Matt misses the big point in his hatred for libertarians: collusion with government.

Fannie and Freddie.

Libertarians are not instinctively and blithely anti-regulation: we are not, for instance, opposed to breaking up monopolies/oligopolies to ensure competition --

Speak for yourself. Unless you are exclusively referring to government franchised monopolies, there is no reason to break up large corporations in a truly free enterprise system. They got large by providing the best and cheapest product. The anti-trust laws should be abolished. They are used like a hammer hanging over the heads of corporations that don't play political ball with corrupt and bribe inducing political hacks.

Frank -- I'm not for breaking up large companies, just those that establish monopolies or collusive oligoplies. Free markets can't have producers setting prices from imposed scarcity, it produces bad outcomes.

While anti-trust laws have been overappplied, there is a role for government in ensuring free and fair competition.

...of course, in this case, we're talking about a quasi-gov't corp, because the taxpayers are insuring them -- and only because they're large. I think virtually all libertarians can agree that that, at least, is undesirable.

About the Tea Partiers, Taibbi says "they're really into Cops and putting people in jail for smoking a joint."

Really? While I know I can't speak for all Tea Partiers, I find that characterization deeply offensive. (For starters, busting people for pot is not a Tea Party principle...)

Who the hell does this guy think he is?

If he tried to stereotype blacks or gays that way, I think he'd get more flak.

There is absolutely NO role for government "ensuring free and fair competition". If you read the history of Bank of America, from Gianinni's founding of Bank of Italy, on up, you will find that government intruded at every stage of success only to screw up the business. They first banned, and then 40 years late allowed interstate banking. They made B of A sell off Trans-America, encouraged it to make huge loans in South America which went bad. And finally, 2 years ago threatened Ken Lewis into the Merrill-Lynch fiasco. I guess breaking up the bank would be consistent with past government action.

Wouldn't it be better to gradually transition away from government involvement, even in banking, rather than doubling down with more regulation, micro-management, and the sledge-hammer of trust busting? I mean, why make Barney Frank happy!

Frank,

Well, I'll be the first to agree the gov't has been clumsy and inept. But if we had one phone company, one internet provider, one steel company... I don't anyone von Mises, Hayek, or Friedman would sign on to the absolutist position you've laid out there.

If we're not going to break them up or prop them up, we're asking for a repeat of the massive failures of the Great Depression. The consequences would have been far more destabilizing than our current mess.

Late to the conversation but, is along term monopoly even possible without governmental intervention? For instance, it seems to me that all of TallDave's examples - one phone company, one internet provider, one steel company, etc. were, are and will be possible only with the aid of government, either state or federal, through regulations and other interventions? Am I mistaken?

To Eric's point about Taibbi's smearing the Tea Parties re: dope smoking. How does he explain all the California voters who put Brown back into office, passed the resolution to return to simple majority re tax increases and voted down making pot legal. Surely he doesn't characterize them as Tea Party members?

Crawdad,

I'll accept that government intervention is usually responsible for monopoly. I don't know that I would accept it's not possible without gov't intervention. Certainly price-fixing collusion among producers is rational if legal.

I suppose one can argue that producer collusion would be difficult to maintain, but I think it's hard to argue it wouldn't be possible given the incentive.

I doubt if it's possible to maintain a monopoly without government help. Years ago I worked at Dennison Mfg. one of the inventors of self-adhesive paper. Together with Avery, the other inventor, they had clear sailing.
They opened or bought up label printing companies, and for a time shared a near monopoly. As soon as the patents ran out, they were swamped by multiple competitors.

Dennison was at the forefront of the digital age. A group of execs visited my plant in the early 1980's. They knew what was on the horizon, and were there to explain the sell-off and plant closings. Nothing, not even government contracts and bought senators, could stop the digital revolution. Today, they are one company and one among many. No need for anti-trust. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates saw to that.