Elephant in the room: economic consolidation

[Winehole23]

Warren is, of course, famous for her attacks on too-big-to-fail banks. But in her address yesterday, entitled “Reigniting Competition in the American Economy,” she extended her critique to the entire economy, noting that, as a result of three decades of weakened federal antitrust regulation, virtually every industrial sector today—from airlines to telecom to agriculture to retail to social media—is under the control of a handful of oligopolistic corporations. This widespread consolidation is “hiding in plain sight all across the American economy,” she said, and “threatens our markets, threatens our economy, and threatens our democracy.”


As our readers know, economic consolidation is a subject the Washington Monthly has long been obsessed with—see here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril-2010/who-broke-americas-jobs-machine-3/), here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/julyaugust-2004/my-beef-with-big-media/), here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/bloom-and-bust/), here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/julyaugust-2012/the-slow-motion-collapse-of-american-entrepreneurship/), here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/julyaugust-2013/estates-of-mind/), here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril-2012/terminal-sickness/), here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/maraprmay-2016/the-real-reason-middle-america-should-be-angry/), here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/st-louis-entrepreneurial-boomtown/), here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/the-commercial-world-of-our-fathers/), and here (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/janfeb-2014/after-obamacare/). In our current cover story (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/populism-with-a-brain/), Barry Lynn (impresario of yesterday’s event) and Phil Longman argue that antitrust was the true legacy of the original American Populists and a vital, under-appreciated reason for the mass prosperity of mid-20th Century America. But this legacy, and the new Gilded Age economy that has resulted from its abandonment, is not a narrative most Americans have been told (one reason why even the “populist” candidates running president have shied away (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/americas-forgotten-formula-for-economic-equality/) from it).

http://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/06/30/elizabeth-warrens-consolidation-speech-could-change-the-election/

[Winehole23]

Evidence of the problem is everywhere. Just look at banking. For years, banks have been in a feeding frenzy, swallowing up smaller competitors to become more powerful and, eventually, too big to fail (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/bank-merger-history). The combination of their size, their risky practices, and the hands-off policies of their regulators created a perfect storm, resulting in the worst financial crisis in 80 years. We know that excessive size and interconnectedness promotes risky behavior that can take down our economy – and yet, today, eight years after that financial crisis, three out of the four biggest banks in America are even bigger (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/12/bernie-sanders-is-right-the-biggest-banks-in-america-have-gotten-bigger/) than they were before the crisis and two months ago five were designated (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/business/dealbook/living-wills-of-5-banks-fail-to-pass-muster.html?_r=1) by both the Fed and the FDIC as “too big to fail.”


The concentration problem—and particularly the idea of “too big to fail” in the financial sector—gets a lot of attention. But the problem isn’t unique to the financial sector. It’s hiding in plain sight all across the American economy.

In the last decade, the number of major U.S. airlines has dropped from nine to four. (http://www.denverpost.com/2015/07/17/airline-consolidation-has-created-airport-monopolies-increased-fares/) The four that are left standing—American, Delta, United, and Southwest—control over 80% (http://www.wsj.com/articles/airline-consolidation-hits-smaller-cities-hardest-1441912457#%3AM1ZMKtAVWk5eBA) of all domestic airline seats in the country. And man, are they are hitting the jackpot now. Last year those four big airlines raked in a record $22 billion in profits (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/business/energy-environment/airlines-reap-record-profits-and-passengers-get-peanuts.html?_r=0).. Eighteen billion alone came from fees for baggage and legroom and pay toilets. Ok, the last one was a joke, but what have passengers received in return for their higher costs? Fewer flights (http://www.wsj.com/articles/airline-consolidation-hits-smaller-cities-hardest-1441912457#%3AM1ZMKtAVWk5eBA) and worse service (http://time.com/money/4178759/airline-fees-billions/). Airline complaints rose 30 percent (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-complaints-against-airlines-in-2015-20160218-story.html) just from 2014 to 2015.


The list goes on. A handful of health insurance giants—including Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Aetna, and Cigna—control over 83 percent (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-23/health-insurer-deals-face-market-review-that-felled-past-tie-ups) of the country’s health insurance market.


Three drug stores—CVS, Walgreen’s, and Rite Aid—control 99% of the drug stores (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/10/27/walgreens-rite-aid/74684642/) in the country.


