There is not a single example in this country of a company brought down by anti-trust laws resulting in a better, cheaper, or more plentiful product.  The greatest example is the destruction of Standard Oil, prices went through the roof after they chopped it up.  It took years for them to come back down.  The reason being Standard Oil, while run by a cut-throat businessman that mercilessly killed his competition, never exploited the customers through price gouging and stayed ahead of the curve the whole time.  Staying the best was how they stayed a near monopoly.

On the other side, actual practices in violation of the legislation takes place regularly.  When a retail outlet makes a deal with a producer to only sell their product, they are behaving in an anti-competitive manner far worse than companies have been dissolved for.  This is common place, it's even taking place at Walmart now, which once upon a time was known for being one of the only major chains that didn't.  Price setting is another big one, it happens all the time.  Every time someone does a nationwide release with an agreement that the stores sell the product at a specific price, they've broken the anti-trust laws.  The entire console market is toast.

The behavior it's supposed to prevent is ignored, but when politicians go looking for a scape goat, they love to use it to chop up some company to feel good about themselves.  Whether it's done any good at all is up for debate.

Arbitrary decisions on what should be free market and what shouldn't are gross violations of the Constitution.

You have no right to health care.  Health care is a product of someone elses time and money.  For there to be a right to it, you must have a right to someone elses life and property, because that is what's required to provide that service.

Trying to control arms is directly in violation of the second amendment.  The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.  Rather cut and dry.  Constitutionally, I should be able to buy a nuke, I'm willing to restrict it to conventionally available weaponry and exclude military weapon systems, but it requires an amendment before it's not a violation of their oath of office when the Supreme Court says no.  Taking them away because they are dangerous is just silly, the typical automobile is far more dangerous than some evil machine gun.  Do 120mph through a packed parade ground and see how many people you can kill.  If you can't break 100, you suck.

Human trafficking would depend on whether it's voluntary or not.  If you want to settle a debt by working for someone for five years, who the hell am I to say indentured servitude is illegal?  You were probably thinking this couldn't be argued.

I do think teletubbies should be outlawed though.

This is free trade propaganda.  Free trade is wiping out the American middle class.  Millions of good jobs are gone and will never come back.  Free trade is also destroying the dollar, because free trade is responsible for the accumulation of the massive trade deficit.  The only "amazing benefits" you speak of are to corporate CEO bonuses, and the Chinese.

No.  The good jobs are wiped out (engineering and technical jobs, not to mention manufacturing jobs).  The cheaper prices at Walmart will never make up for the fact that the job outlook turns into something resembling a 3rd world country.  When you have to flip burgers instead of be an engineer, you don't have much of a consolation that you can get some discount crap at Walmart.

When the US was the most anti-free trade (protectionist) country on the planet is also when it saw an explosion in its middle class, its standard of living, etc.  Now that it has become the most free trade country on the planet, the middle class is being wiped out.  Unemployment, as measured the way they USED to measure it (around Ronald Reagan time frame) is around twice the official figures (~20%).  This is actually not due to the recession or financial implosion or whatever you want to call it.  It is due to free trade.

"Competitive" is a loaded term.  Of course you can't compete with people who make 1 tenth the wages you make.  I've never seen that as "the point."  The only Americans who benefit by forcing the American middle class to compete with foreigners who make 1 tenth what they make are corporate CEOs who get to substitute expensive American labor for cheap foreign labor.

No, the bonuses come with increased bottom lines.  Bottom lines are increased when jobs are moved overseas, and when jobs are outsourced.

The problem that Kharma is getting at is that there is a degree of hypocrisy in the insistance by banks that they want a "free market".

The fact is, billions of dollars of government stimulus, insurance, and other policies are not free market.  They are not capitalist in any way shape or form.  They are socialist policies... socialism for enormous "too big to fail" corporations.  The taxpayer purse is available in the form of low interest loans, deposit insurance, and apparently multi-billion dollar bailouts.  Banks aren't the only ones who get away with this; there's virtually no industry in existance that doesn't get some form of money from the government.  Strictly speaking, there is no free market in the United States.  While deregulation has done away with a lot of government red tape, the taxpayer purse is still open, and that by definition means it is not a free market.

