Good Morning 99%'ers. Today's Open Thread topic in another in the series on neo-liberalism. For those who may be interested in previous essays on this subject, here are the links to those essays.

Week 1 - The Curse of Neo-liberalism
Week 2 - Neo-liberalism Part 2
Week 3 - The Neo-liberal Myth of Meritocracy
Week 4 - Characteristics of Neo-liberalism
Week 5 - Neo-liberalism - Obama and the Clintons
Week 6 - Neo-liberalism - The Legacy of Bill Clinton
Week 7 - Neo-liberalism - Lack of Empathy
Week 8 - Overview of the Impacts of Privatization
Week 9 - The Rule of the Market

In one of my first essays in this series on neo-liberalism, I referenced an excellent article titled What is Neoliberalism? This article was written by Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo Garcia and published by Corp Watch. This article provided an excellent definition of neo-liberalism as well as a listing of the five characteristics of neo-liberalism. Among the five characteristics of neo-liberalism is the the push for deregulation.

DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminsh profits, including protecting the environment and safety on the job.

Businesses often complain that government regulations interfere with innovation and prevent competition which can be a good thing for the consumer. So businesses and total industries are consistently lobbying elected officials at all levels to remove as many regulations as possible so that the market will dictate how businesses operate. The problem here is that the purpose of a business is contradictory to that of regulations. The purpose of a business is to return the highest profit margin possible to its shareholders. The purpose of regulations is to protect the public from monopolies, unethical business practices, and to ensure the health and safety of the public. The market cannot be relied upon to do this, so it is up to the government to regulate businesses.

In a recent article posted on About Money, author Kimberly Amadeo lists the pros and cons of deregulation. While I found her listing of pros rather thin and unsupported with documentation, her listing of the cons of deregulation was very good.

1. Allows asset bubbles to build and burst, creating crises and recessions.
2. Prevents industries with huge initial infrastructure costs, like electricity and cable, to get started.
3. Exposes people to fraud and excessive risk-taking by companies that will do anything to gain higher profit.
4. Social concerns are lost. For example, businesses will ignore damage to the environment since the costs aren't absorbed by the company.
5. Rural and other unprofitable populations are underserved.

I think we all can name multiple examples of deregulation that have ended up costing the people of this country in so many ways. Often such efforts at deregulating an industry are marketed as promoting competition which should result in lower costs to the consumers. And sometimes that is the case in the beginning until an industry consolidates with the stronger companies buying out the weaker ones and then with just a few large companies controlling the market, the consumer loses out.

Here are just three examples of deregulation that has resulted in how an entire industry has changed the way it did business and how it has affected the consumer or citizen.

Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 - Prior to 1978, airline routes were highly regulated as well as the schedules, air fares, and quality of service. Immediately after deregulation, air fares were cut with numerous airlines competing for service. But that was short lived as airlines merged and the industry developed into a hubs and spoke system in which one airline effectively controls a hub.

In retrospect, 2007 may have marked the year effective competition ended and merged airlines began exercising monopoly powers. Since then airlines have slashed the number of flights. Available seat capacity is the lowest in a decade even while passenger volume has increased, which should come as no surprise to those searching for elbow room. Fares are rising rapidly.

In addition, airlines have instituted add on fees for nearly everything. It is all about maximizing profits and the add on fees are an easy way to extract even more profits from the passengers.

Probably the clearest manifestation of unregulated monopoly power the rapid rise in non-ticket revenue. In 2008 American Airlines became the first to charge for the first checked bag. Others quickly followed. Five years later, airlines charge for virtually everything. In April, four of the largest raised the fee for changing a domestic flight to $200 from $150. At the beginning of the year, Southwest introduced a $40 upgrade that allows passengers to board early. Actual ticket sales now account for just 70 percent of total revenue at major airlines, down from 84 percent in 2000.

Telecommunications Act of 1996 - It has been twenty years since Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and probably no other legislation has had such a profound effect upon the way the American people get information and ultimately our democracy.

The act dramatically reduced important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the United States and around the world.

This scathing article by Michael Corcoran of Truthout details the devastating effects of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 upon our democracy. Before its enactment, the FCC was able to regulate the the number of outlets under one ownership in an area and cross ownerships.

The negative impact of the law cannot be overstated. The law, which was the first major reform of telecommunications policy since 1934, according to media scholar Robert McChesney, "is widely considered to be one of the three or four most important federal laws of this generation." The act dramatically reduced important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the United States and around the world.

"Never have so many been held incommunicado by so few," said Eduardo Galeano, the Latin American journalist, in response to the act.

Twenty years later the devastating impact of the legislation is undeniable: About 90 percent of the country's major media companies are owned by six corporations.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 - First, we must look back at the history behind bank regulation. Perhaps one of the most important things that came out of the Great Depression was Glass-Steagal which created a wall between savings and loan banks from investment banks.

In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Glass-Steagall Act. By then, the country was mired in the depths of the Great Depression, and nearly 5,000 banks had failed. Businesses and people lost money. People lost jobs. The country was in crisis. Glass-Steagall was designed to prevent another crash in the future. Among other things, it barred commercial banks from getting into the investment business. It raised barriers between commercial banks, securities firms and insurance companies.

Nearly 70 years later, the Depression was history, and there was a push for deregulation to repeal or roll back Glass-Steagall. The result was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which took down that wall between the banks that made routine loans and the ones that did risky investments.

We all know what happened as a result of deregulation of the banks. And while the big banks are doing better than ever as a result of the bank bailouts and the big banks are also bigger than ever as a result of government intervention, the people of this country are still struggling. This whole debacle is worth more than one essay of its own.

The bottom line is that most deregulation usually ends up being a negative for the people in the long run. Now we are faced with the biggest deregulation of them all, the Trans Pacific Partnership. The TPP is less about trade and far more about deregulation to protect corporate profits.

I hope to address the above issue in greater detail in a future essay.

On a personal note. After yesterday's FBI pronouncement that Hillary Clinton will not be indicted, I have been in a funk about whether or not any series such as this one is even relevant any more. Educating us about the coup after it has already happened seems counter productive and most people here are very aware of it. I honestly do not know where we go from here.

On a second personal note. This is the time of year for the Tour de France which is an obsession of mine so I will be monitoring this OT sporadically in the morning. I do hope to catch up and respond to all comments later in the day.

But for now, this is an Open Thread and so feel free to post whatever you wish.