The home stretch of Crooked Hillary's failed campaign includes concerts by Jay Z, Bon Jovi, Katy Perry, and other things meant to connect with da kidz.
How great of a troll would it be for Trump to throw in a reference to Ticketmaster as another ripe target for breaking up a monopoly in the public interest?
Progressives have been complaining about the monopolistic fleecing of fans by Ticketmaster since the '90s, especially Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam. More recently in 2010, opposition arose to their merger with Live Nation, the biggest promoter of concerts.
Trump wouldn't have to go into any intricacies, just lay out the basic complaint that a monopoly in the ticket selling sector leads to sky-high prices for consumers. They turn an event that should be open to fans of all classes into elite-only affairs -- only a Hillary Clinton donor could afford it. Customer service also stinks when there's only one game in town.
He's already re-tweeted Michael Moore, why not drop a hint that "We're going to look into" what can be done about Ticketmaster?
The only trick is tying it into the news cycle (taco bowl on Cinco de Mayo). With all the big-name concerts coming up, that could do it.
"I notice all these performers are campaigning for Crooked Hillary, who says she wants to help the middle class. Why doesn't she ask them to refuse to use Ticketmaster for their concerts, and make tickets more affordable for middle class and working people? If they're that famous, they should have the clout to do it, right? If she is not willing, I will strongly look into the monopoly that Ticketmaster has become -- it's just another example of the rigged system that ordinary Americans face every day, and we cannot allow it to continue."
If any of the sell-outs get snarky with him on Twitter, he can easily fire back:
"John Cougar Mellancamp should go back to writing songs about the dignity of small town life instead of campaigning for Hillary "Wall Street" Clinton."
"I really liked Bruce Springsteen better back when he was a blue collar hero. Now just another limousine liberal pawn for Crooked Hillary. SAD."
This is a great idea. Antitrust law is funny because the courts have become a LOT more accepting of monopoly power. But the pace of change has been so slow that most lawyers and judges aren't even aware of it. For example, in the 1966 case of United States vs. Von's Grocery Co., the Department of Justice's antitrust division sued to block the merger of two regional grocery chains in Southern California, Von's (the third-largest grocery chain in the Los Angeles area) and Shopping Bag (the #6 grocery chain in the Los Angeles area).
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court held that the merger was illegal because -- get this -- the combined companies would control a whopping 11% of the Los Angeles grocery market. You can read the Supreme Court's decision, it's pretty straightforward and doesn't contain too much legal jargon:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/384/270/case.html
Things sure have changed a lot since 1966. These days the Justice Department routinely approves mergers that result in a combined market share of 50%. And there have even been a couple of mergers with the end result of reducing the number of competitors from 3 to 2, like the Staples/Office Depot merger.
Back in the 1960's people really understood the power (and dangers) posed by big business. The Von's case is also interesting because the Supreme Court believed that one of the purposes of antitrust law was to protect the livelihoods of small businesses -- they thought of it in human terms. Today people think of antitrust law in bloodless globalist terms, it's all about "efficiency," "competition," "transparency," "barriers to entry," etc.