This Isn't Capitalism

I posted a story a few days ago about the lack of enforcement of our nations antitrust laws, and something caught my eye today that I feel is relevant to add to the story.

Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Sprint-Nextel would be acquiring Virgin Mobile USA for $420 million. The deal would add Virgin's 5.3 million pre-paid subscribers to the 4.3 million Sprint-Nextel already had through their Boost Mobile brand. The reason I find this interesting is because in today's Financial Times, Sprint-Nextel announced that its net loss, year over year, had widened by 12% to $384m in the second quarter.

If the company is losing money, why are they buying up competitors? At what point does Sprint-Nextel attain the "too big to fail" moniker? Where is the competition in the telecommunications business? It's gotten to the point that there is no way to NOT support one of the telecom giants who assisted the NSA with Bush's illegal, domestic spying program. As a side note, Qwest was the only major company who refused to participate in the program because "it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants." What a novel concept.

I can already hear the telecoms pitching their need for a bailout from congress because if they were to fail, the US economy would grind to a halt. When our economy is being run by monopolies (Banking, Insurance, Telecom, Agri-business, etc), unregulated capitalism has reached its final stage...