
LCD makers in $553 million U.S. price-fixing accord - llambda
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/27/us-lcd-settlement-idUSTRE7BQ0KK20111227
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lincolnq
Does anyone with knowledge of the industry care to estimate how much money
these companies could make using such a scheme?

Considering how often these sorts of stories pop up (once in a while -- maybe
a few times a year), and how profitable I would expect to be, I bet price-
fixing happens way more often than once in a while. I wouldn't be surprised if
it were the norm amongst big electronics manufacturers for most products.

I don't expect raising penalties to be effective at stopping this -- they're
settling anyway. It's so profitable and so hard to catch that probably most
companies would rather take the risk. If there were a better way of enforcing
it, it might work.

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zapman449
The big problem is in proving the collusion. It's just as easy, and mostly
legal to send signals to your competitors through the marketplace... release a
new model with foobaz feature at a higher pricepoint, see how the competitors
react... if they add foobaz feature, and stay close to your higher pricepoint,
you're safe, and legal. If they undercut, you can undercut to match.

Just look at the price delta for those TV's with Netflix streaming vs those
without. You can't tell me it costs $300ish to add the parts to make this
work. Wireless chips cost a few cents... the screens already have a CPU in
them to handle everything, so add a few cents, or maybe $1 to add a better
CPU...

Do I have specific evidence? no.

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nonsequ
The really funny thing is that the LCD panel business is generally horrible.
All profits must be reinvested in expensive new production lines, there's
little differentiation among makers, and everybody's been gunning for market
share in a growing market. Net net, the panel makers have made next to
nothing, _even with price-fixing_.

The current situation is even more dire. None of the LCD panel makers have
turned a profit for almost two years now as rapid LCD TV demand growth has
slowed down. I'm not saying their behavior should be condoned, but this is
kicking them while they're down.

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icefox
Anyone know of where there is some actual data? What has the price per sq inch
of LCD been for the last decade or something? (on the same note it would be
interesting to extrapolate it to see when lcd's will suddenly be _really_
cheap like arm computers are now)

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orijing
Without specific evidence like phone records, how could they prove illegal
collusion?

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endtime
Am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with this? Sure, it doesn't
benefit me as the consumer, but I don't actually see why this is something the
government has a right to interfere with.

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mr_luc
I always saw it as something that's not 'fair', but that helps the market win.

It's sort of the same as anti-monopoly laws. In a strict sense, maybe a
company became a monopoly legally, by offering the best product and buying out
its competition, and is acting rationally in the interest of its shareholders
-- but now the market is powerless before it, so the government breaks it up,
and the market has bargaining power again.

Most of the pragmatic policies that make our world work break down on a moral
level when you look at them too hard. We're all just trying to do what works
empirically.

~~~
endtime
>I always saw it as something that's not 'fair', but that helps the market
win.

The market wins when the price-fixing stops being worth the opportunity cost
of increased sales, or when a competitor (new or old) decides not to play
ball. Not when the government steps in to force things in a certain direction.

>Most of the pragmatic policies that make our world work break down on a moral
level when you look at them too hard. We're all just trying to do what works
empirically.

The uneasiness I feel at the implication that things can be looked at "too
hard" aside, how can one actually justify the claim that this works
empirically ("works" meaning, presumably, in this case, that a better outcome
is achieved)?

