              I N V I S I B L E   C O N T R A C T S
                         George Mercier

                   FEDERAL LICENSING PROGRAMS
                         [Pages 480-481]

[Certain conventions have been used in converting INVISIBLE CONTRACTS to an
electronic medium. For an explanation of the conventions used, please download
the file INCONHLP.ZIP for further illumination. Other background information as
well is contained in INCONHLP.ZIP. It is advisable to EXIT this file right now
and read the contents of INCONHLP.ZIP before proceeding with your study of this
file.]

By experiencing the direct benefits of Commercial enrichment acquired through a
Federal license program, such as being an SEC registered stockbroker, or an ATF
licensed manufacturer of fireworks, which is an obvious pursuit of federally
participated profit or gain. Several federal monopolies were designed
specifically for the existing participants to experience intensive Commercial
enrichment in, as the net effect of a regulatory jurisdiction is to discourage
potential new market entrants from competing with established corporate titans.
In any market there are only so many potential customers available, and
excluding new upstarts allows existing Grandfathers to have a bigger slice of
the pie they would not otherwise be experiencing. For example, the creation of
National Banks by the Congress, through the Comptroller of the Currency, is one
such monopoly designed to enrich existing market participants, while shutting
out new banks and damaging the end consumer. In any one demographic banking
district, there is only so much business to be had; cutting out new entrants
keeps a bigger slice of the banking pie for the owners. [634]

[634]============================================================= For example,
in 1967, F.W. Pitts wanted to bring a new National Bank into the Hartsville,
South Carolina area. He submitted an application to the Comptroller of the
Currency for a license certificate, and the request was denied. Reason:
	"... we were unable to reach a favorable conclusion as to the need
factor."
	-	CAMP VS. PITTS, 411 U.S. 138, at 139 (1973). That is correct: The
Comptroller denied the application because the community was already adequately
served by other banks, and there was no "need," seemingly, for the new proposed
national bank. In this way, the existing banks in Hartsville shut out a new
impending competitor. The letter from the Comptroller, in turning down the
License request, listed the banks already in the Hartsville area and the
deposits they carried [CAMP, id., at 139]. The Comptroller seemed to be very
concerned about enhancing the financial enrichment of the existing banks; and
at no time was there any discussion about the improved service the end consumer
would be experiencing, or of the very competitive rates of interest on loans
that new upstarts searching for business charge. But like the tightly regulated
issuance of local Television Station licenses by the FCC, the Comptroller of
the Currency is on a mission: To make sure that the owners of existing banks
are very well fed, and so throwing Torts at the public is nothing they are
going to concern themselves with. For a summary of the laws creating obstacles
for new prospective banks to go into business, see the Editor's Notes called
BANK CHARTERS, BRANCHING, HOLDING COMPANY AND MERGER LAWS: COMPETITION
FRUSTRATED in 71 Yale Law Journal 592 (1962).
=============================================================[634]

The secondary consequences of restraining the number of new market entrants
politically are elevated prices the end consumer winds up paying, constricted
services and retarded technological innovations. [635]

[635]============================================================= The
telephone companies have exclusive geographical districts assigned to them with
no competitors -- a pure monopoly; and if the FCC had not intervened to allow
third party telephones and other equipment to be connected to local telephone
company lines, you would never have been able to have automatic redialing on
your phones -- such nice little effort savers are the result of competition,
and not your local phone company, who could care less. Computers have been used
extensively for telephone switching since the middle 1960's, and the continuing
refusal of the phone company to assign a few byte locations in their computer's
memory to remember your last dialed number, occurred for just one reason: They
have a monopoly, they have their enrichment pipeline set up, and they don't
care about you at all [a relative statement that will be viewed as being
excessively harsh by those who never bothered to give any thought to
evaluating, comparatively, the service attitude manifested by businessmen in a
competitive operating atmosphere, with those businessmen who don't need to
concern themselves with competitive pressures.]  Yes, MINIMALISM rules in all
uncompetitive environments, Commercial and otherwise.


