Corporate Monopolies in the US

[GnaGnaMan]

I was once a stock analyst at Morningstar, where the Warren Buffett-inspired approach begins with analyzing a company’s competitive position, and assigning a “moat” rating to it. A castle with a protective moat around it is Buffett’s metaphor indicating a company that is protected from competition. Superior technology, a name brand, a network effect, or high customer switching costs can all underpin moats.

But there are other sources of advantages in an economy where competition is supposed to keep them to a minimum. Companies can achieve special arrangements with government or influence legislation, entrenching their positions. The government can decline to enforce antitrust legislation, allowing mergers to occur until a few players dominate an industry. These sources of moats, especially the failure of antitrust enforcement, are the nefarious hallmark of today’s economy, according to Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn in “The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition.” (John Wiley & Sons).

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/h...stagnation-inequality-and-populism-2019-05-06

I have read argumetns about the US no longer being a proper market economy here before but not seen a thread about it.

So... Problem? No problem? Solutions? Despair?

 

[uke2se]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/h...stagnation-inequality-and-populism-2019-05-06

I have read argumetns about the US no longer being a proper market economy here before but not seen a thread about it.

So... Problem? No problem? Solutions? Despair?

Huge problem and the end result of deregulation and unbridled capitalism. Not something we're likely to have a fruitful discussion about with any Americans today tho, as the positions are far too entrenched.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Huge problem and the end result of deregulation and unbridled capitalism. Not something we're likely to have a fruitful discussion about with any Americans today tho, as the positions are far too entrenched.

Yeah, Gordon Gekko was meant to be a warning against the values imbued in the character.

Instead, it encouraged a whole generation to say "I'll have what he's having!"

ETA: meaning to illustrate that they are not only entrenched institutionally, but as cultural aspirations.

 

[mgidm86]

Huge problem and the end result of deregulation and unbridled capitalism. Not something we're likely to have a fruitful discussion about with any Americans today tho, as the positions are far too entrenched.

I have a definite problem with it and many others do too. I'm no financial whiz, far from it, so I'm assuming you mean companies like Amazon who have wiped out competition in too many areas to count. Google controls almost all web-based advertising and information gathering along with Facebook.

Hell ya I see that as a problem and I wonder why nobody does anything about it.

And I could say that non-Americans are far too entrenched in their ways to have a fruitful discussion either, but I don't because that would be stupid.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

... ETA: meaning to illustrate that they are not only entrenched institutionally, but as cultural aspirations.

Yup. Only Americans are like everyone else in this regard. In the US case, 1980 marked the transition from 70's awareness to 80's pony-tailed oblivion. The more cynical would say no values had ever truly been held, which is how such large overt social transitions, like Republicans under Trump, happen.

As to monopolies, the internet creates extreme winner-take-all scenarios and market leaders transition to global monopolies easily. Further, automation promises to be sweeping in its effects across many professions, including many recently touted as the "answer" to precisely the very same issue. This means all income flows are increasingly exclusive to capital, allowing those successful to greatly deepen pockets with little trickle-down. In short, consumption remains debt-driven, and the investment that should be deficit-driven by tax reduction isn't keeping pace. Job numbers are good, but jobs are poor in quality. IOW, this ain't healthy.

Think of the return of castles and lords, and masses of poor serfs, taxed and under constraining law enforced by whim, and contract enforcement and property rights as the highest aspirations of that law, and you understand every single policy undertaken by Republicans since 1980.

Not only monopolies, then, but holier-than-thou lords and rings to kiss.

 

[uke2se]

I really didn't mean to offend American sensibilities with my previous post. It was more a reflection on the American culture of capitalism as a force for good as opposed to a force for good and evil.