{"id":4122,"date":"2005-10-01T20:25:31","date_gmt":"2005-10-02T00:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2005\/10\/01\/the-voluntary-trade-council-t"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:54:32","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:54:32","slug":"the-voluntary-trade-council-tirade-counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2005\/10\/01\/the-voluntary-trade-council-tirade-counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Voluntary Trade Council: tirade counsel?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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You may recall <\/FONT>our blurb<\/FONT><\/A> from last June, <\/FONT>reporting that the non-profit<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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Voluntary Trade Council<\/FONT><\/EM><\/A>, a free-market and rabidly <\/FONT>anti-antitrust group,<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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had branded the <\/FONT>American Antitrust Institute<\/FONT><\/A> a <\/FONT>“<\/FONT>criminal organization<\/A><\/FONT>,” <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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for taking a cy pres<\/EM> <\/FONT>award<\/FONT><\/A> (to use to make educational materials) as  <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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part of the Vitamin Price <\/FONT>Fixing Settlement<\/FONT>.  Today, a <\/FONT>new wrinkle <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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appeared, caused by the following blurb, which I (being its volunteer <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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editor), had <\/FONT>added two days ago to the <\/FONT>AAI’s online Antitrust Guide<\/FONT><\/A><\/FONT>, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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in a section called <\/FONT>The Factions <\/FONT><\/A>(Schools) of Antitrust<\/FONT><\/A>, under the <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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heading “Libertarian Approach to Antitrust”:<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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The Voluntary Trade Council<\/FONT><\/A><\/EM> Formerly known as Citizens <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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for Voluntary Trade, VTC is a nonprofit research and education <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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organization that opposes “violent state intervention in free <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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markets,” focusing “on the harm caused to individuals and <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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businesses by the enforcement of antitrust and other ‘competition’ <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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laws. It claims to apply “the principles of free market economics <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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and rational ethics to contemporary antitrust policies and cases.” <\/FONT><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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Today, Oct. 1, 2005, S.M. “Skip” Oliva<\/A>, President & CEO of VTC,  \"jailbird<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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sent an email to AAI President Bert Foer, asking Bert to remove the link <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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to VTC’s website.  Oliva wrote: “we consider you and your organization to<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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be criminals, and thus your link to our website is considered an unfriendly <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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act.” <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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scolding
vain man…
the autumn moon<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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Kobayashi Issa<\/STRONG><\/FONT><\/A> <\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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  translated by <\/FONT>David G. Lanoue<\/STRONG><\/FONT><\/A> <\/FONT><\/FONT> <\/FONT><\/DIV><\/FONT><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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Although we believe AAI is under no legal obligation to remove the link, we <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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have done so, while leaving our description of VTC, and pointing to the prior <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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f\/k\/a<\/EM> weblog post<\/A> for an explanation of the criminal charges and a link back <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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to the VCT website.  You might want to check out this center of “rational <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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ethics.”<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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p.s.<\/STRONG><\/EM> to Skip:  This website will continue to link to your dandy<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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organization.<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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\"tiny  By the way, as Walter <\/FONT>Olson noted<\/FONT><\/A> earlier this month,<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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a VCT<\/EM> weblog<\/A> now exists. And<\/EM>, today its pledge month<\/A> begins!!<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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                                                                                          \"coin  <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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Update<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/EM> (Oct. 2, 2005): Yesterday evening, Skip Oliva wrote to Bert Foer, <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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informing Bert that he can “rest assured <\/FONT>I have no interest in sharing my
thoughts about you with anyone.  To emphasize this point, I have deleted <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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the few references to AAI and you from VTC’s website, and you have my <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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assurance that I will never refer to AAI or yourself, for any reason, in the <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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future on any website under my control.” <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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Mr. Oliva added “P.S.  No need to reply to this e-mail, as my <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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spam filter <\/FONT>has <\/FONT>been been programmed to block your address.”<\/FONT><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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\"erasingS\" Thanks to the Google cache<\/FONT><\/A> of the page in question, I have salvaged <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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the <\/FONT>original news release by VTC, which can be seen here<\/A>. <\/FONT><\/DIV><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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in the harvest moonlight
unruffled, unaffected
scarecrow<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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under my bottom
the stone warms up…
moonlit night<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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Kobayashi Issa<\/STRONG><\/FONT><\/A> <\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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       translated by <\/FONT><\/FONT>David G. Lanoue<\/STRONG><\/FONT><\/A> <\/FONT><\/FONT> <\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV>
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 <\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/FONT><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may recall our blurb from last June, reporting that the non-profit Voluntary Trade Council, a free-market and rabidly anti-antitrust group, had branded the American Antitrust Institute a “criminal organization,” for taking a cy pres award (to use to make educational materials) as   part of the Vitamin Price Fixing Settlement.  Today, a new wrinkle appeared, caused by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-14u","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13000,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122\/revisions\/13000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}