Anti-Trust laws anymore??

THC

I remember from history class that there used to be politicians who represented the people who were against major monopolies....(back in the days of the 1800´s and such..)

and in the guise of competition being good...and that being the part of open markets...and democracy that is helpful....

i have to wonder why there seems to be no fuss anymore when major...major industries...join together...to basically form monopolies...

is there no such thing as anti-trust laws anymore?? or have all our courts...and politicians been bought out by the corporations...at our expense?

farfromglorified

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary." -Adam Smith

If you're worried about monoplies, it's best to consider not how to stop them, but rather what creates them in the first place.

THC

farfromglorified wrote:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary." -Adam Smith

If you're worried about monoplies, it's best to consider not how to stop them, but rather what creates them in the first place.

interesting quote...
i am more just talking about ...at one point in history...it was generally preceived as a bad idea...(from my memory it was around the time of the industrial revolution) now, its like that line of thinking never even existed. almost every industry is a monopoly. we pay whatever they tell us to pay for almost everything we buy...gas, electricity, phones, credit cards....and on and on

there is no such thing as competition anymore really...no room...
govt used to only use monopoly for industries of scale..where there was no other option...now its privitized monopolies...

bigdvs

Exactly, how did microsoft become microsoft?

Well bill gates worked with smart people in the early 80s at xerox, they created a new operating system for photocopiers, bill gates saw that he could run home PCs with it stole it and called it his own. How we continue to let a corporation found on such corrupt beginings be so entrenched in our lives is a testament to how little the public cares about monopolies or antitrust laws at this time.

farfromglorified

THC wrote:

interesting quote...
i am more just talking about ...at one point in history...it was generally preceived as a bad idea...(from my memory it was around the time of the industrial revolution) now, its like that line of thinking never even existed. almost every industry is a monopoly. we pay whatever they tell us to pay for almost everything we buy...gas, electricity, phones, credit cards....and on and on

there is no such thing as competition anymore really...no room...
govt used to only use monopoly for industries of scale..where there was no other option...now its privitized monopolies...

I can think of few industries that are currently "monopolies" in and of themselves. In the US, there is no oil monopoly, there is no electricity monopoly, there is no phone monopoly and there is no credit card monopoly. The idea that there is "no such thing as competition anymore" is ludicrous. I doubt at any time in American history have the public had such versatile fungible income. For every dollar in your pocket, there is probably more places than ever before for that money to go and with it, not to go.

The anti-trust heyday of the late 1800s stemmed from the protectionist policies that ruled the day and those policies proved very damaging not only for the US economy but for pretty much every other economy that tried them.

In many ways, US localities do suffer from "privitized monopolies" that come at the hands of governmental protectionism or regulation that demand an uncompetitive marketplace. As more and more power is concentrated at the federal level, no one should be surprised as corporations also concentrate in order to better leverage a concentrated power circle. And, from the influence of that circle, as the cost of doing business increases and profit margins decrease, so will competition.

farfromglorified

bigdvs wrote:

Exactly, how did microsoft become microsoft?

Well bill gates worked with smart people in the early 80s at xerox, they created a new operating system for photocopiers, bill gates saw that he could run home PCs with it stole it and called it his own. How we continue to let a corporation found on such corrupt beginings be so entrenched in our lives is a testament to how little the public cares about monopolies or antitrust laws at this time.

LOL...

Bill Gates didn't "steal" technology from Xerox (a place he never worked) any more than Xerox "stole" technology from Nicéphore Niépce, the father of modern photography.

Bill Gates was a smart guy and delivered exactly what the market was desperate for -- a computer operating system (DOS) independent from expensive proprietary hardware. I'm all for complaining about the shortcomings of Microsoft software, but pretending that Bill Gates is "corrupt" or that Microsoft is even a monopoly is downright fantasy.

Regardless, Microsoft is a pretty shitty example to pick as Microsoft was declared a monopoly by the Justice Department and the EU and has been robbed of billions in fines that have done nothing to improve the marketplace.

THC

farfromglorified wrote:

LOL...

