Does anyone know anything about the LCD-price “fixing” charges that 3 large display makers just pleaded guilty to?
it seems that the crux of the case is that the prices of LCD monitors did not drop fast enough to satisfy the antitrust division of the justice department.
Anyone know any more specifics about this. It seems to be a pretty stupid case form what I can see so far, but I don’t see much info on the specifics of it.
Thanks.
Threads like this really should include some source material, so that if people aren’t familiar with it, you give them an opportunity to do so, and then add their comments.
My bad.
Didn’t really think that would be an issue though. I figured some one would know about it since its the biggest antitrust fine in history.
So what? Let them fix the price. If customer is willing to pay that price, it’s ok. By holding their profits much higher than costs of production they’ll open oportunity for other producers to join the ride. Brasil learned that the hard way when controlling the price of coffee.
The thing about “price fixing” is that it doesn’t generally work; not in the long term, anyway. If the three largest LCD manufacturers collude to raise their prices, what about manufacturer numbers four, five, and six? All a price fixing scheme does is create an opportunity for an outsider to enter the industry. The only thing that would stop it is brute force.
Oh, right. Patents make it okay to do that.
Perhaps I am not stating my case properly.
I agree that antitrust and the like are nonsense. I understand thta any metric that the government uses to determine price-fixing or monopoly power or any of that stuff is necessarily going to be arbitrary. That wasn’t my question.
My question was if anybody knew about the specifics of this case.
I know little about the specifics of this case. But I’ve noticed LCD prices drop and drop over the past few years- considerably. My current monitor was bought in late 07, and is now quite less expensive.
I just checked online- the price has dropped from around $180 to $120.
Well the charges of the case are from like 2001-2006.
But if you look at the stories concerning the case it seems that it wasnt that prices didn’t go down, but that they didn’t drop AS MUCH as they should have. The logic is retty stupid really, when you take into account that prices still dropped and people were still willing to pay the prices.
Sorry, remind me:
What is the differencing between price setting and price fixing?