Economics: Antitrust - Will The US Turn Into A Centrally Planned Economy?

 (Drivebycuriosity) - It seems that the US are slowly turning into a centrally planned economy. A powerful government administration, the American antitrust authority Federal Trade Commission (FTC), is gaining more and more control over the US economy. The FTC is lead by Lina Khan, a radical. 

The FTC chair woman became famous when she - then still a law school student -  published an anti-Amazon paper ((yalelawjournal reason  ). The Khan claims that Amazon will become a monopoly because Amazon`s prices are "too low" (!) which will drive competitors out of business and will hinder potential competitors to emerge. The Khan ignores history and basic economics. She doesn`t take notice of Walmart`s fast growing online business, the rise of e-commerce platforms like Overstock, Shopify, Wayfair, Etsy & Ebay and the advance of myriads of other onlineshops - and the growing importance of foreign competitors like Alibaba & Mercado Libre.  

In another article - for a Marxist paper - the Khan argued that antitrust must be reconfigured toward the redistribution of economic and political power and away from concerns regarding price (lpeproject  realclearpolicy). 

                      Command & Control

Nevertheless President Biden appointed the Khan as Chair of the FTC in July 2021. The Khan - supported by the political majority of the FTC commissioners -  has  swiftly consolidated her power and undermined the Congressionally-mandated Commission structure. With her command-and-control style approach the Khan fundamentally changed the FTC and how America approaches competition & industrial policy (insidesources politico truthonthemarket twitter  marginalrevolution). 30 percent of the agency’s employees said that the “FTC’s senior leaders lacked honesty and integrity” (city-journal )

 

 

                   Political And Social Goals

FTC chair Khan & fellow FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter belong to the Neo-Brandeisian school. They try to expand significantly the government’s role in the U.S. economy (  dailyjournal promarket). The Neo-Brandeisians, who control the mighty FTC, loathe consumer welfare, meaning protecting the consumer (which is still the logo of the FTC). Kahn co-author & mentor Sandeep Vaheesan declared consumer welfare as "nonsense" ( law.columbia). Khan & Co. want to fix issues like underemployment, income disparity, political power, and wealth accumulation (thehill ). FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter demands that “antitrust should be used to accomplish political and social goals including racial enquitiy” ( thecentersquare  crowell).

 

The FTC ruled by Kahn views large companies as evil and prefers that the government, rather than the private sector, orchestrates the functioning of the economy" writes ( .ftc.gov). FTC-commissioner Christine S. Wilson writes that the Neo-Brandeisians, who control the FTC, represent a Marxist ideology which aims for a socialist society, where the means of production is controlled by the state, and planning will substitute for competition as the economy’s steering mechanism ( ftc.gov).

 

 

                    War On Entrepreneurs

Since taking over, the Khan has put more staffing toward the investigation of Amazon and the FTC  already started harassing Amazon, her arch enemy, by issuing several subpoenas to founder Jeff Bezos, CEO Andy Jasso & other employees about a diversity of Amazon businesses ( theverge). The FTC is also inquiring Amazon’s acquisitions of MGM, iRobot & the health care provider One Medical, even though these companies are in different markets than Amazon and none of them is a monopoly ( protocol). And Bloomberg reports that FTC is probing Amazon’s subscription services, including Prime subscriptions ( bloomberg ).

The Khan also started a feud against Meta, the mother of Facebook, claiming that Facebook is a monopoly (bbc ). This claim is as ill fetched as the Amazon monopoly accusation. Facebook is losing users to TikTok & Snapchat and - being financed by advertisements - is competing against other media corporations like Apple, Twitter, Google, News Corp, Paramount etc.

Khan wants to block Meta´s planned purchase of Within Unlimited, a small virtual reality company that produces a fitness app called Supernatural, against her own staff's recommendations against pursuing such a fatally flawed and publicity motivated action (inc.com ). Again the Khan stupidly ignores the growing number of competitors in the Meta business. Inc.com writes: "The FTC declares war on Entrepreneurs" (inc.com ).
 

