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40 years ago, a fabulist named Robert Bork dreamed up an imaginary history of US antitrust law in order to justify dismantling it.
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This Nixon co-conspirator - beloved of Ronald Reagan - cooked up a doctrine that said that monopolies are only a problem when they raise prices in the short/medium term.
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Plutes LOVED this idea, and 40 years later, mergers, acquisitions, vertical monopolies and other anticompetitive activities are the norm, and most major industries are dominated by as few as one, and rarely more than five firms.
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The problem is that monopolies aren't just bad because they raise prices, they're bad BECAUSE THEY ARE MONOPOLIES. Monopolization allows firms to attack workers, suppliers and customers, and to extract monopoly rents that can be diverted to corrupt our political process.
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Which is why we don't have any ventilators.
13 years ago, the US Dept of HHS awarded a contract to design low-cost, reliable ventilators to Newport Medical Instrument of Costa Mesa, CA.
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13 years ago, the US Dept of HHS awarded a contract to design low-cost, reliable ventilators to Newport Medical Instrument of Costa Mesa, CA.
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The ventilators would cost <$3k, allowing the US to procure a shit-ton of them against future pandemics.
This was a problem for existing med-tech giants, who charged >$10K for competing ventilators, but under Robert Bork's antitrust theory, there was a simple solution.
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This was a problem for existing med-tech giants, who charged >$10K for competing ventilators, but under Robert Bork's antitrust theory, there was a simple solution.
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In 2012, Covidien, a giant in the field, simply plunked down $100m (chump change, given its revenues of $12b that year) and bought Newport.
Then they killed the ventilator project.
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Then they killed the ventilator project.
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I mean, not right away. First they delayed it and demanded an additional $1.4M from the US government. Then they killed it.
Covidien is now a division of Medtronic (because Bork). Medtronic is a ghastly shitshow of a company.
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Covidien is now a division of Medtronic (because Bork). Medtronic is a ghastly shitshow of a company.
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They're a lead villain in the fight to kill off open artificial pancreases, which free people with diabetes from being turned into ambulatory inkjet printers, dependent on manufacturers for overpriced consumables to keep their fucking organs working.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/looping-created-insulin-pump-underground-market/588091/
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https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/looping-created-insulin-pump-underground-market/588091/
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Their pacemakers and defibrillators can be wirelessly hacked to kill you where you stand.
https://www.us-cert.gov/ics/advisories/ICSMA-19-080-01
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https://www.us-cert.gov/ics/advisories/ICSMA-19-080-01
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Their stuff is so insecure, it can be hacked even before it leaves the factory.
https://www.wired.com/story/pacemaker-hack-malware-black-hat/
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https://www.wired.com/story/pacemaker-hack-malware-black-hat/
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Naturally, they're also part of the supervillain team that assembled to kill a wave of state Right to Repair bills.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nz85y7/apple-is-lobbying-against-your-right-to-repair-iphones-new-york-state-records-confirm
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https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nz85y7/apple-is-lobbying-against-your-right-to-repair-iphones-new-york-state-records-confirm
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(The lack of Right to Repair legislation is a big reason that hospitals are struggling to keep livesaving equipment online during the pandemic. Thanks, Medtronic!)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/right-repair-times-pandemic
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https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/right-repair-times-pandemic
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The dirty trick that killed off the US's attempt to procure a stockpile of ventilators set the project back by years that, it turned out, we didn't have. Philips now has a contract to deliver what Newport couldn't. They haven't shipped.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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