Four companies control nearly 85% of the U.S. beef market, and three produce almost half (http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2014/03/meat_racket_excerpt_how_tyson_keeps_chicken_prices _high.html) of all chicken.

[Winehole23]

The first problem is that less competition means less consumer choice (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2004-12-05/why-consumers-hate-mergers). When consumers can purchase similar products from multiple competitors, they force market players to constantly seek out new ways to reduce prices and increase the quality of goods and services to get their business. But when companies consume their rivals instead of competing with them, consumers can get stuck with few or no alternatives. Prices go up, and quality suffers.

Consider Comcast, the nation’s largest cable and internet service provider. Comcast has consolidated (http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/timeline) its position by buying up rivals. Today, over half (http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21598997-american-regulators-should-block-comcasts-proposed-deal-time-warner-cable-turn-it) of all cable and internet subscribers in America are Comcast customers. And last year was Comcast’s best year (http://www.wsj.com/articles/comcast-profit-buoyed-by-growth-in-video-and-broadband-subscribers-1454500891) in nearly a decade. But while big telecom giants have been consuming each other, consumers have been left out in the cold—facing little or no choice in service providers and paying through the nose for cable and internet service. Over a third of Americans who theoretically have access to high speed internet don’t actually subscribe because the price tag is too high (http://scrawford.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/The-communications-crisis-in-America-final.pdf). And the data are clear: Americans pay much more (http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/we-need-real-competition-not-a-cable-internet-monopoly) for cable and internet than their counterparts in other advanced countries and, in return, we get worse service (https://www.newamerica.org/oti/policy-papers/the-cost-of-connectivity-2014/).

[Winehole23]

The second reason the decline in competition should cause concern is that big guys can lock out smaller guys and newer guys. Take a look at the technology sector—specifically, the battle between large platforms and small tech companies.

Google, Apple, and Amazon provide platforms that lots of other companies depend on for survival. But Google, Apple, and Amazon also, in many cases, compete with those same small companies, so that the platform can become a tool to snuff out competition.

[Winehole23]

The third problem created by less competition is that when competition declines, small businesses can be wiped out – and our whole economy can suffer. Look at what is often referred to as the Wal-Mart effect. Wal-Mart is big, and it’s powerful. It delivers anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the products Americans consume, and it controls over half of all groceries sold in some major cities.


Wal-Mart’s gigantic size gives it a competitive advantage over small businesses. And often, when Wal-Mart moves into town, small businesses collapse because they can’t compete with the price leverage Wal-Mart has built with its suppliers.


Wal-Mart is notorious for the low wages and poor working conditions it offers, and the Wal- Mart effect has an impact on suppliers as well—forcing them (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/business/31walmart.html) to cut their own workers’ wages and benefits to keep Wal-Mart’s business. Workers who cannot survive on those wages turn to public assistance, including housing, health care and food stamps, that is subsidized by other taxpayers. Wal-Mart workers alone are estimated to collect about $6 billion a year in federal taxpayer subsidies just to survive (http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/files/Walmart-on-Tax-Day-Americans-for-Tax-Fairness-1.pdf). That means the low, low prices that Wal-Mart advertises are paid for, in part, by high, high tax subsidies that every other American pays for. In the meantime, Wal-Mart’s investors pocket the high, high profits (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/19/walmart-q1-earnings.html).

[Winehole23]

The fourth problem is that concentrated markets create concentrated political power. The larger and more economically powerful these companies get, the more resources they can bring to bear on lobbying government to change the rules to benefit exactly the companies that are doing the lobbying. Over time, this means a closed, self-perpetuating, rigged system – a playing field that lavishes favors on the big guys, hammers the small guys, and fuels even more concentration.


This is a big one – and it should terrify every conservative who hates government intervention. Competitive markets generate so many benefits on their own that the government’s only role in those markets should be simple and structural – prevent cheating, protect taxpayers, and maintain competition. Concentrated markets dominated by a handful of powerful players, on the other hand, don’t produce the consumer benefits that flow from robust competition. Instead, the benefits are sucked up by a handful of executives and large investors, and their lobbying remains focused on protecting the giant corporations. Government intervention in concentrated markets inevitably becomes more and more complex and technocratic, as it attempts to impose complicated regulations in an effort to recreate the benefits of competitive markets.