Notwithstanding the Khan gets empowered by President Biden, who signed an executive order to sharpen the regulatory controls and increased funding for the already mighty FTC. She also gets supported by powerful senators like Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders and by Jonathan Kanter, head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (Justice ATR), who tries to criminalize business leaders just for doing their jobs ( truthonthemarket  promarket).

 

                     Enormous Power Grab

Biden protege Khan, who´s position is based on a false premise (Amazon monopoly), wants to be in charge of the whole economy and she is trying "to make new law, invent bizarre market definitions and limitations, and expand the reach of any government agency" (inc.com ). The Khan claims that she has the "Rule Making Authority" and that she can decide what is & isn't "unfair competitive conduct" ( ftc.gov    twitter  ). If one company cuts her prices, then competitors and the FTC could complain and denounce the price cut as "unfair". So the "Fairness rule" will lead to higher prices over time - less cost control and more waste.

It`s clear that the Khan wants to make the rules, or even clearer: She - and her Neo-Brandeisans - want to rule. The market process of supply and demand would be replaced by a continuously regulated environment where market outcomes are constantly being reviewed by bureaucrats who don`t understand economics and ignore history as shown in the above mentioned cases of Amazon & Meta (truthonthemarket ).

Recently the Khan published her 5-years-plan, called "Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2022-2026" (ftc.gov ). Khan`s 5-years-plan is a remembrance of soviet area 5-years-plans, central planning and Lenin. It will be an enormous power grab - if she gets away with it.

Khan´s 5-years plan has several new goals which go beyond consumer interests and - to make it worse - are even against consumer interests. Objective 1.4 announces support equity for historically underserved communities, which include Black Americans, Latinos, members of religious minorities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and persons adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality. Apparently Khan`s antitrust focuses on race and income inequality, following Karin Slaugther`s ideas who promotes that antitrust is about equality (crowell ).

The neglect of consumer interests is also announced in Strategic Goal 2: "The FTC’s efforts to prevent and police unfair methods of competition focus on preventing anticompetitive mergers and business practices through enforcement". Apparently Khan & Co. want to protect competitors which leads to less competition and will harm the consumer.

                Dictatorship By Bureaucrats 

 

If Khan, Slaughter & Co get their will the US economy will be ruled by unelected bureaucrats who are economic illiterate and ignorant of history (indicated by their treatment of Amazon & Meta) - a system which reminds of Kafka`s novel "The Castle" ("Das Schloss") where anonymous mighty bureaucrats make the decisions.

Lina Khan - and supporters like Amy Klobuchar - are aiming for a dictatorship of bureaucrats, which would punish merits, diligence, risk taking etc (calling merits "unfair"). The rise of Khan`s FTC is a step to central planning and would lead to a waste of resources what we could learn from the breakdown of Soviet era central planning systems & the decline of Cuba, Venezuela & North Korea. Central planning is dysfunctional - it never functioned in history. 

Science Fiction: The Invincible By Stanislaw Lem

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Stanislaw Lem belongs to the most important science fiction authors of the 20th century. His novel "Solaris" is his most known work, especially because of the 1972 movie adaption by Andrei Tarkovsky. Lem`s novel "The Invincible", first published in the year 1964, is maybe even more important ( amazon ).

Space crusier "The Invincibel" arrives on a remote planet. Commander and crew have to find out what happened with a similar space ship which got lost on this planet. The plot begins like a traditional scifi adventure and space opera but the plot turns fast into a complex and philosophical work, typical for Lem (this is a spoiler free blog). 

The reader gets a lot of action, technology, cosmology,  & alien settings. But Lem gives the reader much more. He presents an almost academic description of evolution, but not the evolution we know on earth which lead to plants, animals & humans. Lem describes a very different - but equally plausible - development.

