Chocolates and Anti-Trust

One of the comments to this post suggested that anti-trust enforcement never did anything to help the consumer which I found odd given that we had noted that the Federal Trade Commission insured that the manufacturers of premium ice cream were not able to abuse mergers to reduce competition. We know Donald Luskin is too stupid to understand that consumers enjoy premium ice cream, but maybe AB serial pest Don Marek thinks yummy treats are Marxist plots or something.

Which brings me to an interesting discussion from Bloomberg’s Laurie Asseo:

U.S. antitrust enforcers are looking into pricing practices in the chocolate industry, said Mars Inc., the maker of M&M candies … Canadian authorities said last month they were investigating allegations that companies were fixing prices for chocolate bars. Hershey and Nestle confirmed they had been contacted by Canadian investigators.

As a chocolate lover, I want to have competition in this sector. If Hershey, Mars, and Nestle are conspiring to restrict production so as to drive prices well above the marginal cost of production, I would hope policymakers enforce the anti-trust laws.