Tag Archives: Politics
Juli Clover, reporting for Mac Rumors:
In the filing, the DoJ says the district court approved the merger after “erroneously ignoring fundamental principles of economics and common sense” and that it used a “deeply flawed assessment of the government’s evidence” to reach its decision…
The original ruling approving the merger, says the DoJ, ignored key documents from AT&T on the competitive harm of vertical mergers, limited expert economic testimony, and refused to close the courtroom to allow for testimony related to confidential business information. Further, the DoJ insists the original ruling ignored the economics of bargaining and did not consider corporate profit maximization.
Aren’t these the things you would review when looking at this merger? If they didn’t review the basic principles of economics, bargaining, or profit maximization, what on earth did they review?
A friend sent me a link to a recent WRAL article posted yesterday about a fatal collision in Cary on Sunday, February 12th1. Tragically, both passengers in a left-turning vehicle died when the driver crossed the path of another vehicle. This is terrible and my condolences go out to those affected by the incident. I also feel for safety engineers everywhere who feel the emptiness of failure at each reported fatality2, especially the highway safety professionals who work in this jurisdiction. However, as an engineer and scientist it is of utmost importance to step back and remember a few things about working within the confines of the real world: with limited tax funds, systems are imperfect and not every collision is preventable. Continue reading
Hot on the heals of budget deals, deficit raising, and spending cuts in Washington comes a report from the American Society of Civil Engineers saying that our failing infrastructure will impact the US Gross Domestic Product by 2.7 trillion dollars by 2040. All due to funding gaps between what we use and what we actually pay to maintain. This will cause 400,000 lost jobs, lower incomes, lower spending, and lower exports, worsening the US trade position. Transportation is quite possibly the MOST important infrastructure to a first world economy, it would be a shame to have made decades of investment to watch it crumble. Care about your transportation systems? Vote accordingly and write your congressmen, both local and national.
Full story: Reuters