
Justice Department suing AT&T to block $85B bid for Time Warner - wybiral
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/20/the-justice-department-just-sued-att-to-block-its-85-billion-bid-for-time-warner/?utm_term=.ae1463c2b8dd
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swang
Hmm. FCC allows rules to let Sinclair Broadcasting expand to becoming a
monopoly. OK! Net Neutrality? Possibly gone by next month.

AT&T and Time Warner to merge together?: "It would mean higher monthly
television bills and fewer of the new, emerging innovative options that
consumers are beginning to enjoy."

Yes I know the FCC is not the DOJ, or the FTC. Just seems like Republican-led
departments and commissions can't seem to get their story straight on whether
mergers and fewer options are beneficial to customers or not.

I'm not for this merger. But certainly seems like Trump's interference in this
is probably going to udnermine any semblance of partiality by the DOJ.

~~~
rayiner
The FCC loosened media ownership rules (a complete ban on owning a newspaper
and TV/radio station in the same market) that have no counterpart in most EU
countries. The DOJ sued to block a merger that would get intense antitrust
scrutiny in most EU countries. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

~~~
JohnTHaller
The point is that Sinclair is _very_ pro-Trump, to the point that all
affiliates nationwide are forced to run pro-Trump editorial content while CNN
publishes things Trump doesn't like.

~~~
bigleagueposter
CNN is extremely anti-Trump

~~~
BoiledCabbage
But only one of those companies is suspected of a quid-pro-quo deal with
Trumps son in law from before the election.

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andrewhillman
Everyone is quick to bring up President Trump. If you don’t think about the
media landscape (big scary picture) and are quick to say this is lawsuit is a
political move you are naive and uninformed. If this isn’t blocked overtime
you will see companies like Google and FB attempting to gain more power and
control in the same way. The DOJ had no other choice. They had to sue to
protect the interest of consumers. They see where things are heading and its
not good.

These deals are never good for consumers. When a few companies have too much
power and control their only goal is to get more at the expense of the
consumer. This is dangerous and should not be taken lightly.

~~~
rayiner
Consolidation can be both good and bad for consumers. Consolidation can permit
economies of scale which can drive down prices of sufficient competition
remains in the market. Amazon, for example, just couldn’t offer the same
services at the same price if it were say, 20 different competing companies.
Same thing for Wal-Mart, or Google.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Amazon, Walmart, and Google were each one, focused company that got to where
they were that way. Mergers of companies that scheme on their customers with
oligopoly or monopoly tactics have almost always been bad for their customers.
Also, if they were so great, they wouldn't be lobbying to block taxpayer-
funded alternatives because it's always better when it's the private sector.
The municipal versions would be slower, have worse service, cost more, and
fall apart due to red tape. Yet, many that occurred despite Comcast et al's
bribes to politicians were delivering better and faster service at same price
or cheaper.

Better to split them up even further with regulations on things like sharing
lines to force them to improve speed and service.

~~~
rayiner
That reasoning makes no sense. Consider the article on the front page today
about taxpayer-funded cafeterias in India. Everyone rightly pointed out that
these cafeterias could crowd out privately owned restaurants. There is no real
“competing” with a government-backed service. (The postal service, for
example, is subject to elaborate rules to prevent unfair competition with
private carriers. And countries like the UK and Germany have privatized their
postal services for good reasons.)

That is not to say that municipal alternatives don’t have a place. My view is
that state and local governments should get rid of build out requirements that
restrict the development of competition while building municipal service to
areas left unserved by the market. That’s a traditional government function:
serving as the safety net. But that’s not what’s usually proposed.

~~~
xapata
> postal service ... elaborate rules

Such as that the USPS must be self-sufficient and doesn't take tax revenue.

~~~
rayiner
[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/10/25/postal-
regu...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/10/25/postal-regulatory-
commission/)

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empath75
I'm against media consolidation in general, but Trump has so polluted the
waters with his crusade against CNN that there's no way they'll win the court
case. AT&T and Time Warner will enter in his twitter feed as evidence and
courts will side with them.

Really the only thing that's preventing Trump from being one of the worst
leaders in history is that he's so bad at his job that he can't successfully
implement his own bad ideas.

~~~
tryingagainbro
_> >but Trump has so polluted the waters with his crusade against CNN that
there's no way they'll win the court case. AT&T and Time Warner will enter in
his twitter feed as evidence and courts will side with them._

You think federal judges give a rat's @ss about what Trump tweets? Plus it
will be appealed and appealed.

