Thanks again
Thanks again Neelie Kroes. Now if we could find somebody to get rid of the increased volume for commercials on the TV.
Mobile phone operators in Europe will be forced to cap prices for roaming charges when customers use their devices abroad, Brussels' officials confirmed today. A preliminary deal was struck between members of the European parliament, council representatives and the European Commission on bringing in rules across the 27-state …
Come on all you American and Tory party free market muppets, come and explain why it is that "the invisible hand of the market" is down your trousers stealing your wallet until the evil gubbernment steps in to regulate and only then do we see competition in the market driving prices down...
The key paragraph being;
"Come July 2014, customers will be able to shop around for the best deal and sign up for a separate mobile contract for roaming, the EC said. They can also expect to retain the same number under both contracts."
Which, when added to the cap on inter-operator charges enforces competition by letting operators who are not part of the price fixed cartel* offer customers their same service and number for less money than their existing operator.
* note that there does not need to be direct collusion or even intent to form a cartel, simple theory tells us that markets with high capital barriers to entry will always end up like this with customers being robbed because there is no benefit to any of the network operators in driving price competition, only a benefit to you consumers and you are a dairy herd to be milked.
No indeed, they do not have to do anything so silly as overtly break the law. They simply understand their interests very well and by means of the good old "nod's as good as a wink" method are able, in practice to rig the market as thoroughly as if they had formed a cartel. Ironically enough the "Father" of free market theory, Adam Smith, warned about precisely this kind of behaviour several hundred years ago. Strange that modern neoliberal economists have a tendency to go very quiet on this issue, hmm? Their demagogic insistence that government intervention is to be avoided at all costs when there are obviously circumstances where only government intervention is going to work leaves them silent on a subject (rigging the market) that ought (according to their own professed beliefs) to have them screaming loud and long.