DOJ Says XM/Sirius Monopoly is Not a Monopoly

Today the Bush administration's pathetic antitrust division announced that the merger of the two firms now providing satellite radio services would "not Substantially Reduce Competition."

Our earlier statement of opposition to this merger is here.

If the Bush administration wanted to allow consumers to use the same receivers to use both services, they could have simply required interoperability of the receivers, rather than creating a monopoly. It is quite a bit more difficult to un-do monopolies than to block the mergers that create them.

Comments

[InofTouch]

So who want to pay for something that is free???

[LeftRight]

Well, I must admit I'm surprised. Not that they wanted to do it, since the bushco(tm) administration ALWAYS love monopolies, but that they did it. I would have thought that this was a lower priority on the list than something like Exxon-Mobil-Texaco-BP, etc....

[Sumocat]

The only oil company BushCo cares about is Saudi Arabia. That's why we're spending so much money to keep a cork in their major (and controllable) competitors, Iraq and Iran, and doing so little to break free of Saudi oil.