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3 Firms Confess To Fixing LCD Prices, Agree To Pay $585M Fine
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Nov 12, 2008 04:37 PM
from the win-friends-and-influence-people dept.
from the win-friends-and-influence-people dept.
Oldyeller89 writes "LG, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes pleaded guilty to charges of price fixing in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. They fixed the prices on LCD screens used not only in their products but also in other products such as Apple's iPods. The three companies agreed to pay $585 million in fines. Perhaps this will cause the price of our TVs to drop?" The New York Times also has a story on the outcome of this case.
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Plasma? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Plasma? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Plasma? (Score:4, Informative)
Almost all 17" LCDs are 1280x1024 which is 5:4. Anyone know why they use this and not 1280x960 (4:3)?
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Re:Plasma? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Plasma? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh. Somebody's obviously not doing any graphics work.
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Re:Plasma? (Score:4, Informative)
agreed.
you get much better colour and contrast on a CRT.
But, most people don't do graphics work for a living, and they won't care about getting accurate colours, they just care that they look good enough. LCD's use less power, look nice, and save desk space, these are things most people care about.
Also, LCD's don't flicker, and are much better for long jobs, as they cause less eye strain. I get headaches if i spend more than 4 hours in front of a CRT.
personally, I've been using both kinds of monitors, so i can get the best of both worlds. 90% of my work is done on a cheap LDC screen, then for the final 'touching up', before i send something off to be printed, i switch to a CRT to tweak the image.
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Re:Plasma? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Plasma? (Score:5, Funny)
yea, but the colours on my LDC screen aren't nearly as good as the ones on my LSD screen.
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Color Invariance of CRT's (Score:4, Informative)
An LCD screen shows different colors depending upon your view angle. This is not good for graphics professionals.
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CRTs for gaming? (Score:4, Insightful)
What about for gaming though? You're essentially capped at 60fps due to needing Vsync on LCD monitors to avoid massive shearing issues. Whereas a HQ CRT supports 100+hz.
The naked eye may not see more than 60fps, but there are definite fluidity gains still up to the 100-120fps range which LCDs can't match currently.
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Re:Plasma? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Plasma? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not burn-in; it is image persistance and the display is not permanently damaged. How to fix it? Play a high-contrast full motion video for a few hours, or better yet, an animated image which turns all red pixels on then off (red then black), blue on then off (blue then black), then white (all pixels on) then black (all pixels off). Let each image display for at least a few seconds per.
My first iPAQ (a Pocket PC) exhibited this from the start menu, and running a slide show resolved the issue.
It's not burn-in. Burn-in is an actual evaporation (well, sublimation really) and/or burning of phosphors and cannot be corrected. Burn in "correction" on a plasma screen actually wears out the screen because those utilities are designed to burn in the rest of the screen to make the whole display more consistent.
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So how much did they make? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So how much did they make? (Score:5, Insightful)
...and how much are we the public going to see?
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably a gift coupon for a $8 mouse. And a lollypop if you are lucky.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:4, Funny)
what flavour lollipop? It is important for them to earn my forgiveness.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:5, Funny)
It'll be ass flavoured. So you'll know what kissing their's would taste like.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:4, Informative)
actually their customers are Apple, and other product makers that paid a few bucks too much per panel and missed sales, not "consumers". So the public really doesn't see any of it as they paid the manufacturer and retailer of the product they bought a market price for the device.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's nice how the free market automagically corrects any abuses of the free market. I mean here were a bunch of companies colluding to overcharge for a product, and yet, magically, no consumers were harmed. Yay magical free market, thy invisible hand protects and looks after us all.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except we're not in a free market. Republicans claim to be for a free market, but being pro established businesses does not a free market make. The patent system is also a big anti-free market force.
Also, free markets don't magically remove all price fixing. It only removes price fixing if the barriers of entry are lower then the opportunities presented by the price fixing.
And nobody has claimed free markets are perfect, just better then the alternatives.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:4, Insightful)
And nobody has claimed free markets are perfect, just better then the alternatives.
It seems to me that all these yahoos arguing to "don't regulate, just let the market sort it out," are saying it's perfect by implication.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because the GP's lame argument means ipso facto that he is accurately representing free market economics.
Have you alerted the authorities to your blinding insight that oligarchies can temporarily fix prices even in a free market? No one has ever thought of that before.
Please, keep beating that strawman. You almost have me convinced.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:5, Insightful)
The free market works perfectly with perfect information. As long as there's not perfect information, there's no perfect market, and a "free" market needs watching from time to time.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:5, Informative)
Imbalance of information is only one of the three major failure modes of the free market. Externalities both positive and negative, and natural monopolies are the other two.
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The Invisible Hand (Score:5, Insightful)
Another magic trick of modern totalitarianism, passing as democracy through massive propaganda, is that you believe in things that simply don't exist - like the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith's imagining meaning something it does not. Here's the quote:
By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
So the invisible hand was Adam Smith's belief that an Englishman would buy English products produced in England, or start a manufacturing company in England for English consumers.
However, this loyalty to one's country simply isn't implicit anymore, if it was, ever. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel economist, states:
Whenever there are "externalities" - where the actions of an individual have impacts on others for which they do not pay or for which they are not compensated - markets will not work well. Some of the important instances have been long understood - environmental externalities. Markets, by themselves, will produce too much pollution. Markets, by themselves, will also produce too little basic research. (Remember, the government was responsible for financing most of the important scientific breakthroughs, including the internet and the first telegraph line, and most of the advances in bio-tech.)
But recent research has shown that these externalities are pervasive, whenever there is imperfect information or imperfect risk markets - that is always.
