Anonymous ID: 1d21cc Feb. 10, 2025, 10:18 a.m. No.22553942   ๐Ÿ—„๏ธ.is ๐Ÿ”—kun

Hey Elon, I really think you should take a look at Wikipedia. Seems to be some kind of corrupted disseminator using "volunteer" editors. The leftists really like to change definitions and push their globalist agenda. I believe the HQ is in FL.

Anonymous ID: 1d21cc Feb. 10, 2025, 11:01 a.m. No.22554234   ๐Ÿ—„๏ธ.is ๐Ÿ”—kun   >>4244 >>4269

>>22554037

The lobbyist laws probably could use some revamping.

 

Sherman Antitrust Act

The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890[1] (26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. ยงยง 1โ€“7) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce and consequently prohibits unfair monopolies. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author.

 

The Sherman Act broadly prohibits 1) anticompetitive agreements and 2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. The Act authorizes the Department of Justice to bring suits to enjoin (i.e. prohibit) conduct violating the Act, and additionally authorizes private parties injured by conduct violating the Act to bring suits for treble damages (i.e. three times as much money in damages as the violation cost them). Over time, the federal courts have developed a body of law under the Sherman Act making certain types of anticompetitive conduct per se illegal, and subjecting other types of conduct to case-by-case analysis regarding whether the conduct unreasonably restrains trade.

 

The law attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply.[2] "Innocent monopoly", or monopoly achieved solely by merit, is legal, but acts by a monopolist to artificially preserve that status, or nefarious dealings to create a monopoly, are not. The purpose of the Sherman Act is not to protect competitors from harm from legitimately successful businesses, nor to prevent businesses from gaining honest profits from consumers, but rather to preserve a competitive marketplace to protect consumers from abuses.[3]

 

In Spectrum Sports, Inc. v. McQuillan 506 U.S. 447 (1993) the Supreme Court said:

 

The purpose of the [Sherman] Act is not to protect businesses from the working of the market; it is to protect the public from the failure of the market. The law directs itself not against conduct which is competitive, even severely so, but against conduct which unfairly tends to destroy competition itself.[4]

 

According to its authors, it was not intended to impact market gains obtained by honest means, by benefiting the consumers more than the competitors. Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts, another author of the Sherman Act, said the following:

 

โ€ฆ [a person] who merely by superior skill and intelligenceโ€ฆgot the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could was not a monopolistโ€ฆ(but was if) it involved something like the use of means which made it impossible for other persons to engage in fair competition."[5]

Anonymous ID: 1d21cc Feb. 10, 2025, 11:03 a.m. No.22554244   ๐Ÿ—„๏ธ.is ๐Ÿ”—kun

>>22554234

Lobbying in the United States

Lobbying in the United States is paid activity in which special interest groups hire well-connected professional advocates, often lawyers, to argue for specific legislation in decision-making bodies such as the United States Congress. It is often perceived negatively by journalists and the American public; critics consider it to be a form of bribery, influence peddling, or extortion.[1][2] Lobbying is subject to complex rules which, if not followed, can lead to penalties including jail. Lobbying has been interpreted by court rulings as free speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Since the 1970s, the numbers of lobbyists and the size of lobbying budgets has grown and become the focus of criticism of American governance.

 

Lobbying takes place at every level of government: federal, state, county, municipal, and local governments. In Washington, D.C., lobbyists usually target members of Congress, although there have been efforts to influence executive agency officials as well as Supreme Court appointees. Lobbying can have a strong influence on the political system; for example, a study in 2014 suggested that special interest lobbying enhanced the power of elite groups and was a factor shifting the nation's political structure toward an oligarchy in which average citizens have "little or no independent influence".[3]

 

The number of lobbyists in Washington is estimated to be over 12,000, but most lobbying (in terms of expenditures), is handled by fewer than 300 firms.[4] A report in The Nation in 2014 suggested that while the number of registered lobbyists in 2013 (12,281) decreased compared to 2002, lobbying activity was increasing and "going underground" as lobbyists use "increasingly sophisticated strategies" to obscure their activity.[5] Analyst James A. Thurber estimated that the actual number of working lobbyists was close to 100,000 and that the industry brings in $9 billion annually, mostly from corporations.[5] Wall Street spent a record $2 billion trying to influence the 2016 United States presidential election.[6][7]