GUI

[JoeHill]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 11:29:46 -0500
Anton Markov <anton-F0u+EriZ6ihBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> | Worse, they condition this on non-sale of competitive products.  This
> | breaks the laws on allowed pricing policy in at least half the civilized
> | world as I know it.
> You mean the half of the world that lives under a communist/socialist
> regime where everyone is essentially on welfare letting their life be
> run by beurocrats?

No, like he said, in the part of the world where we at least pay lip-service to
playing by the rules, so that the economy doesn't fall apart under the weight of
*corporate bureaucracy*, ie. monopoly.

> You want pricing policy?  The USSR had plenty of that.  In 1919-1921
> that led to a famine that cost nearly two million lives.  And this
> happened again, and again, and again.

Try to at least stay in the same century, here, Anton. We're not talking about
telling Microsoft *exactly how much to charge for their products*, we're talking
about asking them nicely to play by a certain set of very liberal rules
regarding competition and business conduct, you know, the kind that makes it
illegal to trade on insider information or embezzle money from your own corp,
like our erstwhile friend Lord "Tubby" Black has been caught doing. Or are you
an Anarchist, eschewing all legal frameworks for a truly free market? It's one
or the other, bubba.

> | Worse again, after the competition folds, the prices
> | double or triple.  This is why price dumping is illegal. It can put a
> | competitor with deep pockets (or with artificially very cheap labor)
> Where did those deep pockets come from.  Maybe they where created before
> the company becomes a monopoly through legal practices?  How many people
> found employment and how many sub-contractors and suppliers
> (construction firms, hardware manufacturers, office supplies, ...)
> received business while these "deep pockets" where created?

...and how many businesses were driven under and people unemployed while
Microsoft shut down competitor after competitor with illegal business practices.

What's wrong, Anton, Bill Gates your lover or something?

-- 
JoeHill ++ ICQ # 280779813
Registered Linux user #282046
Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The US is our trading partner, our neighbour, our ally and our friend... and
sometimes we'd like to give them such a smack!"-- Rick Mercer
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml