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Re: Return Economics

To: John Robert BEHRMAN <jbehrman@netropolis.net>
Subject: Re: Return Economics
From: "Kendall G. Clark" <kclark@computek.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 05:53:55 -0600 (CST)
cc: Multiple recipients of list <am-info@essential.org>
In-Reply-To: <34590651.B91A5A48@netropolis.net>
  I, for one, read email with an email client, which expects plain text, not
  HTML. HTML is for the Web. If I had wanted to read your web site, I would have
  used my browser.
  
  But what's with all the html markup?
  
  Plain text would have made your point just as well, that is, if you have a
  point. I can't tell because I'm not going to wade through all of the
  unnecessary html markup in your message.
  
  Best,
  
  	Kendall Clark, President
  	North Texas Linux Users Group
  	http://www.ntlug.org/
  
  
  On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, John Robert BEHRMAN wrote:
  
  >This is a cryptographically signed message in MIME format.
  >
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  ><HTML>
  >Thnx fr ths post. Will revrt if I can trace wsj refs. Pls post whatever
  >you find.
  >
  ><P><B>Strategical and Modular Economics</B>
  >
  ><P>My own view is that the economics of digital <I>media</I>, ie storage,
  >transmission and switching, can be correctly analyzed in <B><FONT COLOR="#000099">strategical</FONT></B>
  >terms, a sort of macroeconomics, and in <FONT COLOR="#000099"><B>modula</B>r</FONT>
  >terms, a complementary sort of microeconomics. I suspect my analysis overlaps
  >return economics in some appreciation of interleaved economies of <B><FONT COLOR="#000099">scope,
  >scale, and cycle</FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000000">, a sort of three-body
  >problem common to the union set of technology markets and market enterprise.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">My question, relative to my own analysis or any
  >other, is whether what anything as pedestrian economics can say really
  >bears decisively on the strategical, political, and popular issues raised
  >by Microsoft's aggression. It may be that century-old laws concocted by
  >rude farmers, merchants, and mechanics a century ago in the context of
  >coal-fired railroads and steam-ships still apply pretty much straightforwardly.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">We pretty much know what a tie-in sale, a conspiracy,
  >predatory pricing and boiler torts are. The jails are full of low-class
  >or non-white people who prey upon even lower-class and less-white people
  >with what <I>Dragnet</I> used to call "bunko" and consisting of what Microsoft
  >seems to do, albeit in their white-bread, nerdy way. Off-hand, I am not
  >sure why rich kids used to getting mama and daddy to fix their traffic
  >tickets should be exempt from the law generally. I know that the PC and
  >the Internet and so on have changed <I>almost</I> everything, but I wonder
  >if the more things change, the more they stay the same.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">I am a fancy-pants economic consultant who would
  >love to get in on either side of the Microsoft litigation at my usual hourly
  >billing rate. But, as just a plain, old Texan, I am not sure but what Microsoft
  >should not be given what Orrin HATCH would recognize as a fair trial in
  >the morning and be hanged a little after noon for simply and flagrantly
  >doing exactly what they are accused of doing for pretty much the old-fangled
  >reason of getting a lot of money in a hurry with less actual work than
  >other "low-bandwidth" folk might have to engage in to achieve the same
  >result.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">The fact is that hardware outfits in Texas could
  >make more money by buying a cheaper DOS/Windows upgrade like Win95 without
  >the cost of IE bundled in and by reselling the sort of build-to-order systems
  >people want and, apart from Microsoft's oppression, get from Dell, Compaq,
  >IBM and other Texas companies. Texas firms should be free to bundle <I>IE</I>
  >or <I>Doom </I>or whatever or not as they see fit, pay a marginal cost
  >or not, in order to get and gain a marginal profit or not.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">What amazes me in all this is the sheer laziness
  >or cowardice of the Attorney General of Texas. He has stood around with
  >his finger up his ass while firms like Microsoft and Intel engage in acts
  >clearly detrimental to Texas commerce and industry. His fine, old elected
  >office has long been empowered and expected to take action against those
  >as would violate common carriage and anti-trust laws that Texans pioneered.
  >However, the last big case here was brought privately by a coal-slurry
  >pipeline against a conspiracy of railroads. The pipeline prevailed and
  >got about a billion-dollar verdict. But, the Attorney General of Texas
  >was a pathetic spectator then as, I suspect, he will remain in present
  >or future action against Microsoft.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><B><FONT COLOR="#000000">Law, Economics &amp; Engineering</FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">I wish economists and engineers were in the driver's
  >seat when it comes to action against Microsoft. But, the best chance for
  >that slipped by when the FTC failed to act some time ago with the sort
  >of rather simple measures that would have facilitated more competition
  >then, less litigation now. But, the FTC was more lazy and cowardly then
  >than even the Texas Attorney General is today. All we are looking at, in
  >the decrepit FTC and Texas AG's Office, are a bunch of government lawyers
  >looking to get into private practice by sucking-up and copping-out.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">The one thing I obviously identify with is Microsoft's
  >complete contempt for the sort of lawyers they have had to contend with
  >up to now: Clintonite fund-raisers, IBM's thundering horde of bloody-hands
  >defense lawyers, and, of course, all those intellectual property lawyers
  >just like themselves at Borland, Sun, Novell.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">No wonder the Microsofties feel invincible. They
  >have never been eyeball-to-eyeball with a Texas Trial Lawyer or, for that
  >matter, an old-style SEC lawyer. So, they are the Little League Champs.
  >Big Deal.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">Nader can whip 'em, if he has still got any spit
  >or piss left.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT>
  >
  ><P><FONT COLOR="#000000">Good Luck and PLAYON JRBehrman sends.....</FONT></HTML>
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Follow-Ups:
- Re: Return Economics
  - From: Bruce Scheidemantel <bruce@javalobby.org>
- Re: Return Economics
  - From: "L.Goulet" <aminfo@java.dyn.ml.org>
References:
- Return Economics
  - From: John Robert BEHRMAN <jbehrman@netropolis.net>
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