Microsoft does it again, bailout style!

[Ganelon]

"Real competition" often fails to materialize when the market is left to its own devices (Standard Oil, anyone?). Many, many things are simply not ideal commodities. Windows is actually a pretty good example; you can't meaningfully switch to another supplier to get it, and there are pretty major costs involved in switching to a comparable but incompatible replacement.

Of course, you'd get a cartel ASAP if you left any industry on their own without incredibly stiff penalties for consorting. Like I said, competition is the pillar of a free market. Without it, the market doesn't work. But equally important is the lack of outside intervention, which will also ruin the market.

And I still don't think Windows is a necessity, maybe because some of my clients are Mac everything from desktops to servers (although naturally a very small minority). It certainly seems like a real option although I'm sure many options are restricted if you go along that path.

Anyway, I don't think republicans are that much more hypocritical. After all, most were against the bailout too (although far too many decided to join with the money wasting). But I suppose the hypocrisy is quite a few of these republicans didn't mind wasting tax dollars supporting big banks when they won't spend money on universal health care. Even if they were simply moral conservatives, it doesn't add up to why they wouldn't be more in favor of health care, which should be a more righteous endeavor. So you'd have to think big banks gave them more "incentives" to vote for their cause; no surprise but it looks really ugly for the politicians. And that's all the more cause for limiting government responsibility.

[Ex-Cyber]

"Real competition" often fails to materialize when the market is left to its own devices (Standard Oil, anyone?). Many, many things are simply not ideal commodities. Windows is actually a pretty good example; you can't meaningfully switch to another supplier to get it, and there are pretty major costs involved in switching to a comparable but incompatible replacement.

Of course, you'd get a cartel ASAP if you left any industry on their own without incredibly stiff penalties for consorting. Like I said, competition is the pillar of a free market. Without it, the market doesn't work. But equally important is the lack of outside intervention, which will also ruin the market.

Outside intervention (antitrust law) is needed to ensure that the market works, but outside intervention will ruin the market?

And I still don't think Windows is a necessity, maybe because some of my clients are Mac everything from desktops to servers (although naturally a very small minority). It certainly seems like a real option although I'm sure many options are restricted if you go along that path.

The point isn't that there's no choice, it's that the cost of changing the choice is huge. It's like having a market where e.g. one company has a monopoly on coal and another has a monopoly on natural gas. You can choose to build your company around one or the other, but switching is very expensive.

[GaijinPunch]

Outside intervention is a necessary evil to an extent, because it is protection. Obviously, anti-trust is the ultimate example in the business sense. Preventing poor people from getting fucked by insurance companies in the NHS sense. America raped and pillaged a nation and made the world a generally worse place all in the name of "protection". You'd think people wouldn't get so uppity about NHS, even if it doesn't make the most fiscal sense. I would honestly never bitch about it though -- if I move back to American w/ my family and get private health care I'd be paying double what I pay here on NHS.