So, if you believe in a free market, globalization is very, very bad. GM is not failing because of the UAW (though they have many, many problems due to the UAW). GM is failing because it's being forced to compete with subsidized Japanese auto industry, and not receiving investment because of the inevitability of competing with Chinese automakers, which are a lot cheaper. Why? They can wreck their environment, exploit workers, and make unsafe products because China in many ways has a freer market than the US, if not a freer government. Why people are surprised that competition with third world countries wipes out entire manufacturing industries here at home, I'll never understand.
Repeat after me: I do not want a free market. I want a well regulated and competitive market that gives me the benefits of capitalist elements without wrecking the world in the process. I believe in liberty and equality and raising living standards for Americans, and trading with other nations so that they have the freedom to choose what they want to produce, not the "freedom" to sign up for another round of exploitation by Fortune 500 companies.
Anyway. There's good information on the Invisible Hand at the quite decent Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], where I got my quotes from.
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Re:So how much did they make? (Score:4, Insightful)
actually their customers are Apple, and other product makers that paid a few bucks too much per panel and missed sales, not "consumers". So the public really doesn't see any of it as they paid the manufacturer and retailer of the product they bought a market price for the device.
A market price that was based, in part, on the cost of the materials which, it turns out, were overpriced due to illegal price fixing.
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Ya Know... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ya Know... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ya Know... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Ya Know... (Score:5, Funny)
... I'd expect this kind of BS from Sharp and LG but not from Chunghwa Picture Tubes.
It's almost to be expected. After the success of "Tubthumping", they were desperate for another avenue. Sadly, they had nowhere to go but down.
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Bad Timing for LG (Score:4, Funny)
I was just about to buy a new monitor for WotLK so I could quest easier (having quest info from wowhead on monitor A while gaming in windowed mode on monitor B).
Now I'm gonna definitely go with Samsung [futureshop.ca], because they are not involved in this lawsuit and therefore they must be rewarded for not getting caught. Anyone can tell that Samsung also does not pad their contrast ratios like LG obviously does. Who could believe a 10000:1 contrast ratio [futureshop.ca]? That's ridiculous! Samsung has decided to only push their padding to 8000:1 which respectfully identifies with the company's obvious higher level of integrity.
The Samsung even looks nicer!
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But first, a number (Score:4, Funny)
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Price drop (Score:5, Insightful)
"Perhaps this will cause the price of our TVs to drop?"
Um, except that they just added $585,000,000.00 to their cost of production, sure.
G.
Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Since its a fine imposed by the Justice Department, I would imagine the government gets the money (in part to defray the expense of filing and prosecuting the case).
Irony of irony, the advert displayed below the story was for the new Samsung HD TVs. :)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The attorneys.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
AIG.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's why you shouldn't steal. The government hates competition!
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I like paying taxes. My tax money buys me civilization. I just hate freeloaders who want civilization without paying for it. If you don't like civilization, don't live in it. There is plenty of unclaimed land all over the world where you can live without paying taxes to anyone. Have fun!
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
I was responding to this quote, "That's why you shouldn't steal. The government hates competition!" which implies that taxation is equivalent to stealing. That is ludicrous, selfish, and anti-social. Taxation is equivalent to getting food in a restaurant, and paying for it afterwords. The 'Taxes are theft!' whiners want to dine and dash, they have already reaped the benefits of civilization but don't feel like they should pay.
I certainly don't always agree with what the government does with my money, but that still doesn't make taxation coercive. There are methods to change things that I don't like in government, and again, if you don't like the system you can drop out and not take part. Taxation is only coercive in libertarian fantasy land.
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
U.S. Department of Justice is levying the fines, so the money goes to the US Government. The Government will use the money to help bail out banks. ... that have no liquidity because of all the people who ran up their credit cards buying LCD televisions on credit and can't pay it back.
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Prices won't drop; profit margins may rise slightl (Score:5, Informative)
Lol... (Score:3, Interesting)
And $50 says the CEO's won't be taking a dip in their salaries to compensate for the fine; nope, chances are they'll lay off some people and give pay cuts out to everyone that just does their job without trying to find a way to make a quick buck.
No price drop for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps this will cause the price of our TVs to drop?
Perhaps instead they will factor this cost into their new products in attempt to recoup this lost $$.
So the scenario is: Purchaser is hurt due to collusion and price fixing. Companies are caught. Purchaser is hurt due to fines.
Fines are only a deterrent if they actually hurt the companies bottom lines. If they can make enough profit during the price fixing phase, and jack up enough prices during the penalty phase to more than offset the penalty there will continue to be massive collusion in such systems.
Re:No price drop for you! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That would only be true if companies were complete monopolies and purchasers were FORCED to buy their products at a specific time... Neither is true.
If Samsung and LG raise prices, their competitors will benefit, getting more sales, AND consumers will see that prices are a bit high, and opt not to buy a new device with an LCD screen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't make sense. The price fixing happens because the overcapacity in the market would otherwise cause the price to drop. If the market were willing to pay a higher price, then they would simply increase the price of their products. They wouldn't wait until they're fined and they wouldn't collude in the first place.
Is this related? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does this have anything to do with the ridiculous inability of the laptop LCD screen market to put out 1920x1080 screens?
It's as though they're keeping the market for TV screens expensive by not allowing the format to bleed into laptop realm, wherupon cheap computers become high-quality televisions, killing the TV screen market.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe there is a limit on the clock speed? 1920 x 1080 x 50/60 Hz would give a clock speed in the range 103 MHz to 124.4 MHz, and a double-buffered 32-bit framebuffer of 16 MBytes.
Re:is 585M enough? (Score:4, Funny)
585M should be enough for anyone
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