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Originally Posted by darryl
Are all hedge fund managers really Sociopaths?
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Only in Hollywood movies.
In the real world they are mostly middle-class working stiffs.
As for US Antitrust law, contrary to some who like to claim antitrust at the drop of a hat, it is rarely used because it is actually very narrow in application and only applies when there is verifiable *consumer* harm.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit..._antitrust_law
There are a range of activists that would like the standard to be the more nebulous "harm to competition" (which is the standard in protectionist countries) or *premptively* in the service of "the common good" or hypothetical future damages. No case has ever been launched under the latter "justification" nor is it likely to ever be.
So no, US law is not insane.
And antitrust law is most often applied to *groups* of companies, cartels and conspiracies, or vertically integrated companies that control the production, distribution, and consumer sale of the product. It has yet to ever be applied to a middleman distributor alone. There are other laws that apply to distributors, namely the Robinson-Patman act, but again, the onus is on the producer, primarily:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robi...0%93Patman_Act
Two notable examples of the latter:
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In 1994, the American Booksellers Association and independent bookstores filed a federal complaint in New York against Houghton Mifflin Company, Penguin USA, St. Martin's Press and others, alleging that defendants had violated the Robinson–Patman Act by offering "more advantageous promotional allowances and price discounts" to "certain large national chains and buying clubs."[6] Later, complaints were filed against Random House and Putnam Berkley Group, and these cases also were later settled with the entry of similar consent decrees. Eventually, seven publishers entered consent decrees to stop predatory pricing, and Penguin paid $25 million to independent bookstores when it continued the illegal practices.[7]
In 1998, the ABA (which represented 3500 bookstores) and 26 individual stores filed suit in Northern California against chain stores Barnes & Noble and Borders Group, who had reportedly pressured publishers into offering these price advantages.[8]
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Not mentioned here: the ABA won when suing publishers and *lost* when suing the distributor benefitting from publisher practices. They were forced to pay all legal costs.
A recent case brought by booksellers against Amazon and the BPHs over walled-garden DRM. The claim was that the BPHs, in court at the time for conspiring *against* Amazon, were simultaneously conspiring with Amazon to create a monopoly. (Not unlike certain claims in this thread.)
The case was summarily dismissed before discovery even began.
(Essentially laughed out of court.)
US law has its quirks--all systems do--but insanity isn't one of them.