The New York Times has Paul Krugman’s article  Barons of Broadband.

Last week’s big business news was the announcement that Comcast, a gigantic provider of cable TV and high-speed Internet service, has reached a deal to acquire Time Warner Cable, which is merely huge. If regulators approve the deal, Comcast will be an overwhelmingly dominant player in the business, with around 30 million subscribers.

So let me ask two questions about the proposed deal. First, why would we even think about letting it go through? Second, when and why did we stop worrying about monopoly power?

I was tempted to put in a subtitle, “Krugman finally wakes up.”  Compare his new found concern, at least in print,  over monopoly power to some of the posts I have featured on this blog.

• Monopoly and Competition in Twenty-First Century Capitalism – April 18th, 2011
• Joseph E. Stiglitz | The Price of Inequality – April 18th, 2011
• Dean Baker: Why Didn’t We Make These Guys Run Around Naked With Their Underpants Over Their Heads? – September 14th, 2011
• Time for This Big Dog to Bite Back – September 13th, 2010
• GOP Wrecks Economy To Win Votes – August 6th, 2010

I do have to thank Krugman for answering one question that bothered me a little.  That is the issue of how do you call it an increase in  monopoly when the territories of the two companies do not overlap?

Comcast’s chief executive says not to worry: “It will not reduce competition in any relevant market because our companies do not overlap or compete with each other. In fact, we do not operate in any of the same ZIP codes.” This is, however, transparently disingenuous. The big concern about making Comcast even bigger isn’t reduced competition for customers in local markets — for one thing, there’s hardly any effective competition at that level anyway. It is that Comcast would have even more power than it already does to dictate terms to the providers of content for its digital pipes — and that its ability to drive tough deals upstream would make it even harder for potential downstream rivals to challenge its local monopolies.

How could I have overlooked the power of monopoly over your suppliers?  One of the reasons why I don’t shop Walmart is because of what they do with their monopoly powers over their suppliers.  Walmart makes the suppliers cut corners, they make them treat their own employees badly, and they lower the quality of all the products that are offered to us.