Hacker News
points by WorldMaker 17 hours ago | 0 comments
The anti-trust laws are still on the books even though they aren't currently being enforced effectively. It's not congress that needs to act right now, it's the executive branch that needs to execute the laws (by making judicial cases out of it, proving that laws were broken in the right courts). Which means getting a President and staff (FCC, FTC, SEC, and especially Attorneys General staff) that cares about these things, and having healthy competition in the market.

It's a reminder that Congress is intentionally only one piece in the three part puzzle and you can't just put all your hopes in the basket of a single Congressional midterms sweep, you also still need the other two branches functioning well. It's also a reminder that the DOGE cuts destabilized a ton of executive branch staff that may take decades to repair. The new historically weak FTC and FCC lost a lot of power to preempt anti-trust behaviors, putting more strain on after-the-fact/after-the-damage enforcement that requires the Executive and Judicial branches working together versus simpler Executive branch only "preventative defense" outcomes.

[–] terribleperson 16 hours ago
Enforcement is part of the problem, but the other problem is judges. The 'consumer welfare' doctrine of anti-trust has in large part served to justify not breaking up companies that really should be broken up.
[–] dragonwriter 16 hours ago
Judges are part of enforcement, not an orthogonal concern. (And judges are appointed by the executive branch based on its priorities, so a long term trend of executive hostility to effective antitrust is likely to be reflected in the judiciary as well.)