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TOTM As his Council of Economic Advisers made clear in its recent health care report, President Obama sees two primary goals for his health care reform . . .
As his Council of Economic Advisers made clear in its recent health care report, President Obama sees two primary goals for his health care reform efforts: to slow the growth of health care costs and to expand coverage of health insurance. It’s pretty clear, though, which of these goals is steering the ship. While the President’s proposals include a few modest measures ostensibly aimed at reducing costs (digitizing medical records, collecting and disseminating data on treatment-effectiveness, etc.), the primary focus is on increasing insurance coverage. That’s unfortunate, for relentless pursuit of coverage expansion is almost certain to undermine the goal of cost containment.
Read the full piece here.
TOTM George Priest has an excellent op-ed in the WSJ correctly calling out the Justice Department’s new Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney for attributing the financial . . .
George Priest has an excellent op-ed in the WSJ correctly calling out the Justice Department’s new Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney for attributing the financial crisis to a lack of antitrust enforcement…
TOTM In his recent speech on the GM bankruptcy, President Obama reassured Americans that the government, which now holds 60% of GM’s stock, is not going . . .
In his recent speech on the GM bankruptcy, President Obama reassured Americans that the government, which now holds 60% of GM’s stock, is not going to try to take over management of the company…
TOTM Jeff Toobin has an interesting profile on John Roberts in the New Yorker (HT: Jonathan Adler who also takes issue with Toobin’s description of Leegin, . . .
Jeff Toobin has an interesting profile on John Roberts in the New Yorker (HT: Jonathan Adler who also takes issue with Toobin’s description of Leegin, but goes on to challenge Toobin’s general account of Roberts as a “stealth nominee”). Toobin’s column has very little to do with antitrust. with the exception of one sentence describing the Leegin decision where he writes…
Popular Media How much thought have you given to your electricity consumption? If it hasn’t gone beyond “I flip the switch and the light comes on,” you’re . . .
How much thought have you given to your electricity consumption? If it hasn’t gone beyond “I flip the switch and the light comes on,” you’re not alone, which is one of many reasons electricity usage in the United States is inefficient. But that’s beginning to change.
TOTM If you haven’t been living under a rock recently, you’ve seen an incredible amount of hand wringing–and proposed regulation–around “excessive compensation.” I’m a little too . . .
If you haven’t been living under a rock recently, you’ve seen an incredible amount of hand wringing–and proposed regulation–around “excessive compensation.” I’m a little too lazy to amass all the relevant links here, but both the administration and the congress are introducing regulations/bills and talking about the issue extensively.
TOTM The FTC joined the DOJ brief in American Needle v. National Football League arguing that the Supreme Court should deny certiorari. The brief characterizes the . . .
The FTC joined the DOJ brief in American Needle v. National Football League arguing that the Supreme Court should deny certiorari. The brief characterizes the question presented as…
TOTM The law and economics of RPM have been a frequent topic of discussion here for Thom and I especially, ranging from the empirical evidence on . . .
The law and economics of RPM have been a frequent topic of discussion here for Thom and I especially, ranging from the empirical evidence on RPM, to competitive resale price maintenance without free riding, to the inappropriate use of the term “price-fixing” by journalists some who should know better to describe RPM, to the Commission’s recent musical instruments investigation, and of course, Leegin.
Popular Media But wholesale rejection of the document — the most complete statement to date on the law and economics of Section 2 — because of disagreement with some of its positions is irresponsible and premature.
But wholesale rejection of the document — the most complete statement to date on the law and economics of Section 2 — because of disagreement with some of its positions is irresponsible and premature. And the rejection of specific conclusions from among the range of possibilities discussed in the report without any discussion of which other policy positions the DOJ would support, and why, severely undermines the intellectual efforts that the DOJ and FTC staffs put into the original report by summarily dismissing them. Instead, Varney asserts that the report “loses sight of an ultimate goal of antitrust laws — the protection of consumer welfare” — but cites no evidence. (And the report, for its part, mentions “consumer welfare” 31 times.) Meanwhile, the mere reference in Varney’s speech to the idea of returning to “tried and true” principles of Section 2 enforcement is meaningless, since no one knows what those are, and the whole point of the report was to define them. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the announcement dismisses the report and its intellectual bases simply because it was inconvenient to the agenda upon which the DOJ’s antitrust division is about to embark.
