DOJ Mysteriously Quits Monsanto Antitrust Investigation
motherjones.com
motherjones.com
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On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
I'm not saying that this article belongs here, but hn is not just for discussing hacking and startups.
I think that #1 is entirely plausible, as most hackers have plenty of interests outside of hacking and startups, including politics. I find #2 doubtful. This looks like an article made to "get ones dander up", rather than to shine a light on some obscure but fascinating aspect of how the world works. The latter sort of article are usually really interesting, well written, and provoke discussions that are interesting to read in their own right, rather than extensions of people's convictions such as "Monsanto... BAAAAD".
I wish it were easier to explain the difference between the two, as I think it's usually very easy to distinguish them, and that PG would put it in the guidelines.
Maybe something like "articles designed to get an emotional reaction, or designed to make people agreeing with them feel like they're in the right, should be avoided".
What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about the world. A story about a robbery, for example, would probably not be deeply interesting. But if this robbery was a sign of some bigger, underlying trend, then perhaps it could be.
The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to be quieter.
Either way, I agree that this article probably shouldn't be on hn.
EDIT: It looks like this has been flagged and removed from the front page
Please read what I wrote more carefully.
I said it was entirely plausible that good hackers vote up articles like this, because good hackers have varied interests that include things like politics.
Most of my argument focuses, in any case, on the difference between the "getting people excited" vs "describing something fascinating" types of articles.
Except knowing how the DOJ does antitrust investigations, what happened here is completely normal.
They spent a large amount of time talking with a lot of people. They decided they either couldn't or didn't want to try to make a case (i'll get more to the "didn't want to"). They dropped it.
The article points out it's notoriously hard to get data on prices pressure, etc (which i'm sure the DOJ did). "For example, one sign of an uncompetitive industry is the ability to raise prices at will, unimpeded by price pressure from rivals. It's impossible to say, without more information, if the GMO giants have done that—but prices have risen briskly over the past decade. "
Despite the fact that they have no actual data, and admit it's hard to say whether anything happened, they then continue to dress it up in the cloak that because some institute somewhere thought this should have happened, that when it didn't it's all a big conspiracy by "Big Seed".
They continue to go on to point out why the market is not competitive.
The market not being competitive is not the same as having a cognizable antitrust injury that the DOJ can sue over. The DOJ can't sue just because the market is shitty and overpriced. They could sue if Monsanto is preventing new entrants into the market in order to keep it shitty and overpriced, for example. Other than that, the antitrust division as a whole, also doesn't sue people for political reasons.
I've met a lot of the folks in the antitrust division. Even though they are often on the other side of the table from me, these are people who honestly care about doing their job, and the idea that they wouldn't sue if they thought there was a violation and they could make a case is pretty crazy to me. If they felt they had a case, and couldn't get the result they wanted from Monsanto, they would have sued. As a side note, the article doesn't even consider the possibility that the the real result was "DOJ warned Monsanto that if they don't cut out X or Y, they will reopen and sue in the future" or "DOJ came to agreement with Monsanto about X and Y". This is common, and these things tend to leak out over time, but you wouldn't know immediately (any official MOU would have ended up in an SEC filing, but informal ones, ...)
In marginal cases, they make judgement calls, and do try to avoid setting back their enforcement efforts by years by losing (which is the only real case of "didn't want to"). The DOJ settles or issues "memorandum of understanding" in a lot more cases than they sue over, and every time they lose a lawsuit, they may lose some ability to get some good result without suing.
To be clear: I actually hate Monsanto, and think they have set back the world in a lot of ways (particularly in the patent realm). But antitrust violations are a class of behaviors, and the article doesn't point out any actual behavior that falls into it, it just points out (rightfully) how sucky the seed market is for farmers, and then tries to make it seem like the fact that the DOJ probably felt it couldn't have won a case is somehow a conspiracy.
1. What are the antitrust behaviors you believe they participate in that are illegal?
2. Can you please point to the actual evidence that those documentaries/etc are supported by? Not news articles, or but actual "things that would be admissible in court". Because that's what the DOJ needs to sue them.
If there is stuff there and the DOJ is ignoring it, i'm happy to admit I was wrong and yell and scream with everyone else.
Again, I have no doubt in the world that Monsanto's behavior is generally reprehensible, etc. I'm aware of their general behavior, and i would like nothing more than to see them put out of business. I'm aware of them suing farmers for seeds blowing onto their property, and winning.
Honestly, I suspect that's the real problem. The things that should be illegal aren't anymore. The supreme court has eviscerated almost all per-se antitrust violations over the past 30 years. This makes pushing cases a lot harder. The patent related cases Monsanto should have lost (seeds blowing onto property being patent infringement), they didn't, and the federal circuit has also taken an "interesting" (crazy) view on patent tying and misuse. In general, "rent-seeking" (ie patent trolling) is not considered an antitrust violation, because the whole purpose of patents is to be able to stop someone else from doing the patented thing. Again I disagree strongly with most of these decisions, but that is the legal world we are in right now.
In any case, the DOJ can't solve these, as they are now legislative problems. They are a fairly conservative enforcer. In most cases, they are only going to sue if they believe they can win.
So either provide evidence that shows they could have won and chose not to sue anyway, or you are falling into the same trap as this article: Monsanto is a large and shitty-for-the-world company, and therefore the DOJ should sue them.
Check the lobbyist sign in sheets.
This was one of broken promises from the first campaign, lobbyists are still alive and well in the whitehouse.
I bet they couldn't find enough evidence to make a case about anything.
Antitrust cases are expensive, long, and require a lot of evidence of very specific types of injuries.
Google "America's farmers grow america".
It's actually a fairly disturbing campaign in a number of ways. To be fair though, I think the "Billion-dollar patents fucking farmers" campaign wouldn't have gone over as well.