There's a cheat-code in US #antitrustm it's been increasingly used since the #Reagan administration, when the "#ConsumerWelfare" theory ("#monopolies are fine, so long as the lower prices") shoved aside the long-established idea that antitrust law existed to prevent monopolies from forming at all.
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Noted #socialist agitator #AdamSmith once wrote, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
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Only when offenses against our "#ConsumerWelfare" occurred should the state should step in to protect its people.
This may sound good, but in practice, it's a dead letter. The consumer welfare test isn't "If prices go up after a merger, punish the company." Instead, the government must prove the price raises came from "market power," and not from an increase in energy or labor costs, or some other "exogenous factor," like Mercury being in retrograde: