[AnimalMuppet]

It's already an oligopoly. Most cities only have one or two. Of the few cities that have three or four (Chicago, say), the merger would reduce that by one.

Let's say you want to ship from Denver to Atlanta. In Denver, you hand your stuff over to either Union Pacific or BNSF. In Atlanta, you receive it from either NS or CSX. You only have two options in Denver, and only two in Atlanta. The merger doesn't change that at all.

[throw0101c]

> It's already an oligopoly.

So reducing competition to move further over on the oligopoly spectrum is good how?

[keeganpoppen]

why bother going through the performative charade of quoting four words of their post just to respond with something that so flagrantly betrays, charitably, your not having read what they said at all or, less charitably, willfully misconstruing it because you happen to disagree. maybe i'm just the simpleton you are pretending to be with the snarky faux folksy affect, but... "moving further over on the intellectually honest to arrogantly disingenuous spectrum is good how?"

what's worse is that the "more of a bad thing is prima facie worse" argument is so facile that it strains credulity to believe that even you think that it's actually true. i think we would all agree that, ceteris paribus, higher food prices are bad, for example, but i doubt anyone would mistake that for a reason to never do anything that might raise the price of food. the irony of it all is that you managed to turn siding with conventional wisdom-- usually a good bet, by definition-- into a no-upside proposition: either you are right but for the wrong reason-- a pyrrhic victory-- or not just wrong, but arrogantly so.

can we just leave the grandstanding and begging the question to our elected representatives during congressional hearings on C-SPAN where it belongs?