alt Hacker NewsThe reason MDD was merged into Boeing is MDD was in the process of failing: the MD10 was completely outdated, the MD11 was not competitive, and with the Cold War ending the infinite money tap of military projects was closing (it was already quite a ways there, the last supper was in 1993, by the time of the MDD merger half the major contractors were gone)
Even so, mergers foreclose options to promote competitiveness. For example: no well-capitalized companies from outside the immediate industry could buy MDD to enter the space (as RocketLab bought Iridium). A failing MDD could have limped along for a decade or more until a tech billionaire (say) decided to buy in and reinvigorate it. It could have been split up, allowing smaller entrants to buy parts of it. It could have been allowed to fail, so any of these types of transactions could have happened at smaller dollar amounts.
Basically, allowing it to merge with its largest competitor was the worst possible outcome for competitiveness and long-term health of the industry.
More to my point, though. There's no real reason our existing anticompetition laws should not have been enforced here. Our culture of selective enforcement of laws is a cancer that manifests in all kinds of negative ways. I strongly advocate that we move towards being a society governed by written laws.