For instance, J.P. Morgon is bigger than God having bought Bear Stearns, WaMu, Bank One and who knows what else at bargain basement prices. THAT'S A MONOPOLY!
I know there is a plan to consolidate and go global (which is why they have been expanding their boundaries and beefing up, apparently), but I'm uncertain how that is supposed to work
within the current anti-trust laws. Of course laws are worthless if there is no enforcement.
The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act<1>, July 2, 1890, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. § 1–7) was the first United States Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies. It falls under antitrust law.
The Act provides: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal".<2> The Act also provides: "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony <. . . >"<3> The Act put responsibility upon government attorneys and district courts to pursue and investigate trusts, companies and organizations suspected of violating the Act. The Clayton Act (1914) extended the right to sue under the antitrust laws to "any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws."<4>. Under the Clayton Act, private parties may sue in U.S. district court and should they prevail, they may be awarded treble damages and the cost of suit, including reasonable attorney's fees. <5>
..snip..
Criticism
See also: United States antitrust law and Competition law
The Sherman act has been a magnet for controversy. One branch of the criticism focuses on whether the Act improves competition and benefits consumers, or merely aids inefficient businesses at the expense of larger, more innovative ones.
Alan Greenspan, in his essay entitled Antitrust<9> condemns the Sherman Act as stifling innovation and harming society. "No one will ever know what new products, processes, machines, and cost-saving mergers failed to come into existence, killed by the Sherman Act before they were born. No one can ever compute the price that all of us have paid for that Act which, by inducing less effective use of capital, has kept our standard of living lower than would otherwise have been possible."Another aspect of the debate over antitrust policy is normative. That is, assuming that some kind of competition law is inevitable, critics will argue as to what its central policy should be, and whether it is accomplishing its goal. A common tactic is to choose a one goal, and then cite evidence that it supports the opposite. For example, during a debate over the act in 1890, Representative William Mason said "trusts have made products cheaper, have reduced prices; but if the price of oil, for instance, were reduced to one cent a barrel, it would not right the wrong done to people of this country by the trusts which have destroyed legitimate competition and driven honest men from legitimate business enterprise."<11> Consequently, if the primary goal of the act is to protect consumers, and consumers are protected by lower prices, the act may be harmful if it reduces economy of scale, a price-lowering mechanism, by breaking up big businesses.
The converse argument is that if lowering prices alone is not the goal, and instead protecting competitions and markets as well as consumers is the goal, the law again arguably has the opposite effect - it could be protectionist. Economist Thomas DiLorenzo notes that Senator Sherman sponsored the 1890 William McKinley tariff just three months after the Sherman Act, and agrees with The New York Times which wrote on October 1, 1890: "That so-called Anti-Trust law was passed to deceive the people and to clear the way for the enactment of this Pro-Trust law relating to the tariff." The Times goes on to assert that Sherman merely supported this "humbug" of a law "in order that party organs might say...'Behold! We have attacked the trusts. The Republican Party is the enemy of all such rings.' "<12>
Dilorenzo writes: "Protectionists did not want prices paid by consumers to fall. But they also understood that to gain political support for high tariffs they would have to assure the public that industries would not combine to increase prices to politically prohibitive levels. Support for both an antitrust law and tariff hikes would maintain high prices while avoiding the more obvious bilking of consumers."<13>
The criticism of antitrust law is often associated with conservative politics. For example, conservative legal scholar, judge, and failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork is well known for his outspoken criticism of the antitrust regime. Another conservative legal scholar and judge, Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit does not condem the entire regime, but expresses concern with the potential that it could be applied to create inefficiency, rather than to avoid inefficiency.<14>. Posner further believes, along with a number of others, including Bork, that genuinely inefficient cartels and coercive monopolies, the target of the act, would be self-corrected by market forces, making the strict penalties of antirust legislation unnecessary.<15[br />
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
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