Justice Department Looks Into Possible AT&T, Verizon Antitrust
This is why McCain's staff had a few lobbyists from AT&T on board. If McCain was elected, I'd bet AT&T and Verizon would've tried to merge and argue that cable cos. provides what they do and it wouldn't violate any anti trust laws at all.
And to ask if this is capitalism? Of course it is. Capitalism cannot survive without the taxpayer's dime. Government in a capitalist society is nothing more than an extension of the private sector. If you want regulations, well thats socialism. If you want growth and low unemployment, well that requires the running of the printing press; that's capitalism. Of course the printing presses will show up in prices but don't worry, the capitalists figure out ways to mute the CPI.
Start wars to help pay back your daddy's friends who gave you money and ended up running every oil company you started or sat on the board of into the ground, well that's definitely capitalism. Gaming the system ie big pharma produces a drug they know can kill but release it anyway to recoup R&D costs and hope the legal costs are less than profit, capitalism. "God sent Hitler to hunt the Jews, the gays were responsible for 9/11, etc.." don't know how or why but you can expect this sort of nonsense from the capitalists. A trading algorithm that in the wrong hands can unfairly manipulate the markets is bad if it's out in the open but A O K in Goldman's hands, capitalism.
Of couse someone will say, "O why don't you go live in Cuba or zimbabwe if you don't like America?" Just another line: Comparing the US not with other industrialized countries like France who don't run the printing press to create fictitious growth or run a TARP program to bail out banks, well that's typical capitalism.