What the book makes outstanding is the pivotal role of information (or data) for the plot. This book made me aware how important information is for our live and almost everything. Lem also introduced nanotechnology into the genre ( wikipedia). The Invincible shows how visionary Lem really was, maybe even more than Heinlein, Clark & Asimov.

Unfortunately the foreword has too many spoilers. I recommend to read it after the book, then it helps to digest the novel. Anyway "The Invincible" aged very well and is highly recommended.

Culture: Psycho Las Vegas 2022 Redux

(Drivebycuriosity) - It is August again, time for Psycho Las Vegas. My wife and I pilgrimed again to Nevada to attend the mega rock festival. The event had moved again. After Hard Rock Hotel & Mandalay Bay this year`s heavy metal festival happened in the Resorts World complex at the north end of Las Vegas`famous Strip.

Psycho Las Vegas 2022 also got much larger and offered over 4 days (and nights) more than 130 performers on 6 stages  - an all you can eat buffet. 

Unfortunately the Resorts World complex is not really fit for a giant rock festival. I missed there the large concert halls with stadium seating I had enjoyed @ Mandalay Bay, so most of the performances happened on tiny stages which are part of fast food restaurants.

 

 

 

But we got compensated by the quality of some of the performers. Many bands shook halls & burger joints with their highly amplified and very low tuned blurred guitars, called drone guitars. 

The highlight for me was the outstanding performance by Amenra, who played early Sunday afternoon in the half-filled Event Center (capacity about 5,000). Front man Colin H. van Eeckhout acted sometimes like a buddhist priest and sang with a fragile and tender voice in Flemish (a kind of Dutch language), than he exploded, turned berserk and shouted like a wounded soul; his band amplified his show and converted atmospheric melodic phases into super-heavy riffs. Meditation transformed suddenly into fierce eruptions - and the show ended with sheer inferno. The experience got intensified by the stylish light show which changed from artful sinister graphics & videos into stroboscopic and blinding flash storms. Breath taking and mind blowing.

 

And there were more highlights:

Liturgy performed heavy metal as an art form. Female voices, amplified by electronics, were used as an additional instrument and the high pitched infernal screams & shrieks of two girls melted with blurred and very low tuned guitars into an outwordly experience (actually bandleader Ravenna Hunter is a transperson but shrieks & screams like a girl)

Indian: Highly intense & extremely vicious riffs accompanied by the maniacal shouting & hissing of the vocalists shook the venue. It sounded like stoned gods making love -  pure mayhem.

Primitive Man showed that their name is misleading. The Denver band delivered complex structured pieces. Their gig started with super-massive drown guitars accompanied by deep growls and turned then into a strange buzzing, humming & fuzzing - creating kind of psychedelic scifi spectacle.

A Year of no Light, a instrumental band from France, created post-apocalyptic and hyper-massive acoustic scenarios.

Mizmor turned filigree guitar tunes into massive sound waves - producing an intense and psychedelic atmosphere.

 

 

At the opening pool party impressed Eyehategod. Frontman Mike IX Williams delivered a funny and somewhat sick show enhanced by the band`s very heavy & bluesy guitar riffs. They called their gig "End Time Blues".

King Woman showed an amazing performance. Front woman`s Kristina Esfandiari strong voice combined with the drone guitars of her band mesmerized her audience.  

 

 

Wolves in the Throne Room generated an intense & hypnotizing atmosphere which suddenly turned into fierce explosions and massive base riffs culminated into annihilating assaults. It seemed like the "Wolves" attacked the civilization and ripped it apart.

 

The Body was just a duo, a man with a guitar and a percussionist. But the two shook the Rose Ball Room with massive sounds. Pure guitar magic.

The Mexican Band Violencia, lead by front woman Gobi ( violenciahc.), delivered an explosive show as well. Muchas Gracias.

