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0 pointsWarOnPrivacy2y ago0 comments

> The Obama administration was pro-monopolist basically across the board for eight straight years.

It might be more accurate to say that rubber-stamping mergers maxed-out under the Obama DoJ.

    Comcast - NBCUniversal (2011)
    
    AT&T - T-Mobile (2011)
    
    Express Scripts - Medco Health Solutions (2012)
    
    Google - Motorola Mobility (2012)
    
    Anheuser-Busch InBev - Grupo Modelo (2013)
    
    US Airways - American Airlines (2013)
    
    Oracle - Sun Microsystems (2010)
    
    Comcast - Time Warner Cable (2014)
    
    Heinz - Kraft Foods (2015)
    
    AT&T - DirecTV (2015)

Administrations before and after were almost-but-maybe-a-tiny-bit-less eager to approve competition+job killing mergers.

What DoJs were not eager to do was push back against pressure from Elected Congresspeople who 1) held DoJ purse strings and 2) had elections that needed funding.

0 comments

paxys2y ago

The policies were largely unchanged before and after. What was unique about this period was quantitative easing & lowering of interest rates to ~0. Companies were suddenly flush with cash and had nothing to do with it, because keeping it in the bank wasn't an option. So they went on a shopping spree.

tzs2y ago

The proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile was cancelled after the Obama DoJ said they were opposed and filed a lawsuit to stop it.

WarOnPrivacyOP2y ago

That's a good catch. It's what I get for relying on GPT3.5+memory -enough time to properly vet the results.

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