You had one job – and four US regulators will share info to check a merger didn't unfairly end it

Tech companies are forever acquiring each other, but future buys will likely face more scrutiny after four US federal regulators decided to share data that they hope will help antitrust investigators assess whether an acquisition impacts labor markets – not just the market for tech. The four regulators are the Department of …

[Pascal Monett]

"the feds will apply additional scrutiny to mergers and acquisitions"

With what manpower ? Will they be hiring additional agents to support the increased workload ?

I applaud the initiative, to be sure, but is sharing the data going to be enough to improve oversight ?

Because in the end, somebody is going to have to review that additional data, collate it and analyze it, and that for each agency involved.

Or there might be a joint task force for every case, to make the data sharing more productive.

In any case, it won't be simple, but it is a good idea.

[UnknownUnknown]

Chevron Doctrine

I’m sure the MAGA/Project 2025 stuffed SCOTUS will knobble this too.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/aldenabbott/2024/07/02/new-supreme-court-decisions-help-restrict-federal-government-overreach/

[Phil Koenig]

Re: Chevron Doctrine

UnknownUnknown:

I’m sure the MAGA/Project 2025 stuffed SCOTUS will knobble this too.

It's especially hilarious that the guy that would potentially be overseeing this "government efficiency" effort will be the ever-so-wonderfully-objective and even-handed Elon Musk....

That is, if Mr. Orange Tinyhands manages to re-occupy the WH.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74lgwkrmrpo

[martinusher]

Awfully Nice For Them To Care

If you live and work in California -- and likely elsewhere in the US -- then you get used to, and plan for, mass layoffs. Its a fact of life -- corporate America uses worker widgets as necessary and readily dumps them when business slows or changes direction. Our culture touches on this -- movies like "Falling Down" and "Office Space" might be just fairy tales but they're grounded in a very hard reality (especially if you know what to look for).

The problem with the tech layoffs is that they came late and hard and hit a largely unprepared workforce, a workforce that had got used to being some kind of golden people who had the right 'tech' qualifications to get a very high paying 'tech' job. Its really easy for people who've never experienced a downturn to assume the boomtimes will continue indefinitely because its all they've known but those of us who a bit more experienced -- older, more obsolete in their thinking -- know better and would be highly skeptical. (You'd keep cashing the paychecks but you'd never assume the good times were permanent).

So the Feds get involved. Nice of them to care. Where were they 5, 10, 15, 20 or more years ago?