 

                      Acquired Taste

 

I got surprised by Uniform, one of the pool bands from Thursday. I had not liked them when I checked the bands in advance on YouTube. In the begin of the concert I disliked the spastic jumping & running of the front man but after a while his performance - together with the massive drone guitars of the band - made sense and I liked the show more and more.

 

I had much fun watching Starcrawler @ the pool concert. The front woman - dressed in a kind of white bikini - performed like a go-go girl. Her show combined with the strong drone guitars of the band was awesome - the perfect band for the pool.

Hippie Death Cult performed in the Dawg House, one of the fast food restaurants, powerful rock and Soft Kill`s fourceful music impressed as well.   

It was also fun to see Dreadnought again, whom we had seen at Fire in the Mountains in July (my report ).

There were a lot bands who where not in the category of the above mentioned but where strong enough:

Greybeard & Belzebong both played solid stoner & psychedelic blues. Blood Incanation, Rifflord & Early Mood also entertained with their rough and violent sounds.

We also watched head liners Merciful Fate, a real crowd-pleaser, who filled the Event Center (capacity 5,000 people) at 10pm. Where did all this people come from? I did not see them before at the festival. Anyway, we left after some minutes, enough entertainment - and not our taste. The same with Mayhem, another headliner.

We also loved the early morning swim in one of the many hotel pools and enjoyed the beer. On top of this post you can see a graphic my wife had created.

 

Looking forward to next year`s Psycho Las Vegas.

 

 

 

Traveling: Snapshots From Venice, LA, California

(Drivebycuriosity) - Last Monday my wife and I travelled from Last Vegas to Los Angeles follwing 2 of our favorite bands who had played at Psycho Las Vegas the day before. The afternoon before the show we used for a stroll on  LA`s beach neigborhood Venice.

 

 
I used the ocassion to take some snapshots.

 

 

The canals show how this area got her name. I like the lush vegetation along the canals.

 

 

 

The architecture their is interesting as well. 

 

Stay tuned. 

Heavy Metal: Amenra & Liturgy @ Catch One, Los Angeles

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - I am a connoisseur of heavy metal. I really enjoy atmospheric music combined with very heavy riffs. Last Monday I had the joy to watch 2 of the best bands in this genre - Amenra & Liturgy. They performed @ Catch One, an entertainment complex somewhere in Los Angeles` sheer endless sprawl. 

I had followed both bands from Las Vegas where they performed the day before @ Psycho Las Vegas, the mega show with more than 130 bands and some thousands attendants.  Apparently both bands are unknown in California`s hip crowd, so there were not many people in the small "Disco Room". Fortunately for me because I could watch their performances from close and did not risk to drown in the masses.

 

 

 

                       Meditation & Inferno

It was the fourth time I enjoyed a gig by Amrena (2019 Psycho Las Vegas, 2020 Mexico City, 2022 Psycho Las Vegas). The Belgians (Vocals: Colin H. van Eeckhout, guitars: Mathieu Vandekerckhove & Lennart Bossu, bass: Tim De Gieter & drumms: Bjorn Lebon) own in Europe quite a reputation for their spectacular and hyper-intense shows. On Monday they justyfied  their reputation again.

 

 

 

Frontman Vandekerckhove acted sometime like a priest and sang with a fragile and tender voice in Flemish (a kind of Dutch language), than he exploded, turned berserk and shouted like a wounded soul; his band amplified his show and converted atmospheric melodic phases into super-heavy riffs. Meditation transformed suddenly into fierce eruptions - and the show ended with sheer inferno. The experience got intensified by the stylish light show which changed from artful sinister graphics & videos into stroboscopic and blinding flash storms. Breath taking and mind blowing.

Here some quotes from professional reviewers from former shows: 

"Amenra use indescribably intense sections of the music to create an all-consuming wall of sound, a chaotic yet somehow ordered cacophony. More importantly they contrast this with quiet, brooding build-ups which are at times near silent" ( mancunion).

