The accelerating rush to re-amalgamate the entire US phone system (the breakup of which was just about the last gasp of active antitrust enforcement) has hit a speed bump. One of the FCC commissioners whose vote is needed to allow the merger of BellSouth (my phone company, and the only source of broadband Internet in my exceedingly rural area) and the resurgent AT&T is refusing to vote on the matter. He made this decision final today. Robert McDowell says it would be unethical for him to vote on the matter as he has recently done lobbying for the telecommunications industry.

And yet he is a Republican. Will wonders never cease?

Although Mr McDowell’s decision is not expected to derail the deal, the move will force the FCC’s four remaining commissioners, including its Republican chairman, Kevin Martin, to break their 2-2 stalemate and reach an agreement on the conditions that should be set on the proposed merger.

The announcement will bolster opponents of the mega-deal, who want it to be subject to tighter regulations than SBC’s earlier takeover of AT&T and increases the likelihood that it will not close this year.

The White House very much wants this deal to go through, and pronto, as in before the end of the year. One speculates (it would be irresponsible not to, etc.) that various payments have been promised hither and yon, contingent on the deal going through by the end of the year.

As a substantial portion of the US economy consists not of making anything, or providing any service, but simply of shuffling money from one column to another, this would probably give a nice fake year-end boost to the stock market as well. As usual, this would prove absolutely nothing about the actual health of the economy, but people are pretty well conditioned any more to pretend like it does.

I wonder how many people--real people, not corporate ones--will be laid off, outsourced, cut from full to part time employment, have their pensions reduced or eliminiated, lose or have to pay more for their health insurance, or otherwise be economically devastated should (oh let's admit it, when) this merger finally goes through?

The Financial Times quoted above has actually been doing some decent reporting on things recently. I wonder if anybody there has the stones to do an actual, factual analysis of the question I just asked? Maybe take a look back and the most recent Huge Telecom Merger (AT&T devoured SBC earlier this year) and see how that worked out for, like, people?