Ever since the dawn of commerce and the invention of money, new markets have emerged which replace older markets, and which make new people rich. If you owned a canal in 1895, it was a good bet to start a railway, and if you owned a railway in 1950, it made sense to invest in motor cars. The AT&T verdict handed out this week, keeps that tradition alive, and creates no new obstacles to vertical integration through mergers, something that has always been true and not just in the US. During the 1980s it became an oft held belief that vertical integration led to companies which were inefficient, who failed to stick to what they were good at. Such mergers…