Quote:
Originally Posted by Phogg
It isn't anything close to as big as Bell was when they broke them up.
Claim dismissed.
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A couple points here:
-- AT&T top executives were not celebrities. Maybe they had a Nobel prize scientist (did they?), but the CEO was less prominent than Tim Cook.
-- In 1981, AT&T was number 1 in market capitalization, as Apple is today, and by roughly similar margins. But the percentage of the US public who owned stock was less than today. And the percentage of the public who loved AT&T products (and associated them with the company) was small compared to the hoards of Apple fanboys.
-- AT&T's breakup was a settlement offer by the company. And it was a good settlement for them, because the total market value of the pieces turned out to be greater than the whole.
-- Unless Apple wants to break up, I predict the US judiciary will not order it. Do you have a contradictory prediction we should check back on in a couple years?
One problem with punishing people for crime is that it, to a large extent, hurts innocent bystanders. Lock up a burglar, and you devastate his children. But we do that anyway. Lock up Tim Cook, and you hurt a couple million stockholders. That, I predict, we won't do.