-equity firms or hedge funds.” The article also points to a proposal for new regulations (that I had not heard of prior), that “would require retirement counselors to base their advice on computer models that have been certified as independent” as a precondition that must be satisfied before advisers can push funds with which they are affiliated.
TOTM It turns out that the Girl Scouts price discriminate, i.e. they charge different prices for the same product in different parts of the country (HT: . . .
It turns out that the Girl Scouts price discriminate, i.e. they charge different prices for the same product in different parts of the country (HT: Knowledge Problem). Rumor has it that demand for Thin Mints varies by region. While the Girl Scouts concede that the introduction of the price discrimination scheme results, when coupled with Girl Scout marketing efforts, is tantamount to the evading pricing constraints imposed by current demand conditions. No word on whether the Girl Scouts have hired antitrust counsel in light of the Commission’s pushing of this definition of actionable antitrust conduct in N-Data and Ovation (amongst other cases).