In a free market, it's understood that any corporation should seek to mitigate its risk.  The problem is, in a nutshell, shit happens.  If some unexpected event causes big banks fail, all hell breaks loose, and this is why modern nations have contingencies to keep banks afloat.  The problem is, if the banks know that taxpayers will always foot the bill if they get things wrong, they no longer have any incentive to mitigate risk.  Because it's no longer a free market, treating it like a free market is a complete joke.

This is why there is regulation.  It makes perfect sense; if taxpayer money is going into these things (or taxpayers are insuring them) then the taxpayers have every right to have some say as to what happens with that money, and how recipients of it behave.  What the banks want isn't free market; if there had been a free market they would all be bankrupt right now.  They want the open purse of government without the scrutiny of government.  They want to do away with the red tape without closing the purse.  This isn't some crazy conspiracy theory; this is just a textbook case of corporations doing what they're supposed to do: maximizing profits. 

The real question of this thread is why people see this as a free market issue, and why they hold that to such a degree of importance.  I think the key here is that people are mistaking "free market" for "economic freedom".  The former simply means you're on your own.  The government is completely apathetic as to whether you succeed and fail, and will neither help nor hinder you beyond enforcing the laws.  Modern economies do not work like this.  On the other hand, economic freedom is something that has been pursued as an ideal by both communists and capitalists alike (though in the case of communism, it's almost invariably perverted by despotic tyrants).  It's the idea that people should control their own means of living.  The idea is that if you don't control how you earn a living, you don't really have any freedom to begin with.  If your choice is between being a sweatshop labourer and starving, you are effectively a slave.

So, economic freedom is a wonderful ideal, but it's just that.  You need real-life policies that strike a balance, and they won't be perfect.  But economic freedom and a free market are two different things.  Victorian England (as popularized by Dickens) was pretty close to a free market, but the average person had little to no economic freedom.  People should actively pressuring government to provide them maximum economic freedom, but a free market doesn't necessarily translate to economic freedom.

Darvin, you essentially nailed my earlier point right on the head.  Thanks.

Two and a half years ago, I had $3 to my name and 1/8th of a tank of gas in a car that I wasn't sure was going to be running the next day.

Now I make $35/hr on a schedule that I practically set myself. I am in school full time getting an Aerospace Engineering Degree. I have my own place, instead of surviving on someone's couch. I have a much nicer car, ironically with many more miles---but nicer. I have a nice computer, a nice laptop, a work netbook, running water, heat, air, gas, a posturpedic memory foam bed, and I even have a T-Mobile G-1.

In a Socialist country, that would never have been possible in such a short amount of time. Ever.

Two and a half years ago, i had $0 to my name and no car... and working hard with 2 jobs...

Now, i make a little 2000 euro month... in september, i will start a university course related to 3D at only 1200 euro for 4 year ( thank gov )... healthcare is not more a problem since i am fully covered at only 70 euro year ( thank gov )... i have now a car, a ecologic one who use only 2.9 liter diesel for 100km and make only 72 gr/co ( 15% tax refund from gov due to ecologic car, no tax, and lower insurance )... i have now a lot of holiday ( a little more that 6 week )... I have a nice computer ( 2 quad core Xeon, 16 gb ram, 10 tB hardrive, etc ), a nice laptop,  all furniture home are new, etc...

I live in a socialist European country and it have happen... how is it possible ? I have simply divorce and trow away my leech of ex-wife who have never work in his life and spend all my money on crazy thing that she never use...

My point is very simple... Your and my "success" of today is not related to the type of goverment but more related to how you take your own life in hand... It is your own work who have lead to your confortable position of today, not the goverment...

By the way, there is a lot of difference between socialism and communism...

A other detail... From all the thing that you say that you have now... car, house, computer, etc ... how much of them are really yours ? American have the bad habit to say that they have something when in fact the bank own it... you know, these little thing called credit who have create the actual worldwide crisis...

Anywhere in the world, in any democratic country, you can reach the top if you wish and work hard... it is up to you... in some case, gov can make it more easy or more difficult, but it is always up to you...

Sorry for these off-topic post but the post of Leuthesius was the classical argument to show that socialism is bad when it fact, nothing in his example is related to socialism... hey, we have millionaire in the socialist Europe too !!!

Finally, social market economy is a type of free market economy...

