NO TIME to discuss the Sherman Act?, page 1

If I forget my wallet and I am pulled over on the way to the nearest "dollar general" store to get Diapers for my daughter who just pooped, should I receive tickets for Failure to provide proof of insurance, no valid driver's license?

This happened to me about a year ago. In the end, I was made to feel like a criminal. Am I over-reacting, maybe a bit, as in the end everything worked out. I still had to pay fines in the amount of $378. And I guess that makes me a criminal in their eyes.
I am using this analogy because in truth I was just a man in pursuit of diapers. (dollar general is only a couple a miles away) and yet 18 hours of my time and a lawyer, and $378 later, and being made to feel like I was not a good citizen - just hit a sour note.

Our government everyday sits idly by while the FTC fails to enforce the Sherman act of 1890, while firms and corporations willingly and openly steal the wealth from every average American in the country. ( who wasn't born into wealth, or won the lottery) The FTC spends an enormous amount of their time stopping the latest internet marketing scam. Yes they did go after Microsoft, yes they did go after a few firms (possibly politically motivated) for price fixing. But the biggest scams in history seem to just squeak by. I am putting this into the political Madness forum because I believe these events to be political in nature, and pure madness.

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

My Second thread ever is not really an attention grabber. I could take a video of me stripping to make it more worth your time, but mostly it is really just important to me.

The person now in charge of the FTC is one of us. He is a guy that wants to enforce the Sherman act more vigorously and root out all of these moneychangers from the system. This agency has a lot of power . OH MY GOD, SOOO MUCH POWER
Jon Leibowitz Jon's wiki-HERE

Protecting America's Consumers in the Financial Downturn Since becoming Chairman, the FTC has filed more than 40 law enforcement actions to stop scams that prey on consumers suffering from the economic downturn, such as foreclosure “rescue” and mortgage modification schemes, phony debt-reduction and credit-repair services, bogus government grant opportunities, job scams, and get-rich quick frauds. The Commission redoubled its efforts to put a stop to job schemes when U.S. unemployment reached nearly 10 percent in early 2010.[6] In one of the largest judgments imposed in an FTC case, Countrywide settled for $108 million with the FTC in June 2010 for collecting excessive fees from cash-strapped borrowers who were struggling to keep their homes

My point is we have a lot of people in government who want to make things better. The problem from my point of view is they don't have enough of us in their ear, AND THEY ARE OUTNUMBERED. They have butt loads of pharma's lobbyists, unions lobbyists, banking lobbyists, legal firm lobbyists, farmer's lobbyists. But who is lobbying for the middle and working class. Any opinion they hear at their in state office, is going to seem like a minority opinion. Obviously they don't have enough time to read every bill. And have you noticed how they now say this congressman presented this bill, but they don't tell you who wrote it. They surely don't seem too excited about telling you who wrote the healthcare bill.

The federal trade commission is in charge of protecting consumers from egregious acts of economic bias (class warfare) as well as enforcing the Anti-trust laws.

MEDIA

So where are they on the media. In all meanings and interpretations of the Sherman Act. Main Stream media is in violation. And even more so if they try to make you get a license to blog. Its coming folks, they don't like competition, so they are ready to lobby congress to create laws that will end alternate media. Justifying the entire theme of conspiracy wackos must go all the way to the senate. When there really is more truth in alternate media than on MSM. and that is saying a lot because there are a lot of conspiracy posts on this site that are pure bunk. I am sure I will make a few. most of these you debunk yourselves. Who is debunking all the hand fed garbage the MSM gets. I assume this is where the FTC should say, shut yo mouth MSM, the only reason alternate media exists is because your stations are too biased, and you lie WAY TOO MUCH. But they aren't. Many politicians support licensing for news related authors. License to Blog My solution - enforce the constitution. The US government does not have authority to regulate free speech written or otherwise. We said no to burning books, didn't we? Did we say that Hitler was the bad guy only to become him?

ENERGY

Lack of competition in energy markets is a world-wide problem. infrastructure costs are way too high. ( because of the item below) And what bank is going to loan a new company money to compete with the big boys. What really should happen here is that the FTC should say that energy producers cannot sell the energy themselves to the consumer. But they should sell it first to wholesalers, who would then distribute the power. And create competitive businesses with different business models and much likely much better service. Coops were started in localized regions to do the same thing, showing that there is a need. In this way the distributor can also choose where to buy the energy from, creating competition in a market that has very little. Obviously the idea is simple. congress should take ownership of all infrastructure not on the property of the manufacturer. Which would also limit start-up costs. But instead we are left with regional monopolies that have laborers making 5,6 times the national average, and living well. all because of monopolies. Not that those people living well isn't a good thing. but better competition should bring the CEO's pay down, not the workers. Instead we just sit back and watch energy manufacturers buy-out their competition and consolidate. Until they are so big they pay millions to lobbyists every year to make sure there wont be any competition. Energy Monopolies

METALS - the steel industry(also iron, aluminum, bronze, and super alloys)

The FTC sits back and lets large manufacturers of ferrous-alloy buy out the small companies that are keeping prices competitive and shutting them down in order to lower supply, remove supply in order to perpetuate huge price increases in metals. Nickel, Molybdenum, Ferrous silicon, Ferrous manganese, Coke, Aluminum - the list goes on and on. How many of you live near a few of these small manufacturers that were promised great things by conglomerates just to be shut-down after they were bought out. Increasing the cost of metal goods world wide. You will not find many sources of information about this as most of this is done regionally but through international corporations. Its pretty easy to figure out. Demand will always increase for these products over the long term. You have cyclical consumption but the overall trend is up. Long-term any short term weeding out the market of suppliers, results in huge price spikes later. NICKEL MARKET

SUBSIDIZATION

Subsidies are a solution to what? In my eyes subsidies are the result of technology suppression. Companies suppress new competitive technologies to prevent competition, and the end result is the industry cannot keep pace with demand. Leading to bloated, failing markets, that we have already invented replacements for. they were just bought up, killed, stifled. etc. Subsidies cost billions a year. And I am having a hard time finding one area that did not suppress new technologies, only to find out a decade later that technology would have saved their A**. TEKKIES

I am going to stop here for now. What long term trends do you see forming? should the FTC be doing more to increase competition? If I am made to feel like a criminal for going to get Diapers, what does that make these people?

edit on 4-6-2011 by no time because: forgot to add link to teh big Leibowitz