The Smaller Fish Tries to Eat the Bigger Fish

by Jeffrey Tucker, Mises Economics Blog

Ever heard of AFMA shipping? It seems to be a company on the go, one anxious to complete with Fed-Ex and UPS. That’s all to the good. But apparently the company has run into some trouble. Customers are sticking with the competition, and the AFMA figures that there is no good reason for doing so. Therefore, apparently, the company has decided that it is a victim of unfair competition and filed a complaint with the Justice Department, and so the Justice Department is investigating and these shipping companies are on the hot seat.

There’s nothing new in this. It’s never the consumers who file these complaints. It is always some other company that badgers the government into intervening, and the government always makes a mess in trying to pick winners and losers.

The big picture here is what strikes me about this story. The very existence of UPS and Fed-Ex is something of a miracle, companies that were built up based on a loophole in the letter statutes that give the government itself a near-total monopoly on mail, or at least that was the idea. Private shipping companies found the workaround and ended up driving all the innovation in this industry that has taken place for decades. The Post Office is reduced to a pathetic game of catch up amidst constant threats of insolvency.

And yet we are asking the same government to adjudicate an antitrust suit in the private sector? If we are looking for monopolistic behavior, it is not hard to find. Look no further than the USPS. The doctor should heal thyself.

SHARE:

Email This

Latest Economy
- NYC Says Renting Out Your Place Via Airbnb Is Running An Illegal Hotel
- Should Bitcoin Be Regulated Like Dollars?
- How to Not Attack Capitalism
- How Protectionism Hurts Hawaii: Why It's Time to Repeal the Jones Act
- If It Moves, Tax It
- Taxing Internet Purchases
- Ron Paul on Gold: No One Knows Value; I'm Buying
- Schiff: GDP Propaganda Exposed

Comments

Add Comment

Page 1 of 1

Anonymous

Posted: Mar 03 2011, 1:11 AM

Link

17431

" It seems to me that the national policy ought to be aimed st the objective of giving everybody a fair share of {shipping}, with a view toward the preservation of the industry as a whole. Don't you think so?"

-Orren Boyle p.50 'Atlas Shrugged'

Who is John Galt?

Add Comment

Name

Comment

* No HTML

Verification *

Please Enter the Verification Code Seen Below

PLEASE NOTE

Please see our About Page, our Disclaimer, and our Comments Policy.

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.

About Us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy