continued…

The Anti-Trust law suit has an ugly history and goes back to the early railroading and oil industry days involving historically figures such as Morgan and his railroad company, Rockefeller and Standard Oil.  Every scrap of data, info, statistics available at the time of the trials and since shows these companies did not in the least have a negative impact on the industry, the economy or consumers; in fact, quite to the contrary, it has been shown over and over these companies were successful and beneficial to themselves, their industry, the economy and consumers (especially their own stockholders and customers).
 
The most recent Anti-Trust highly publicized case you may have heard about involved Microsoft and its co-founder/head geek Bill Gates.  There was one interesting new twist to the Microsoft case.  In the past companies were brought on charges of over/under/collusion pricing and other various irrational complaints.  In the Microsoft case for the first time in history a company was in trouble for giving away product for free (their Internet Explorer browser was bundled with their Windows operating system software or you could download it for free).  Other manufacturers of browsers complained this gave them an “unfair advantage in the marketplace.”
 
Brilliant observation, that, huh?
 
Perhaps, these other companies should have developed their own operating system with which to bundle a browser?  Seriously, though, it was obviously a huge advantage but by what stretch of imagination could it be called “unfair”?  Did these other companies’ even try to develop their own operating systems?  And more to the point, how could a consumer even get their product (browser) to work without the Windows operating system on the computer?  And how about the comic firestorm of everyday people that heard about the case and surmised they now hated Bill Gates because he was a greedy bastard?  And therefore these perceptive, righteously indignant people immediately stopped using Microsoft products, right?  Oh, no, of course not, most of them had jobs that were dependent upon using Microsoft product in order to stay in business or employed.
 
Why was Microsoft so successful?  Because Bill Gates paid, bribed, forced government officials into passing a law that stated it was illegal for consumers to buy software from any company other than Microsoft?  Because Bill Gates had other software developers tortured and killed?  Because Bill Gates broke into their offices and banks in order to steal all their computers and money?  Anyone (choosing to be honest) could see Microsoft had market domination because more consumers were buying their stuff than buying their competitors stuff.
 
I have heard it said that “it is impossible to legislate morality”.  This is false.  That is in fact the only valid reason for legislation (laws, rules, regulations, etc.) to exist.  It is against the law to murder another human being or steal property.  The reason we have such laws is because those activities are immoral.  To have laws, like the Anti-Trust laws, that make moral activities against the law is an extremely dangerous and counter-productive way to run a society.
 
Another news item recently catching my attention reported that a growing number of Baby Boomers were upset upon realizing they wouldn’t be able to count on their Social Security checks to get them through retirement.  Did they do some kind of cost analysis or something?  Did they say, “If Social Security takes out x amount of money from my earnings then by the time I retire I will be able to get that amount plus a little interest?”  No, of course not.  They just automatically assumed that if they “paid in whatever they were paying in” then when they retired the government would give them back “whatever they needed”.  Of course, the money they paid in was already spent the day it got to the government.  Social Security receives money from people that have jobs and gives that money to people that have paid in and people that have not paid in.  You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that if expenditures exceed income you will have an “insolvency problem”.  Unfortunately, most otherwise reasonably intelligent people turn absolutely mentally retarded when it comes to understanding how the government functions.