The social market economy seeks a market economic system rejecting both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism, combining private enterprise with measures of government regulation attempt to establish fair competition, low inflation, low levels of unemployment, a standard of working conditions, and social welfare. Nominally respecting the free market, the social market economy is opposed to both a strictly planned economy and laissez-faire capitalism.

My God, it seem that the US have a social market like the Europe !!!

In fact, i think that US is not obsess with the "free market" but with the "Market Anarchim" model :

Market anarchism advocates a true free market like laissez-faire and in addition the complete elimination of the state apparatus; the provision of law enforcement, courts, national defense, and all other security services by voluntarily-funded competitors in a free market rather than through compulsory taxation; the complete deregulation of nonintrusive personal and economic activities; and a self-regulated market. Market anarchism argue for a society based in voluntary trade of private property (including money, consumer goods, land, and capital goods) and services in order to maximize individual liberty and prosperity. Some forms of market anarchism, such as mutualism, are also forms of libertarian market socialism, advocating an 'anti-capitalist free market' of free worker's cooperatives and self-employed individuals. Mutualism substitutes the idea of property for possession and use of the means of production.

Keyword being "complete elimination of the state apparatus"

Nazi Party = National Socialist Party

I humbly concede the argument, Thoumsin.

I should not have stated it as I did.

You, like me, took your life into your hands and made it work.

The Socialism that is trying to rear its head in the United States is that of a Nanny Welfare State, which really puts it more towards Communism than Socialism. Communism is Socialism run amock. I cannot deny that some of the countries in Europe have made it work--but I will point out that a huge part of that reason is because they have a mutual defense treaty with the United States. So they don't have to spend that sort of money on a large military deterrent--thus they can spend it on social programs.

Communism, is like sharing. Until its forced. Then it is theft.

Socialism gets us "wonderful programs" like Social Security. Which was a "nice idea" at first. Except that people have been getting money out of it that have never paid in. That is why Bush's privatization idea was so vehemently opposed in the Democratic Congress--they would lose control over the money. God forbid that they money that you put in goes back to just you and your family.

All of that aside. My real opinion is that the military needs to "accidentally" drop a kinetic strike with a 1000 kg tungsten rod from orbit onto the Congress, SCOTUS, the White House, and all of the major lobbyist firms, and let the country hold a full re-election. Government was grown under Bush, which was socialist in itself.

The USA hasn't had an actually good president since the Coup de etat when Kennedy was assassinated.

this has to be a joke

i am speechless right now

are you trolling

or are you that uneducated?

 edit: i do not want to flame you i can simply not belive you  that  you think nazis had something to do with  socialist (beside the name which the party had for a good reason) policies or pursuing general left wing agendas.

Oh wow, Leuthesis, there, you came straight in your gleaming armor and white steed to PROVE MY POINT.

Socialism has as much to do Nazism as the Irish Republican Army has to do with American Republicanism. They share a name.

Does the fact that Hitler put socialists in concentration camps mean anything to you? What about Hitler and Mussolini's support for corporatism?

How about the fact that facism outright rejects all marxist theory and doctrine, and has a completely different set of historical values, has different philsophical basis, are based on viritually opposing economic and social assumptions, and are executed differently from one another? Do these things mean anything to you?

You know this is what I find frustrating about debate on the internet. It's this free word association that passes for a point. The association between socialism and national socialism is completely manufactured.

neither, but you just dont want to believe historical fact.  The Z (from the S) in Nazi stands for socialist.  It is not a matter of interpretation.  If you like you can think of them as "socialism gone bad".  Their socialism had nothing to do with their other policies that got them the reputation they richly deserve (Race supremacy, the final solution, world conquest, etc.).  You are probably confusing their genocidal tendacies with their socialistic ones.  Clearly they did not include "G" in their party name, but that is what they are best known for.

history should not be shunned, but learned from.  If your attitude is to hide the dark parts of history, you will be doomed to repeat them.

And a governmental philosophy.  The state was going to provide for the people (well, only the people it liked).  Nazis were not ONLY socialists - they were many other things that earned the scorn and derision of the world.  But they were socialists.

Your attitude is akin to comparing an Israeli kibbutz (the purest form of Communism) to Stalinist russia.  Clearly the 2 are not the same in all respects, but both, at the core, preach community ownership of all property - communism.

It is a sad time when people try to rewrite history because it embarrasses them.