AT&T Buying T-Mobile US – Thoughts
by ilene - March 21st, 2011 6:48 pm
Thoughts on AT&T’s proposal to buy T-Mobile – Karl Denninger and Robert Scoble, & Brett Arends
One bad company buying another: AT&T buys TMobile (Verizon forced this marriage!)
You all know I really despise AT&T, even though I continue paying them thousands of dollars per year for three cell phones. Since getting my Verizon iPhone I haven’t dropped a call and I can actually hear the other party. Steve Gillmor got one on Friday and, wow, what a difference. Not to mention that the world’s toughest dead zone: Devil’s Slide is non-existent for AT&T and TMobile, but works the entire way on Verizon for me.
TMobile is even worse. It doesn’t have enough coverage. My entire neighborhood, which includes some of the houses of the richest VCs, not to mention VPs from Apple, HP, and other places, has NO TMobile Coverage. This isn’t back waters of some flyover state. It’s 13 miles from the tech center of the world (at least until Beijing takes over later this decade).
CNBC just announced AT&T is buying TMobile’s US business for $39 billion. More details flowing in on Google News and even more over on Techmeme. That’s one way to get more bandwidth to try to serve iPhone users better before they all realize Verizon has a better network.
I think this COULD be a good thing, if they fill in some of the numerous dead zones and get us better service. I’m stuck with AT&T because I need to head to Europe every few months and AT&T’s iPhone is better there. Also because in other places AT&T does have better coverage, and its data is faster and also I can use data while talking, which really isn’t that big a deal for ME anymore (since I have two phones, I solved that problem).
Anyway, does one bad company buying another make a good one? I guess we’ll see.
Yes, I know I might get crap for calling these companies bad companies, but I’ve paid AT&T thousands of dollars over the last few years. I’ve earned that right.
Speaking of which, why didn’t they just spend that $39 billion making a better network? Oh, do I love capitalism sometimes.
This is a forced marriage due to Verizon finally getting the iPhone. If that hadn’t happened AT&T would have continued
DOJ Antitrust Division Considering Launching Investigation Into Silver Market Manipulation By JPM
by ilene - May 1st, 2010 9:36 am
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Eric King reports the breaking news that in a letter obtained by Ted Butler, the DOJ’s Antitrust department is considering launching an investigation into silver market manipulation by JP Morgan. Should an announcement of a full formal probe of manipulation by JPM follow, it would be tantamount to a confirmation of what numerous individuals have been claiming over the years, that JP Morgan, the LBMA, the CFTC, various banks, and even that kindly old grandpa who was so much against derivatives except when he was about to lose money as a result of regulation that he is spending the whole weekend telling his investors in Omaha to run, not walk, to Borsheim’s, and buy all their massively overpriced trinkets (you can’t be a quadrillionaire without first being a trillionaire), are nothing but a borderline criminal cabal that traffics in wealth extraction courtesy of a few monopolist players. As Eric King discloses in its letter the Anti-Trust division announces that "it will carefully consider the issue of silver market manipulation by JP Morgan and other traders. Generally the CFTC investigates these types of market manipulations. However, the suggestion that JPMorgan Chase may be signaling other traders, warrants further analysis. The DOJ will carefully consider the issue you raise, and you can be assured that if we conclude that silver traders have engaged in anti-competitive conduct, we will take appropriate enforcement action."
Ted Butler, always cutting to the point, says: "It’s about time a major government organization stepped up to end what has been a very serious crime in progress that has basically covered two decades…[JP Morgan's] level of concentration only exists in the silver markets. Concentration is the hallmark of manipulation or a monopoly. Our markets are supposed to be free markets, they are not supposed to be controlled by anybody. Right now the silver market is a monopoly, the chief monopolist is JP Morgan, and the only entity that can step up to JPM is the Antitrust division of the DOJ…If you want to put it into perspective, more important and more serious than what is currently happening with Goldman Sachs. This is a crime in progress, this is an allegation of current market manipulation. This is as serious as you get. You don’t get bigger than market manipulation."
And, as a scheduled daily reminder to Christine Varney: if you are evaluating JP Morgan…