That information is incorrect. There is as of today no crebible information proving that the FBI is on the story. Those articles you are referring to are either misquotes or arranged to be more sensionalistic.

Is FBI the agency tasked with investigating allegations of anti-competitive behavior? Interesting.

This is the last thing the valley needed though.

I don't think they have primary responsibility for antitrust law, but the FBI often assists the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division (http://www.justice.gov/atr/) with the fieldwork part of investigations (the FBI is an agency of the DoJ).

I love how government, the most anti-competitive entity there is, will be investigating anti-competitive behavior. Physician, heal thyself.

If I'm understanding your use of the word "anti-competitive" correctly, then any government, simply by virtue of being a government, is "anti-competitive". So what would constitute "healing"? Total anarchy? Welcome to Somalia.

There was a really good comment the other day regarding Somalia, but searchyc isn't finding it.

Basically, there's actually some studies that suggest Somalia is doing _better_ under 'anarchy' than not. It's only after the UN stopped trying to impose a state that things started getting better.

I don't know about HN comments, but there indeed seem to be some studies suggesting that.

http://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/280-nenova-ha... suggests that the private-sector economy in Somalia did OK during its period of anarchy. (Arguably it's still in anarchy, but less so than before 2006.)

http://www.independent.org/pdf/working_papers/64_somalia.pdf claims that Somalia's economic performance and standard of living "improved during its period of statelessness". Cautionary note: this paper was put out by a libertarian think tank; I don't know enough about their level of integrity to know whether that's worrying.

http://www.peterleeson.com/Better_Off_Stateless.pdf says that the government of Somalia before its period of near-total anarchy was so awful that anarchy was better.

The main takeaway from all this is probably that a sufficiently bad government can be even worse than anarchy. But it also suggests that Somalia was in such a terrible state before its government collapsed completely that any troubles after that have a plausible explanation other than the evils of anarchy.

So, "Welcome to Somalia" was arguably unfair. On the other hand, there don't seem to be a lot of better examples of anarchies available for inspection...

Yeah, really all we have is current Somalia, and the Spanish Civil War... there are others, just not as well known: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities

I think the real test of whether anarchy is preferable to stable government ('anti-competitive' or not), is whether Somalia is doing better than the United States. A perfectly fair comparison would require Somalia to be under anarchy for the same number of years as the U.S. has been a democracy, but presumably you could pick younger democracies for an easier comparison.

I think you will find that:

1) Anarchies, almost by definition, spill into neighboring countries in the form of violence and/or refugess. This is the reason the U.N. intervenes in the first place.

2) A system of governance imposed by outsiders may be worse than anarchy, but self-governance, given a decade or more, will result in conditions better than anarchy. Indeed, I believe that left alone, an anarchy over time will develop into some form of stable government. Usually it's a dictatorship but there is a small chance it may be some form of self governance.

These are both as yet unproven claims based on my intuition of course. If someone has data to back these up or refute them, that would be really interesting.

I think you're conflating the two definitions of anarchy, though you make good points if you s/anarchy/chaos/g;.

I, too, wish there was better data on this.

You don't have to have anarchy to have competition in government. When people recognize individual sovereignty, its not necessary to fight over who will protect a piece of land and its people from thieves and invaders. Its just a matter of contract.

People can peacefully collaborate on their mutual security without coercing each other.

I hate how you were down voted for pointing out a simple truth. Every industry government gets involved in, it passes laws making competition illegal. We had a thriving and quickly growing mail industry in this country before government took it over (for the purpose of censorship at the time) and made delivering first class mail illegal. They actually do sting operations and fine companies caught forwarding "non time sensitive mail" via fedex!

This is just one example. Obama took over general motors by force, against the will of bond holders and handed out a large chunk to the unions.... And then a few months later a big scare was started against Toyota on spurious grounds. This is not a coincidence.

Recently they made it illegal to sell private health insurance (not fully in effect yet so you can still get it, though prices are rising) and soon only government insurance will be available, though private companies will be allowed to underwrite, presuming of course, that they currier enough favor with government regulators.

The very definition of government-- a monopoly on the use of force over a geographic region- is anti competitive, as it prevents ant other governments from forming in the area... Even if the people in a particular area prefer a different form of government.

This is Pres Obama's experience with health care... what would you be doing to fix health care?

"I remember my mother. She was 52 years old when she died of ovarian cancer, and you know what she was thinking about in the last months of her life? She wasn’t thinking about getting well. She wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality. She had been diagnosed just as she was transitioning between jobs. And she wasn’t sure whether insurance was going to cover the medical expenses because they might consider this a preexisting condition. I remember just being heartbroken, seeing her struggle through the paperwork and the medical bills and the insurance forms. So, I have seen what it's like when somebody you love is suffering because of a broken health care system. And it's wrong. It's not who we are as a people." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham

I like the Swiss system. People can actually move their neighborhood to a different canton or create a new one if the one they don't like how things are run in the canton they are in. And it rarely happens, simply because it can.

And the people must approve many measures and certainly those changing the constitution of the country. They have referendums all the time and also proportional representation, which aligns the legislature with the voters.

Of course, this means Switzerland minds it own business and won't invade other countries, but I guess that's the downside of government not driven by anti-competitive urges.

The downvotes are ok. There seems to be an element here that doesn't like it when you state the obvious, but most are rational though.