 “Their unique musical style, characterized by brooding atmospheres and spiritual intensity and their live performances, accompanied by visual art, have been described as entrancing communions” says Wikipedia (Amenra). 

The Independent wrote that their "avant-garde post-metal" music "pushes the boundaries of extreme music by being heavy in practically every conceivable way; sonically, emotionally and spiritually (independent ).

 

 

               Heavy Metal As An Art Form

 

Liturgy, who opened the show, performed heavy metal as an art form: Female voices, amplified by electronics, were used as an additional instrument. The band from Brooklyn, New York (Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix (vocals, guitar), Mario Miron (guitar), Tia Vincent-Clark (bass) and Leo Didkovsky (drums)) describe their music as "transcendental black metal" (wikipedia ). 

The high pitched infernal screams & shrieks of two girls melted with blurred and very low tuned guitars into an outwordly experience (actually Ravenna is a transperson but shrieks & screams like a girl).
 

Thank you so much Amenra & Liturgy for this exceptional experience.

 

Culture: Psycho Las Vegas 2022 - Day Four - Acoustic Mayhem

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Yesterday Psycho Las Vegas 2022 @ the Resorts World came to an end. 4 enjoyed days of acoustic mayhem. There were about 130 performers on 6 stages.

The festival finale brought the return of Amrena. We  had sad seen the Belgian band first at Psycho 2019 and then at Doom City festival in Mexico City, February 2020, just at the begin of the Covid19 pandemic. Their show was again an outstanding experience. Almost silent meditative phases turned into fierce explosions, amplified by the light show.

Indian, another favorite of me, mesmerized with highly intense & extremely vicious riffs accompanied by the maniac shouting & hissing of the vocalists shook the venue. It sounded like stoned gods making love -  pure mayhem.

A Year with no Sun, the French instrumental band, created post-apocalyptic acoustic scenarios.

The Body was just a duo, a man with a guitar and a percussionist. But the shook the Rose Ball Room with massive sounds. Pure guitar magic.

The Mexican Band Violencia, lead by front woman Gobi ( violenciahc.), delivered an explosive show as well. Muchas Gracias.

We also watched head liners Merciful Fate, a real crowd pleaser, who filled the Event Center (capacity 5,000 people) at 10pm. Where did all this people come from? I did not see them before at the festival. Anyway, we left after some minutes, enough entertainment - and not our taste.

Stay tuned.

Culture: Psycho Las Vegas 2022 - Day Three

(Drivebycuriosity) - Psycho Las Vegas @ the Resorts World continued. There were again about 40 performers on 6 stages. How to choose?

Already at 11 am performed Mizmor, the discovery of the day. Filigrane guitar riffs turned into massive sound waves creating a psychedelic atmosphere.

They were followed by Indian, one of my favorites. The band delivered again an outstandig performance. highly intense & extremely vicious riffs accompanied by the maniacal shouting & hissing of the vocalists shook the venue. It sounded like stoned gods making love -  pure mayhem.

The Greybeard & Belzebong in the Dawghouse played solid stoner & psychedelic blues.

Then, oh fun, followed Primitive Man. The name is misleading, they delivered complex structured pieces. Their gig started with super-massive drown guitars accompanied by deep growls and turned then into a kind of psychedelic scifi spectacle.

Liturgy performed heavy metal as an art form. Female voices, amplified by electronics, were used as an additional instrument the high pitched infernal screaming of two girls combined with blurred low tuned guitars an ohztwordly experience.

Blood Incanation entertained with their rough and violent sound

To be continued

Culture: Psycho Las Vegas 2022 - Day Two - Tiny Restaurants-

 (Drivebycuriosity) - We are still attending Psycho Las Vegas @ the Resorts World complex. Friday was Day Two of the festival. About 40 performers appeared on 6 stages, twice the number of 2021. Again they offered very different styles.

Unfortunately the Resorts World complex, where Psycho is happening this year, is not really fit for a giant rock festival. I miss there the large concert halls with stadium seating, so many performances happen on tiny stages which are part of restaurants.