Bill Gates didn't "steal" technology from Xerox (a place he never worked) any more than Xerox "stole" technology from Nicéphore Niépce, the father of modern photography.

Bill Gates was a smart guy and delivered exactly what the market was desperate for -- a computer operating system (DOS) independent from expensive proprietary hardware. I'm all for complaining about the shortcomings of Microsoft software, but pretending that Bill Gates is "corrupt" or that Microsoft is even a monopoly is downright fantasy.

Regardless, Microsoft is a pretty shitty example to pick as Microsoft was declared a monopoly by the Justice Department and the EU and has been robbed of billions in fines that have done nothing to improve the marketplace.

and i suppose you think that if microsoft and yahoo merged...that would not quell competition in the slightest... aye?

and i am sure there are 15 other phone companies and cable companies you could call up today and switch your service if you wanted???....and stores accepting all 500 types of credit cards that are easily acceptable and available around the country.

Drowned Out

farfromglorified wrote:

In many ways, US localities do suffer from "privitized monopolies" that come at the hands of governmental protectionism or regulation that demand an uncompetitive marketplace. As more and more power is concentrated at the federal level, no one should be surprised as corporations also concentrate in order to better leverage a concentrated power circle. And, from the influence of that circle, as the cost of doing business increases and profit margins decrease, so will competition.

I can think of two industries in my home province that used to be government controlled and have been privatized...
The liquor industry was privatized in the mid 90's and we went from having some of the cheapest liquor in the country to the most expensive. The government also lost out on half a billion in tax income, despite increased sales and prices.

Second is the electricity industry....in the six months following privatization, the price of electricity in my province increased 500%, which prompted the government to come up with a bail-out rebate program that has cost the province billions.

Are government monopolies always such a bad thing? I think I know your answer to this

farfromglorified

THC wrote:

and i suppose you think that if microsoft and yahoo merged...that would not quell competition in the slightest... aye?

Microsoft and yahoo merging is competition -- against google. You seem to be assuming that any merger is somehow a strike against competition. That isn't the case. Two companies typically merge in order to gain a competitive advantage within a competitive marketplace. Furthermore, bad mergers (i.e. DaimlerChrylser) often help spur competition by making the merged companies vulnerable.

and i am sure there are 15 other phone companies and cable companies you could call up today and switch your service if you wanted???....

15? I don't know. I certainly could use AT&T, Sprint, Cricket, Vonage, T-Mobile, Alltel, Suncom, Virgin, Skype, ITP, Lingo, or BellSouth. That's 12. I'm fairly sure there are more that I'm not thinking of.

and stores accepting all 500 types of credit cards that are easily acceptable and available around the country.

I can't think of a store that accepts one credit card. Certainly MasterCard and VISA have a huge lock on that market. However, most places accept at least 4 types of cards. Furthermore, with the emergence of services like PayPal, MasterCard and VISA do have competition.

Your standard for monopoly seems a bit skewed. A monopoly is a single entity completely dominating a market, not "less than 15" or "less than 500" entities operating in a market.

farfromglorified

Drowned Out wrote:

I can think of two industries in my home province that used to be government controlled and have been privatized...
The liquor industry was privatized in the mid 90's and we went from having some of the cheapest liquor in the country to the most expensive. The government also lost out on half a billion in tax income, despite increased sales and prices.

Second is the electricity industry....in the six months following privatization, the price of electricity in my province increased 500%, which prompted the government to come up with a bail-out rebate program that has cost the province billions.

Are government monopolies always such a bad thing? I think I know your answer to this

"Bad" implies a standard. If your standard is price to the consumer, then government monopolies are almost always a good thing! "Price to the consumer", however, is a short-sighted and pretty crappy standard.

"Privitization" is typically sold as a way to decrease prices. Unfortunately for blowhard politicians and opportunistic businesspeople, there is no hard link between a good's price and whether or not it is public or private. Prices in a free market are the product of supplies and consumer demand. If your liquor and energy prices have skyrocketed, that has little to do with "public" or "private" ownership.

Kel Varnsen

farfromglorified wrote:

I can't think of a store that accepts one credit card. Certainly MasterCard and VISA have a huge lock on that market. However, most places accept at least 4 types of cards. Furthermore, with the emergence of services like PayPal, MasterCard and VISA do have competition.

