One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is just not the same. Can you guess which one?
First is the antitrust suit against Microsoft, undertaken at the behest of Microsoft’s competitors, like Netscape and AOL. They pushed the Justice Department to do something about the big bad software company that was doing so much better than them at satisfying the customers. Of course, Microsoft is not a monopoly by any reality-based definition of that term. There are plenty of operating systems to choose from, and plenty of software applications. The lawsuit is a lie.
Second is the suit against Visa-MasterCard undertaken at the behest of American Express. Amex pushed the Justice Department to do something about the big bad credit card company that was doing so much better than them at satisfying the customers. But there are plenty of credit cards to choose from 25,000 according to cardweb.com . The lawsuit is a lie.
Third is the anti-trust suit against the United States Postal Service, a government-protected monopoly. It is illegal to compete with the postal service to provide first-class mail. So while there’s plenty of software companies and credit-card companies to choose from, there’s only one first-class mail carrier.
Oh, wait a minute. The Justice Department hasn’t launched any kind of anti-trust suit against the postal service, have they? One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is just not the same. Can you guess which one?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.