Maybe it's not all Vilsack's fault.--Tom
In a message dated 7/8/2011 6:20:06 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
1.What Happens to Antitrust Inquiry?
2.Why Christine Varney Left the Justice Department:
Suckerpunched on Anti-Trust
EXTRACTS: Last year, Varney [Obama's Anti-Trust chief] and Secretary of
Agriculture Tom Vilsack hosted a series of workshops around the country to
discuss competition and regulatory issues faced by the agriculture
industry... Nothing has yet come of those hearings.
"I was told by people they were definitely going after Monsanto. And
nothing has happened. She wanted to go after Monsanto and she was stopped.
That's my feeling. It's been two years. They have had plenty of time to haul
them into court."
"The people they promised to go after and hang high are being shaken down
to provide the billion dollar Obama campaign fund. Varney was shut down by
Obama's political machine."
"They raised our hopes and nothing happened. I feel sucker punched."
---
---
1.What Happens to Antitrust Inquiry?
Daily Yonder, 7 July 2011
http://www.dailyyonder.com/thursday-roundup-what-happens-antitrust-inquiry/2
011/07/07/3417
The Obama administration's top antitrust officer, Christine Varney, is
stepping down after two and a half years. She will join a large Washington,
D.C., law firm, Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
What does that have to do with rural America? Plenty.
Last year, Varney and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack hosted a series
of workshops around the country to talk about anti-trust problems in the
food business. Thousands turned out for discussions that looked at
concentration in the seed business, among meat processors, in the chicken industry
and among food retailers. Nothing has yet come of those hearings.
"She played a high profile role in the highly publicized
inter-departmental agriculture workshops, but so far very little has emerged from the
effort," said Albert Foer at the American Antitrust Institute.
Fred Stokes of the Organization for Competitive Markets said Vilsack and
Varney were "totally sincere" in their intention, but that the effort was
stymied by the demands of the election season. "The people they promised to
go after and hang high are being shaken down to provide the billion dollar
Obama campaign fund," Stokes told Counterpunch. "Varney was shut down by
Obama's political machine."
"Varney was totally sincere when she came into office," Stokes said. "But
she had the rug pulled out from under her."
"It is most likely that Christine Varney is leaving in total frustration
with being hampered from doing from what she sincerely intended to do –
curbing the market abuses that are putting independent family farmers and
ranchers out of business and savaging rural America," Stokes said.
"I'm from Mississippi," Stokes said. "I endured ridicule and scorn for my
unabashedly pro Obama administration stance and politics down here. These
were going to be finally the folks who were going to turn things around and
we were going to reverse the destruction of rural America. It hasn't
happened."
"I was told by people they were definitely going after Monsanto," Stokes
said. "And nothing has happened. She wanted to go after Monsanto and she was
stopped. That's my feeling. It's been two years. They have had plenty of
time to haul them into court."
"They raised our hopes and nothing happened," Stokes said. "I feel sucker
punched."
---
---
2.Why Christine Varney Left the Justice Department
Suckerpunched on Anti-Trust
RUSSELL MOKHIBER
Counterpunch, July 7 2011
http://counterpunch.org/mokhiber07072011.html
Christine Varney is leaving the Antitrust Division.
And going to Cravath Swaine & Moore in New York.
"There is no doubt that her tireless work helped protect consumers and
businesses from anti-competitive conduct and preserved competition in
America's economy," Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday.
But others were less favorable about Varney's tenure at the Antitrust
Division.
Albert Foer at the American Antitrust Institute gave Varney an "I" for
incomplete.
"Christine Varney began the process of turning around a tanker ship that
was going down," Foer told me. "She pointed it in a better direction but
with judicial winds blowing strong the wrong way, her captaincy failed to
accomplish all we had hoped for it."
"The rhetoric and appointments were generally strong, but an evaluation
will have to wait until we know whether her conduct-oriented, rather than
structure-oriented, remedies in major merger cases will preserve competition
and we will also have to see what cases are in the works and have not yet
been revealed," Foer said. "The Bush Administration probably would have let
these mergers go through without conditions. But the problem is we aren't
sure her conditions will make a difference."
"She gets credit for revoking the Bush Administration's weak document on
monopoly, but has done little to re-establish anti-monopoly enforcement. She
brought several cases that have potential to be important, but we don't
know how they will turn out. She oversaw a clarification and mild
modernization of the horizontal merger guidelines, but it is too soon to know whether
they will have a significant impact."
"She brought cartel cases, but so did predecessors. She played a high
profile role in the highly publicized inter-departmental agriculture workshops,
but so far very little has emerged from the effort. She apparently played
no role during the banking crisis. Her efforts in the international arena
were generally positive, though there was a tense period with the EU over a
merger and a tense period with the FTC that took two to tango but which did
not help the public image of the overall antitrust effort. All in all, the
report card says 'incomplete.'"
Fred Stokes of the Organization for Competitive Markets was less forgiving
than Foer.
Last year, Varney and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack hosted a series
of workshops around the country to discuss competition and regulatory
issues faced by the agriculture industry.
More than 4,000 attendees attended workshops in Ankeny, Iowa, Normal,
Alabama, Madison, Wisconsin, Fort Collins, Colorado and Washington, D.C.
Stokes believes that Varney and Vilsack were "totally sincere" when they
promised action against the big agribusiness corporations.
And he says he believes the reason they were unable to take action – to
fulfill their promises – was because they were shut down by the Obama
political machine.
"The people they promised to go after and hang high are being shaken down
to provide the billion dollar Obama campaign fund," Stokes said. "Varney
was shut down by Obama's political machine."
"Varney was totally sincere when she came into office," Stokes said. "But
she had the rug pulled out from under her."
"It is most likely that Christine Varney is leaving in total frustration
with being hampered from doing from what she sincerely intended to do –
curbing the market abuses that are putting independent family farmers and
ranchers out of business and savaging rural America," Stokes said.
"When she came into office, she was on fire," Stokes said. "She made
pronouncements against Dean Foods, against Monsanto, against the big meat
packers. But she did nothing about it."
"At the poultry workshop in Alabama last year in June 2010, they had
probably 50 contract poultry producers who lined up. They told about all the
things that were being done to them. And many of them said at the end that it
is likely that their contracts will be terminated."
"Christine Varney stood up and said – here is my card with my direct
number, if they do anything like that, you call me. She raised so many eyebrows.
At workshop after workshop, she stood up for the farmers."
"But in response, they have done nothing, absolutely nothing. They had
five workshops across the country. She stood up and made fiery speeches at
every one of them. And yet nothing has happened."
How does Stokes know that she wanted to do the right thing but was shut
down by the political apparatus?
"I am 77 years old," Stokes said. "I have acquired ability to judge people
pretty good. She and Secretary Vilsack were absolutely sincere. Some of
the big targets that they were after are now being shaken down for a billion
dollar campaign fund."
"I'm from Mississippi," Stokes said. "I endured ridicule and scorn for my
unabashedly pro Obama administration stance and politics down here. These
were going to be finally the folks who were going to turn things around and
we were going to reverse the destruction of rural America. It hasn't
happened."
"I was told by people they were definitely going after Monsanto," Stokes
said. "And nothing has happened. She wanted to go after Monsanto and she was
stopped. That's my feeling. It's been two years. They have had plenty of
time to haul them into court."
"They raised our hopes and nothing happened," Stokes said. "I feel sucker
punched."
Russell Mokhiber edits the Corporate Crime Reporter.
................................................................
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