Plus I don't know about in the US but in Canada there are like a million different types of Mastercards and Visas. Pretty much every bank offers their version of a mastercard, so do a bunch of other places. Each one of those cards offeres different rates, benefits and rewards. My BMO mastercard had way better bonuses than my MBNA card (although I did get a free t-shirt) so I cancelled the MBNA one. If that's not competition I don't know what is.

farfromglorified

Kel Varnsen wrote:

Plus I don't know about in the US but in Canada there are like a million different types of Mastercards and Visas. Pretty much every bank offers their version of a mastercard, so do a bunch of other places. Each one of those cards offeres different rates, benefits and rewards. My BMO mastercard had way better bonuses than my MBNA card (although I did get a free t-shirt) so I cancelled the MBNA one. If that's not competition I don't know what is.

Absolutely. Mastercard and VISA, however, underwrite these cards and collect fees on their use. There is tons of competition in the credit card branding business (what you're talking about), but not a lot in the credit card processing business (what the previous poster was talking about). Neither business, however, is a monopoly.

Commy

2 or 3 large corporations agreeing on prices is far from competition.

farfromglorified

Commy wrote:

2 or 3 large corporations agreeing on prices is far from competition.

Where do you see "2 or 3 large corporations agreeing on prices"?

Commy

farfromglorified wrote:

Where do you see "2 or 3 large corporations agreeing on prices"?

From credit card companies to banks to internet providers to coke to pepsi to record companies.

farfromglorified

Commy wrote:

From credit card companies to banks to internet providers to coke to pepsi to record companies.

So whenever goods cost roughly the same amount, you assume that "large corporations are agreeing on prices"?

Commy

farfromglorified wrote:

So whenever goods cost roughly the same amount, you assume that "large corporations are agreeing on prices"?

whenever you have 2 or 3 large corporations on top of an industry they can basically do whatever they want. for all intents and purposes it is a monopoly. and yes, I believe they work together, to charge as much as the market will allow.

Kel Varnsen

farfromglorified wrote:

So whenever goods cost roughly the same amount, you assume that "large corporations are agreeing on prices"?

I think in most of these cases, like say coke and pepsi, companies have similar production costs, and they both know the minimum price to sell stuff at which they can get people to buy their stuff but still make a profit.

farfromglorified

Commy wrote:

whenever you have 2 or 3 large corporations on top of an industry they can basically do whatever they want. for all intents and purposes it is a monopoly.

That's like suggesting that "for all intents and purposes", a single guy is married. 2 or 3 large corporations on top of an industry, by definition, is not a monopoly. There are countless firms that have been part of a dominant duopoly or triopoly that have vanished from the competitive marketplace.

and yes, I believe they work together, to charge as much as the market will allow.

Corporations rarely "work together" to determine what to charge. For every 1,000 claims about this, one might be true.

Corporations in a competitive market don't choose their prices -- their prices are chosen for them. Pepsi and Coke don't charge the same amount for a can of soda because they got together and decided to. The charge the same amount for a can of soda because if one increased prices, they'd likely die, and if one decreased prices, they'd undercut their profits without gaining market share.

farfromglorified

Kel Varnsen wrote:

I think in most of these cases, like say coke and pepsi, companies have similar production costs, and they both know the minimum price to sell stuff at which they can get people to buy their stuff but still make a profit.

That's part of it, yes. However, on goods like soda, there are tremendous price pressures that keep competitive pricing inline. For instance, if Coke decreased the price of soda, Pepsi would have to follow. So Coke gains no market share and simply loses profit for both firms. Neither firm could increase prices either without significantly risking share. Pepsi's and Coke's prices are inextricably linked without any likely measure of collusion.

Commy

farfromglorified wrote:

That's part of it, yes. However, on goods like soda, there are tremendous price pressures that keep competitive pricing inline. For instance, if Coke decreased the price of soda, Pepsi would have to follow. So Coke gains no market share and simply loses profit for both firms.

hence the need and motive to work together to determine prices.