g m g D e s i g n . c o m

… at least according to the WSJ. The idiotic wealth re-distribution plan might be running out of monetary backing to go on much longer.

Antitrust is supposed to be about protecting consumers against higher prices and other consequences of monopoly power. Accordingly, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, the Federal Trade Commission, and state attorneys general are vested with authority to defend competition and protect the well-being of consumers.

The current spate of heightened antitrust activism seems to suggest that anti-competitive business practices abound. Headline-grabbing cases against Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems, Visa and MasterCard, along with a flurry of merger investigations now under way, would appear to demonstrate the need for a vigorously enforced antitrust policy that will create checks and balances to eliminate consumer harm.

However, consumers did not ask for these antitrust actions — rival business firms did.

From here (emphasis added by me), and written during the Clinton years by a list of economists. (HT to this entry on the MarginalRevolution blog site.)

Still relevant? Yes. Just think of the next big target: Google, as it starts treading on Microsoft’s territory.

Barnett argues for completion of Doha round (of free trade talks), rather than continuing the disastrous policy of foreign aid to under-developed regimes.

Nice piece that argues that Africa is the least developed part of the world but also the least free when it comes to economic activity (meaning, the most protectionistic), so instead of debt relief (that punishes the thrifty and rewards state thievery and diversion to arms spending) and more aid (how did China and India lift so many hundreds of millions out of poverty with no significant aid?), the world’s major economies (i.e., G8 that held the Gleneagles conference) would do much better to complete the Doha Development Round of the WTO.

Our adorable German Shepherd with the kittens. She definitely has a strong maternal instinct toward them, performing the duties that the mother cat would otherwise do.

Very weird. Just noticed that a pseudo-blog site plagiarized a blog post I wrote some time ago. The copy-cat site is: freeofstate.org/new/?p=7590. Looks like a straight copy, word for word. May have been done by a bot rather than a person.

Is this the future of blogging: bots that copy other peoples’ blog entries in an effort to ride their virtual coat tails? It seems the answer is probably yes.