Enjoy the last days of falling prices for TVs, computers, digital media players, stereos and virtually every other electronic gadget.
By this time next year, virtually all of them will cost more than they do now, and for that you can thank that radical activist Gang of Five on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Last week, on the same day it dominated headlines by paving the way for the legal resegregation of American schools, the conservative majority slipped through a decision that overturned 96 years of antitrust law - as damaging in its own way as the court's frontal assault on Brown v. Board of Education.
The court ruled that minimum resale price agreements between a manufacturer and a retailer are no longer automatically illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
This overturns a precedent the court set in 1911, when it ruled in favor of ordinary citizens who were sick and tired of so-called "free markets" being manipulated by a handful of robber barons. Had these schemes been legal in the 1990s, Internet retailers such as Amazon.com would never have gotten started.
Here's the way these schemes work: A manufacturer tells its retailers they can't sell its products for less than a certain price. If a retailer tries to give his customers a break by discounting, the manufacturer cuts off his supply of the product. The system protects the manufacturer's margins and the retailer's markup, but prevents stores from competing on price.
This type of price fixing works best (or worst, from our point of view) when the manufacturer has a brand name, reputation or a lock on the market for a specific gadget that's in demand. For retailer to be taken seriously and get customers in the door, he has to carry that brand.
But minimum price agreements mean that second-tier manufacturers get a break, too. In a truly free market, manufacturers of lesser-known brands are forced to price their goods under the discounted prices of major brands.
This is what's happening now in the HDTV market, which has seen prices plummet over the past 18 months. But when the price of major brands is fixed by the manufacturers, the second-tier manufacturers can charge more, too.
To be fair, the Bush court didn't legalize minimum price agreements. It only said they weren't automatically wrong, and that their legality should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
But why this change in a 96-year-old assumption about the harm that this kind of price fixing can do?
In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said there "is now widespread agreement" that price floors can help competition.
Outside of the University of Chicago and a handful right-wing think tanks, it's hard to find anybody who thinks price fixing helps you and me. But then, we're not major stockholders in big corporations. This court will obviously be looking out for them, not us.
And the case-by-case theory? So much baloney. Until last week, companies that would otherwise be happy to do so knew they couldn't enter into these minimum price fixing agreements. And with a few exceptions, they didn't. Now they can fix prices whenever they want and say, "Sue me."
The result: more slimy rip-offs like the price fixing scheme that the big five music publishers hatched in the 1990s with the National Association of Recording Merchandisers.
In that case, the music industry wanted to stop CD discounting by big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Target. So the record companies established a system of "minimum advertised pricing" policies by threatening to chop millions of dollars in promotional advertising help from any store or chain that advertised a CD below a set price.
What happened? The retail price of CDs shot back up at a time when the price of every other form of digital entertainment was dropping. Without retail competition, the record companies were able to increase their wholesale prices and profits by billions.
Faced with outrageous prices, propped up by an illegal conspiracy, is it any wonder that music fans felt no guilt at all about "illegal" song swapping over the Internet?
This rip-off went on until 2000, when a group of state attorneys general filed suit to stop it. After two more years of legal wrangling, the record companies settled in 2004. They denied any illegal conduct, of course, but they agreed to give up the minimum pricing scheme and pay $143 million in cash and merchandise just to show what great guys they were. And yes, the price of a CD dropped from $18 to about $13.
When these schemes become the rule rather than the exception, what will happen?
Who can afford to take on Sony or Hewlett-Packard or Panasonic in court over the price of a TV?
Who will act in your behalf? The Bush Justice Department? That's a laugh.
Can state attorneys general, who have carried on most of these battles in the absence of federal help, possibly take on dozens of these battles? The court ignored 37 of them who filed briefs with the court, urging that the price fixing prohibition be sustained.
Check this Sunday's paper for the prices of consumer electronics, clothing, tools and other things you buy. Write down a few examples and put the paper away in a drawer. A year from now, pull out your shopping list and look for the same items. You'll probably agree with Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who wrote a blistering dissent to the ruling.
"The only safe predictions to make about today's decision are that it will likely raise the price of goods at retail," he declared.
mike.himowitz@baltsun.com