Competition Between Monopolies

My take on the European Commission's confirmation that Microsoft is a monopoly:

I would have thought one monopoly would appreciate another monopoly.

Comments

[Patrick EMIN]

Microsoft is a private company. The European Commission is not. It therefore cannot be a monopoly.
Would you call the UN a monopoly?

[ralphg]

Yes, I would. All government is a monopoly. Do you have a choice to whom you pay taxes?

Here in North America, we see government as a public company, one that needs to provide services to its customers (the taxpayer) in a cost-effective manner.

[Patrick EMIN]

I see. On this side of the Atlantic, we see our government as a body which helps us, citizens, to live together, the EU as a body which helps us, european nations, to work and live together , and our parents as people we live with, we love and respect. We, european are a strange kind, who don't see our government as a company we work for, we don't see the EU as a multinational which sucks our blood and don't see our parents as a bank account or as an ennemy who gave us life without asking our consent before (before we were born?). On top of that, we don't see Microsoft as a company who is only interested in our hapiness. It must be what's called a cultural gap between our two cultures, I mean if there has ever been a culture on the other side; Oscar Wilde was doubting about it when he said: "The USA are a country which went directly from barbary to decadence without ever having known civilisation". And a country which thinks with its wallet instead of its brain and heart is not far from the description he gave.

[ralphg]

We Canadians are also familiar with that quote, but it wasn't Oscar Wilde who said it.

[Patrick EMIN]

You may be right. But my point was not the name of the author, my point was whoever he is, I quite agree with him!