Suppose you are an economist working for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

In each of the following cases you are given the task of determining whether the behavior warrants an antitrust investigation for possible illegal acts or is just an example of undesirable, but not illegal, tacit collusion. Explain your reasoning.

a. Two companies dominate the industry for industrial lasers. Several people sit on the boards of directors of both companies.

b. Three banks dominate the market for banking in a given state. Their profits have been going up recently as they add new fees for customer transactions. Advertising among the banks is fierce, and new branches are springing up in many locations.

c. The two oil companies that produce most of the petroleum for the western half of the United States have decided to forgo building their own pipelines and to share a common pipeline, the only means of transporting petroleum products to that market.

d. The two major companies that dominate the market for herbal supplements have each created a subsidiary that sells the same product as the parent company in large quantities but with a generic name.

e. The two largest credit card companies, Passport and OmniCard, have required all banks and retailers who accept their cards to agree to limit their use of rival credit cards.

A: This warrants an antitrust investigation.

B: This is just an example of undesirable, but not illegal, tacit collusion.

C: This warrants an antitrust investigation.

D: This is not a collusion.

E: This warrants an antitrust investigation.

sound is invisible, but sometimes we can feel it. when a kettle-drum is thumped with a stick that time the tight drum skin moving up and down very quickly for some time and then it pumped sound waves into the air. loudspeakers also work in a similar manner.

components of a speaker:

electromagnet

in order to translate an electrical signal into an audible sound, an electromagnet is used in looudspeakers

  suspension

suspension is used to   center the voice coil in the gap of the magnet and it exerts a restoring force to keep it there. suspension is used to limits the maximum mechanical excursion of the diaphragm and voice coil.

voice coil

voice coil is a coil of wire which is attached to the apex of a loudspeaker cone. it provides the motive force to the cone by the reaction of a magnetic field to the current passing through it.

cone

in a   loudspeaker, a   thin, semi-rigid membrane attached to the voice coil, which moves in a magnetic gap due to which it vibrates   and produced sound. it is known as diaphragm and it can also be called a cone, though not all speaker diaphragms are cone-shaped.

surround

surround is also known as front suspension. surround is used to join the cone to the chassis. together with the suspension it controls the cone excursion, and it is also used to   determine how energy which is   travelling through the cone is absorbed, and how the speaker limits when it reaches the ends of its travel.

dustcap

dustcap is used to protect the voice coil from dust and dirt. it is a part of the cone.

how speaker work

the outer part of the cone is fastened to the outer part of the loudspeaker's circular metal rim. the inner part is fixed to   voice coil that sits just in front of a permanent magnet . when loudspeaker is hooked up to a stereo, electrical signals feed through the speaker cables into the coil. it will convert the coil into an electromagnet magnet . when electricity flows back and forth in the cables, the electromagnet either repels or attract the permanent magnet. this moves the coil back and forth, and it pull and push the loudspeaker cone. like a drum skin vibrating back and forth, the moving cone pumps sounds out into the air.in this way loudspeakers works.