from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
Regardless of the continued faux promise of “populism,” to date Trump 2.0 has confirmed to be a bonanza for telecom giants in search of to get even greater. As typical which means increased broadband costs and shittier broadband service are simply over the horizon.
As a reward for promising to be extra racist, Verizon lately noticed its $20 billion merger with Frontier accredited by the Trump FCC. Comcast is rumored to be eyeing a merger with T-Cellular. And cable large Constitution is pushing for a brand new $34.5 billion merger with Cox Communications. As typical, the 2 firms are promising that extra trade mergers will someway make the sector extra aggressive:
“This mixture will increase our capacity to innovate and supply high-quality, competitively priced merchandise, delivered with excellent customer support, to hundreds of thousands of houses and companies,” Constitution CEO Chris Winfrey mentioned within the press launch. “We’ll proceed to ship high-value merchandise that save American households cash, and we’ll onshore jobs from abroad to create new, good-paying careers for U.S. workers.”
We’ve received forty years of exhausting knowledge illustrating that that is not what occurs while you let the U.S. telecom trade consolidate. Even when two merging firms don’t instantly compete, the ensuing telecom firms are usually extra politically highly effective than ever. And certainly one of their favourite pastimes entails abusing that political energy to crush all competitors and regulatory oversight.
Constitution is, you may recall, the corporate that just about received kicked out of New York State after it lied to regulators repeatedly about whether or not it was assembly necessities fastened to its merger with Time Warner Cable.
These mergers by no means serve the general public curiosity. And America’s traditionally too corrupt to care. Such consolidation helps quickly increase inventory valuations and generate wealthy tax cuts, whereas overcompensated executives rejoice their savvy deal-making acumen. The general public harms of consolidation is then swept underneath the carpet with the assistance of an equally consolidated company press and captured regulators.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
So Trump 2.0 is each encouraging extra of this dangerous consolidation on the identical time they’re taking an absolute hatchet to no matter was left of regulatory autonomy and company oversight. It’s the fruits of a technology of delusion by proper wingers and Libertarian “free market” guys who (fairly falsely) declare that unchecked monopolization leads to near-mystical Utopian outcomes.
It doesn’t: letting telecom giants like Verizon and Comcast get greater when you dismantle authorities oversight solely leads to these giants doubling down on present unhealthy behaviors. Once more, that at all times means exploiting regional geographic monopolies and duopolies to drive up costs, undermining small enterprise, fraudulently acquiring extra taxpayer subsidies, and eroding the precise free market competitors the supporters of those offers declare to be such large proponents of. It’s totally theatrical.
The identical factor is taking part in out in media, with firms like Time Warner Discovery calling for much more mergers and higher media consolidation underneath Trump — at a time when the enshittification from such consolidation couldn’t be any extra obvious. That’s concurrently leading to shittier journalism, increased costs, decrease high quality decisions, and a flood of corporatist bullshit and proper wing propaganda.
U.S. broadband is a patchwork of regional monopolies, coddled by corrupt federal and state lawmakers, who’ve labored tirelessly to demolish something carefully resembling competitors in native broadband markets. U.S. media is a lazy patchwork of consolidated company giants obsessive about “development for development’s sake.” Extra senseless consolidation is the precise reverse of what these industries want.
We’ve taken that already damaged mannequin and someway managed to make it dumber and extra dangerous underneath Trump 2.0, by fusing all of it to the erratic whims of authoritarian zealots. Zealots seeking to additional exploit the merger approval course of in trade for these firms’ guarantees that they’ll be extra racist and shittier than ever. Nice stuff. What may go improper?
Filed Beneath: antitrust, broadband, competitors, consolidation, corruption, fcc, mergers, oversight, racism, regulation, trump
Corporations: constitution, cox communications
