The Only Winner in Opposing AT&T/T-Mobile Merger – Big Government

(And we do not mean this august publication.)

John Donne famously said no man is an island. He didn’t live to see the Media Marxists and their absurd policy positions.

These Leftist alleged media “reformers” incessantly demand massive government insertion into and interference with every free market-media nook and cranny.

Insertion and interference in which almost no one else has any interest.

Save, of course, for the other forces of Big Government – Big Government being always interested in expanding its authoritarian sway.

We have noted this previously. For instance, the Media Marxists have all along been strident proponents of Network Neutrality – a government takeover of the Internet that was and remains the kid sitting by himself in the high school cafeteria – almost no one else wanted anything to do with it.

Except, again, Big Government. President Barack Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) joined the Media Marxists at the lonely lunch table – and unilaterally and illegally imposed Net Neutrality.

So radical and foolish is Net Neutrality that – in addition to 302 members of the then Democrat-controlled Congress and a unanimous D.C. Circuit court – a gaggle of normally pro-government groups are opposed to its imposition.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC), the Urban League and the Sierra Club, to name but a few.

And then there were the unions.

Which are almost always Leftist, overwhelmingly pro-Democrat and were in 2008 vociferously pro-Obama – and they oppose Net Neutrality.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) – all opposed.

Why? In a word – jobs.

Net Neutrality will kill tech sector investment (and by the way, the tech sector requires huge coin to grow).

How do we know this? Because Robert McChesney – the Godfather of the Media Marxist movement – says that’s the point:

“(T)he ultimate goal (of Net Neutrality) is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

And that investment – while it still exists – means lots and lots of jobs.

High-paying gigs that must be done here – you can’t pay someone in China or India to hardwire Chicago or Indianapolis.

Large swaths of the tech sector are unionized – so they know of which they speak.

And is why they – rightly – oppose the Media Marxist push for Net Neutrality.

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Which brings us to the pending AT&T/T-Mobile merger.

The Media Marxists are, once again, almost all alone in opposition to this free market deal. In large part because – they allege – it will cost jobs.

The proposed takeover will eliminate stores, jobs, back offices and marketing spending. This is not only a loss of jobs for T-Mobile and AT&T workers, but for every business with ties to the wireless telecoms industry.

So why are the unions – always on the lookout to keep their current gigs and add new ones – not on board with the Media Marxists this go round either?

Because the merger means investment – and investment means jobs.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) understand this. From a CWA publication entitled “The AT&T/T-Mobile Merger – Benefits for Consumers and Workers”:

In the long term, a post-merger AT&T will be better able to retain and increase jobs than either company could do separately.

CWA President Larry Cohen, in a Hill piece entitled “AT&T and T-Mobile Merger Means Better Broadband”:

“The acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T is good news for everyone who realizes that the United States needs to catch up to the rest of the world when it comes to broadband speed and buildout. It presents a real opportunity to expand true high speed broadband in this country that otherwise wouldn’t be possible…. This no-debt deal leaves more resources for quick buildout.”

“(M)ore resources for quick buildout.” “Expand.” These words means jobs.

If we are placing bets on who better understands the tech sector job market – the CWA or the Media Marxists – my money ain’t on the Marxists.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile has been losing money, so Deutsche Telekom – its current owner – would thusly have little or none to invest in maintaining its wireless network, let alone building it out.

And of course, past is prologue. So let us look at a recent wireless merger to see how it affected the tech sector job market, shall we?

Oh wait – we don’t have to, the Phoenix Center already did.

(I)n the two years preceding the (2004) AT&T-Cingular merger, wireless sector employment was in decline, falling 4.7% over the two-year interval. In contrast, sector employment rose 9.4% over the two-year period following the merger.

Oops, looks like history’s not on the Media Marxists’ side either.

So, if the federal government is truly interested in growing the private sector and creating private sector gigs – it will quickly and without concessions approve the AT&T/T-Mobile merger.

If the federal government is truly interested in growing the size, scope and sphere of influence of the federal government – it will drag the merger approval out endlessly and mercilessly.

And if it does eventually approve – will saddle the parties with pages and pages of illegal and anti-free market, intrusive and punitive coerced capitulations (a la the Comcast/NBCU merger).

I’d much prefer A. I’m, sadly, again expecting B.