- Jun 6, 2007
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AT&T reverse course on this merger, this merger is clearly not good for the American people which makes it a gamble. In some states a party can back out of a contract with no negative consequences within three days from making a contract if that is the case for this merger contract, AT&T back out. T-Mobile owners should give AT&T a break on the failure fee and penalties and let them out of the deal out of consideration for the American people and/or because this is going to be a long messy journey through the regulatory gauntlet on getting the merger through. This merger may get regulatory approval because the American political system is absolutely and without reservation broken special interests have undue influence and its leadership is full of extremists from both sides of the political spectrum but if America would work right it definitely wouldn't, for the following reasons.
First and foremost, this merger gets rid of a major low cost cell phone carrier, T-Mobile. All this nonsense about the American consumer will benefit from better service, better reception, better technology (more 4G availability) from a merger is nonsense. To most T-Mobile consumers and a large number of consumers like these consumers, price is critical and this merger will hurt pricing for the American consumer. Also remember, cell phones for many Americans aren't a luxury they are a necessity many Americans need to be able to reach or be reached by their children at any time which only cell phone use will provide and work needs also mandate such cell phone necessity and many of these non-wealthy Americans need 'low-cost' cell phone service, affordability is critical and this merger will undermine price. The facts are the facts this merger will eliminate one of the major four cell phone companies in the industry and this industry isn't like a normal industry where investors can see a business opportunity and just start a business in the industry, the cell-phone industry takes a huge capital investment, band width is needed which is not readily available and such a business needs cell phone towers which necessitate getting real estate which is extremely difficult, reducing competition in this industry by regulators will be a long-term reduction in reduced competition.
AT&T says it will cut $40 billion in costs from the combined company, not $40 million, $4 billion, forty billion dollars! How many tens of thousands of jobs does that mean? Were not talking about $40 billion worth of cell phone towers AT&T will be unloading, were talking about jobs and lots of them! With the unemployment and underemployment rate the way it is in America why in the hell would Federal regulators want to approve this deal which would just make these problems worse! This merger will leave AT&T with an additional $20 billion dollars of debt - the amount AT&T is paying to the owners of T-Mobile, this added debt makes this business less stable. With the automakers, Ford and GM, $20 billion dollars of debt makes investors worry about the well-being of the respective businesses. Regulators shouldn't let AT&T take on this much debt weight, there is too many negative repercussions from this much debt.
AT&T has been saying something like they expect regulatory approval on this deal in around a year. Does everyone hear the American people response of "We don't think so." to this assertion. If President Obama gets a good challenge in the Presidential Democrat primary for the 2012 elections and he is definitely vulnerable to a good centrist fiscally conservative candidate (Wouldn't it be outstanding if America got a responsible cutter in government spending, pro-manufacturing, pro-off shore oil producing, pro-high deductable as opposed to Cadillac health insurance entitlement health insurance for lower income Americans, pro-pharmaceutical and medical equipment price regulated, non-extremist EPA, pro-school voucher President in 2013 - the Republicans surely wont' produce one). If President Obama gets some good competition he would be stupid to have his administration approve this merger, he already has the liability of the Comcast/NBC merger that long-term will hurt the American consumer with Comcast a cable distributor having control over necessary programing for competing distributors and this AT&T/T-Mobile merger no matter what conditions are added because conditions all have expiration dates will definitely long-term hurt consumers besides hurting employment in the cell phone industry. Realistically, this merger if it goes through won't go through until early 2013.
First and foremost, this merger gets rid of a major low cost cell phone carrier, T-Mobile. All this nonsense about the American consumer will benefit from better service, better reception, better technology (more 4G availability) from a merger is nonsense. To most T-Mobile consumers and a large number of consumers like these consumers, price is critical and this merger will hurt pricing for the American consumer. Also remember, cell phones for many Americans aren't a luxury they are a necessity many Americans need to be able to reach or be reached by their children at any time which only cell phone use will provide and work needs also mandate such cell phone necessity and many of these non-wealthy Americans need 'low-cost' cell phone service, affordability is critical and this merger will undermine price. The facts are the facts this merger will eliminate one of the major four cell phone companies in the industry and this industry isn't like a normal industry where investors can see a business opportunity and just start a business in the industry, the cell-phone industry takes a huge capital investment, band width is needed which is not readily available and such a business needs cell phone towers which necessitate getting real estate which is extremely difficult, reducing competition in this industry by regulators will be a long-term reduction in reduced competition.
AT&T says it will cut $40 billion in costs from the combined company, not $40 million, $4 billion, forty billion dollars! How many tens of thousands of jobs does that mean? Were not talking about $40 billion worth of cell phone towers AT&T will be unloading, were talking about jobs and lots of them! With the unemployment and underemployment rate the way it is in America why in the hell would Federal regulators want to approve this deal which would just make these problems worse! This merger will leave AT&T with an additional $20 billion dollars of debt - the amount AT&T is paying to the owners of T-Mobile, this added debt makes this business less stable. With the automakers, Ford and GM, $20 billion dollars of debt makes investors worry about the well-being of the respective businesses. Regulators shouldn't let AT&T take on this much debt weight, there is too many negative repercussions from this much debt.
AT&T has been saying something like they expect regulatory approval on this deal in around a year. Does everyone hear the American people response of "We don't think so." to this assertion. If President Obama gets a good challenge in the Presidential Democrat primary for the 2012 elections and he is definitely vulnerable to a good centrist fiscally conservative candidate (Wouldn't it be outstanding if America got a responsible cutter in government spending, pro-manufacturing, pro-off shore oil producing, pro-high deductable as opposed to Cadillac health insurance entitlement health insurance for lower income Americans, pro-pharmaceutical and medical equipment price regulated, non-extremist EPA, pro-school voucher President in 2013 - the Republicans surely wont' produce one). If President Obama gets some good competition he would be stupid to have his administration approve this merger, he already has the liability of the Comcast/NBC merger that long-term will hurt the American consumer with Comcast a cable distributor having control over necessary programing for competing distributors and this AT&T/T-Mobile merger no matter what conditions are added because conditions all have expiration dates will definitely long-term hurt consumers besides hurting employment in the cell phone industry. Realistically, this merger if it goes through won't go through until early 2013.
