1. https://www.wlf.org/2023/02/24/publishing/actual-potential-c...
"But we offer our product for free to consumers, so we can't be a monopoly" was used as a get-out-of-jail-free card, coupled with legislator and regulator ignorance on who the consumer was.
Hopefully, we'll look back at 2005-2025 as a silly period where government forgot its place in the market.
The "current framework in antitrust policy" was not legal at all. It was a set of interpretations and standards agreed upon by judges and enforcement agencies.
In particular, the "consumer welfare standard" appears _nowhere_ in our current law. It is a framework that is used as a fig leaf to allow agencies to refuse to enforce the law as written.
Ivan Boesky sought his edge with insider information, which of course is illegal. If Lina Khan gives you a legal edge by making spurious objections, the smart trader takes it.
Eventually everyone figures out that an FTC objection doesn't mean much, and the edge goes away.
Source: Matt Stoller's book "Goliath".
wrong. Executive action "because Congress doesn't work" is the path to dictatorship.
You're right that courts can overrule precedent, but they're generally quite reluctant to do that.
wrong again. See the "major questions" decisions from SCOTUS. Congress didn't grant them to power to do whatever they feel like.
Incidentally, since you're regressing on the "consumer harm isn't even part of the law" thing, which you've already lost -- we're done here.
Courts, especially U.S. District Courts, apply the law as it is, not the law as the FTC chair wishes it to be. If I was a hedge fund manager with a law degree, I would draw the same conclusion, and make similar bets.