If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .
Scott Woolley of Forbes does what few in the media have so succinctly done before; explain “Exhibit A” of the Stealth Cartel Partnerships, the 46 states government/Big Tobacco “Master Settlement Agreement” (“MSA”) – [read Master Partnership Agreement].
“This may be one of the most successful cartels ever,” that the opinion of Judge Dennis Jacobs, of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. In his February 2005 article “Trustbuster”, Woolley reports the opinions of esteemed justices such as Jacobs and others, as well as a renown antitrust attorney, David Dobbins, who declares that in his 50 years as a lawyer he has never seen a cartel so brazen: “If you’re an experienced antitrust lawyer [the MSA] just blows your mind.”
In unabashed defense of the MSA, is New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who praises the MSA as having “spectacular results”. Such praise however, should be expected from Mr. Spitzer, who has aggressively sought to enforce the will of his comrades in collusion, to the detriment of the free market, in return for the huge annual pay-offs to both his state and his comrades in collusion – Big Tobacco.
When a deputy attorney general attempted to debunk the evident collusion between states government and Big Tobacco by declaring that to believe the states had sold out to Big Tobacco, you would have to assume that 46 attorneys general are liars, Judge Guido Calabresi’s response was to the point — “That’s tempting.” The judge concluded candidly that “It may be that when the states were offered a stake in a monopoly, they took it.”
And how would or could state politicians personally benefit from a stake in this monopoly? One may not have to look beyond Mr. Spitzer himself, who has already announced his candidacy for Governor of New York. I wonder if his comrades in collusion will see fit to make a contribution or three to Mr. Spitzer’s gubernatorial campaign in consideration and thanks for a job well done; that being Spitzer’s aggressive oversight, protection of and fostering of this “cozy oligopoly” at the direct expense of the Citizen Consumer, Independent Business and the loss of the free market. What do you think?
Take Back Your State… SGA
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:11 am
[…] mother of all Stealth Cartels between Big Business and elected state officials in the form of the “Master Settlement Agreement,” the “settlement” between 46 states and Big Tobacco, which occured in the late […]