Fortunately Wolves in the Throne Room, one of my favorites, performed in the "Theater", also called Event Center. The venue is a makeshift hall, a huge tent outside the hotel buildings. They created an intense & hypnotizing atmosphere which suddenly turned into fierce explosions and massive base riffs culminated into annihilating assaults. It seemed like the "Wolves" attacked the civilization and ripped it apart.

There also were some interesting discoveries. King Woman delivered in the Rose Ball Room amazing performance  Here strong voice combined with the drone guitars of her band mesmerized her audience.

Hippie Death Cult performed in the Dawg House, one of the fast food restaurants, powerful rock and Soft Kill`s fourceful music impressed as well.   

It was also fun to see Dreadnought again, who had performed at Fire in the Mountains in July.

We also saw Mayhem in the Event Center but left early because we got bored.

 

To be continued

Culture: Psycho Las Vegas 2022 - Day One - Rain In The Desert

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - It is August again, time for Psycho Las Vegas. My wife and I pilgrimed again to Nevada to attend the mega rock festival. The event had moved again and is now happening in the Resorts World complex at the noth end of Las Vegas`famous Strip.

Psycho Las Vegas 2022 also got much larger and offers over 4 days (and nights) more than 130 performers  - an all you can eat buffet. 

The festival started as usual at the pool. Sunshine, bikinis and more or less heavy sounds. Unfortunately the pool event happened in a smaller place than last year at the Mandalay Bay Resort and a larger crowd got crammed between pools, cabanas and the stage.

 

 

In the evening happened an unusual rain shower and crowd darling Elder had to brake up their concert. The winner was Eyehategod, my favorite for the day, who could start their gig earlier as scheduled. Frontman Mike IX Williams delivered a funny and somewhat sick show enhanced by the band`s heavy & bluesy guitar riffs. The called they show "End Time Blues"

I also enjoyed the gig by Uniform. This is an acquired taste. I had not liked them when I checked the bands in advance on YouTube. In the begin of the concert I disliked the spastic show of the front man but after a while his performance - together with the massive drone guitars of the band - made sense and I liked it more and more.

I had much fun watching Starcrawler. The front woman - dressed in a white bikini or such - performed like a go-go girl. Her show combined with the strong drone guitars of the band was awesome - the perfect band for the pool.

I also saw Rifflord & Early Mood early in the afternoon.

To be continued

  

Economics: The Next Book Revolution

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Do you like books? Then you might like this chart I found on Internet ( kedrosky.). It shows how the prices of books melted down over about 400 years. The sharp price drop was caused by technological progress of course. 

But the book price implosion also pushed technological progress, economic growth and the advance of our civilization. Cheaper books reduced the price of information considerably. Learning about everything got much easier and cheaper fostering progress in medicine, agriculture, ship building, business administration, finance etc. etc.

The book price implosion supported revolutions, because more people learned about it - and faster. The decline of the once monopolist Catholic church was made possible by much cheaper & available books because many people learned about the theses of Martin Luther and other reformers.

Today we are witnessing a similar development: The Internet reduces the cost of information swiftly - and makes it much faster. The price of information is imploding again. I suppose we are still in the low-left (south-west) corner of the image and we can expect that information gets much cheaper soon thanks to smart phones which give access to cloud computing, artificial intelligence & quantum computing.

Again learning about everything is getting much easier & cheaper fostering progress in sciences, finance, technology, business administration etc. etc. Radically cheap & fast information made it possible that we got vaccines against Covid-19 in less than a year - because the researchers could exchange their ideas easily and an immense amount of data pushed the research. 

The increasing and accelerating flow of information will help us to get answers to the rapidly developing mutations of the virus. It also will foster general education (especially in low income countries). Cheaper information also promotes economic growth because investing gets easier and the markets for goods & services - including restaurants, hotels, flights - are getting more transparent and efficient.