What could possibly be bad or ugly about a $26.5 billion merger between the numbers 3 and 4 in wireless service provision in the US that places the new firm at number 2 in a three-fold dominance of the industry that includes Verizon and AT&T? What’s Good? First things first, why the merger? From the merging firms come the standard refrain or should I say, mantra: "Better competition, lower costs, greater investment spending on jobs and leading technology (think 5G speeds)". E

Drawing our attention to the famous Candlestick makers' petition satire on protectionist tariffs by Frederic Bastiat, I summarize the satire and apply it with modifications to the current context of US-China trade relations. You may read the satire here or go to http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html Concern: The sun was bad for the candlemakers' business Petition: That the government would enable a law to prevent the sun from accessing their country so that they could produce c