~~~
lightbyte
>You think federal judges give a rat's @ss about what Trump tweets?

Yes, in fact there already have been multiple cases where his tweets were used
against him.

~~~
tryingagainbro
Executive orders issued by him.

No doubt Trump wants to screw CNN, but the courts will not care what he wants.
That was my point: "don't give a rat's @ss" meaning thy will not follow /bow
to him.

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myrandomcomment
The reality here is that the President is blocking this deal because of his
issues with CNN (To those that think this is not being driven by the
Whitehouse...I have this bridge I am trying to sell....). This is purely
political and I am sure the President’s statements will be front and centre in
the court battle.

Never though I would be on the side of AT&T or a cable company.

~~~
rdtsc
> The reality here is that the President is blocking this deal because of his
> issues with CNN ( (To those that think this is not being driven by the
> Whitehouse...I have this bridge I am trying to sell....).

Alright, give us your best pitch.

How do you see this happening, Trump calls DOJ and tells them to block AT&T
merger because of CNN?

~~~
jeswin
A lot of messaging in politics is unspoken and unrecorded to avoid
culpability. You do things that favor someone higher up without being asked to
(or based on available public signals), and get rewarded without having ever
asked for it.

~~~
rdtsc
Yup, many things are done that way in politics. But lately it seems it's also
pretty hard to keep things from leaking, someone there would probably let it
slip to the media that "Trump wanted CNN gone". So far it's "Some Democrats
have expressed concern" that's the only source.

Any is it all of the sudden these people started loving monopolies. "Well DOJ
wants to something about, we clearly have to oppose it and support exactly the
opposite".

The same thing happened with the TPP. Every Bernie supporter was against TPP.
As soon as the White House pulled out of the TPP, I saw messages on
/r/politics about "Well, we can't support it now once that Trump did it", it
wasn't even ironic.

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MR4D
This is the THIRD time that AT&T has been sued for antitrust reasons. So for,
they are 0-2.

Side note: with net neutrality going away, doesn’t AT&T have the ability to
raise rates on Disney, Netflix, and others to stream across their network
without a slowdown?

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koverda
Love the photo of the building with the old Bell logo still somewhat visible.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's Creative Commons-licensed!
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/418219038/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/418219038/)

~~~
sparcpile
Mr. Bill has been running the sunhelp.org website and ran the Sun Managers
distribution list for years. He's quite into the old Bell System.

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advisedwang
Doesn't the FTC usually conduct review of mergers? It has authority to deny
mergers without resorting to suing, right?

Why does this need the DoJ to sue?

~~~
ensignavenger
In America, we have a concept where only the Judicial branch can interpret the
laws. So, Congress passes a law, those laws sometimes give agencies like the
FTC regulatory powers- but only a judge can interpret the laws to ultimately
decide what those regulatory powers are.

In this case, a judge will need to look at the laws passed by Congress, any
relevant regulation (and if that regulation was legally authorized by
Congress), and determine if this merger would violate those laws.

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LeoJiWoo
I'm not for this merger, so I'm pleased but . . .

I want DOJ to start doing their job and monopoly busting (without regard to
politics). We have several industries engaged in anti-competitive behavior at
a scale far larger than big oil.

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shmerl
Let AT&T spend $85B on fiber optics upgrades.

~~~
skinnymuch
They are buying Time Warner. Not Time Warner Cable. The latter is owned by
Charter.

~~~
obmelvin
Wow, I'm not GP, but thanks for that comment. I was surprised that no one is
talking about how this will affect internet quality and price in many regions.
Turns out, no one's talking about it here because it isn't the issue I thought
it was...

The more you know.

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pfisch
This is great. Unless Trump is doing this for a petty grudge, then it is super
fucked up.

They should split nbc from comcast as well.

~~~
stochastic_monk
Which he is. [1]

I'm all for antitrust, but to block this (which is a largely orthogonal
merger), break up Sinclair first.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/business/att-time-
warner-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/business/att-time-warner-cnn-
trump.html)

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trisimix
Why would donald trumps mnssages matter? Is the justice departments case based
soLely on the president wanting the merger to not go through? Those are two
seperate cases. This lawsuit is going to court motives are a seperate crime.

