Re: The economy - a new era?

[Eugene Coyle]

Yes, it is at least back as far as Reagan that anti-trust was shelved.  There has been an on-going interest in cases where foreign firms --  those bad folks verging on evil -- were colluding. Gene Devine, James wrote: my 2 kopeks: it was under Clinton (or perhaps under Bush I or even Reagan) that anti-trust was shelved. The idea was that with globalization of competition in product markets, anti-trust wasn't needed. Of course, not all products have globalized markets... ------------------------ Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -----Original Message----- From: Eugene Coyle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 2:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] The economy - a new era? Has the US economy entered a new era? It seems to me that the US Department of Justice, along with other relevant agencies, has lost interest in enforcing antitrust laws. I think we are back to the 1880s and 1890s, where "Trusts" and "pools" will rationalize capacity for the good of all? Banks and insurance companies agglomerate. Electric power generation is falling into fewer and fewer hands, and those hands are more and more financial institutions. Big oil gets bigger. Big steel consolidates while the steel market sags. ADM and Cargill thrive while the number of farmers shrinks. Am I generalizing from the worst possible input, anecdotal evidence? I've always loved anecdotal evidence -- I continue to believe what is before my eyes. I believed that smoking cigarettes caused lung cancer. I still do, actually. But clue me in: Are we moving to tight oligopoly everywhere in our economy? PEN-l doesn't much discuss economics, as Michael complains. But when it does, it discusses macro. Anybody looking at market structure? Gene Coyle