It’s costly, it’s inefficient, and it plays right into the hands of the big guys, who can afford to throw armies of lawyers at the regulatory process. Small players end up having to shoulder regulatory compliance costs that make it even harder for them to compete, while big players use their resources and political clout to win loopholes, carveouts, and rollbacks that favor themselves and make it even harder for new competitors to survive. Over time, the result is a trifecta: more intrusive government, more concentration, and less competition.

[tlongII]

tl;dr

[rmt]

And she doesn't think that government with its myriad of rules and regulations is partly responsible for putting burden on small business where only the large corps can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants just to comply with them?

[Shastafarian]

http://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/06/30/elizabeth-warrens-consolidation-speech-could-change-the-election/Scary times truly. I'm sure people have seen evidence of this shift when dealing with their ISP or airlines etc.


And she doesn't think that government with its myriad of rules and regulations is partly responsible for putting burden on small business where only the large corps can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants just to comply with them?:lol Which specific rules and regulations that weren't put into place by republicans make it difficult to own small businesses?

[rmt]

Scary times truly. I'm sure people have seen evidence of this shift when dealing with their ISP or airlines etc.

:lol Which specific rules and regulations that weren't put into place by republicans make it difficult to own small businesses?

How about Obama's EPA rules and regulations and the coal industry. How about the Democrats' Obamacare and business in general? Please explain why my dd and every other intern there could only work 28 hours/week last year?

[Shastafarian]

How about Obama's EPA rules and regulations and the coal industry. :rollin You live in Florida but have no clue what's going on near the water.

How about the Democrats' Obamacare and business in general? How about it? What specifically has made it hard for small businesses?

Please explain why my dd and every other intern there could only work 28 hours/week last year?Because the business manager is bad at their job? That's one likely possibility. Or the high ups are taking more than they need/deserve. Pick one or come up with specific regulations that hurt small business.

[TeyshaBlue]

And she doesn't think that government with its myriad of rules and regulations is partly responsible for putting burden on small business where only the large corps can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants just to comply with them?

Um...no.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

And she doesn't think that government with its myriad of rules and regulations is partly responsible for putting burden on small business where only the large corps can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants just to comply with them?

Amazon and Walmart have done more harm to small business over the last 40 years than anything else. The federal and state governments fund the predominance of our infrastructure. The oil, energy, food, communication, media, and health care industries have all been monopolized and take advantage of that. Youre missing the forest for a braindead tree.

Mindlessly repeating 'gubmint bad' ideology and then trying to list every anecdote and factoid you can come up with to try and reach affirm said ideology is sophistry. Ideology inherently leads to sophistry. Your tendency to do so in all things makes you not credible. It's yet another example of Nietzche's slave morality. GUBMINT BAD! HAIL OUR CORPORATE ARISTOCRACY!

Antitrust regulation is something designed with the intent of addressing a serious issue with modern pluralist democracies. The industrial age began over 200 years ago. What is going on now is not without precedent. Effective antitrust methodology is a historical fact. Busting the food, travel, metals, bank, and energy barons 100 years ago led to an era of tremendous prosperity.

[Spurminator]

I remember when we had small businesses that didn't have teams of lawyers and CPA's. Those were interesting times.

[Winehole23]

And she doesn't think that government with its myriad of rules and regulations is partly responsible for putting burden on small business where only the large corps can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants just to comply with them? that point, precisely, is mentioned in the article.

did you read it before responding?

[Winehole23]

Go hump a sand castle, Bonnerific. I wasn't talking to you.

[Winehole23]

rmt:

the point you made converges with Eliazabeth Warren's take. what say you to that?

[rmt]

rmt:

the point you made converges with Eliazabeth Warren's take. what say you to that?

Winehole23, I'll re-read and get back to you later. What a day - KD goes to the Warriors, Federer advances, bombarded (not by you) by others on this board and braces tomorrow for the youngest - gotta prepare suitable food for him. And a Happy 4th of July to you all!

[Winehole23]

happy 4th, rmt!

[boutons_deux]

And she doesn't think that government with its myriad of rules and regulations is partly responsible for putting burden on small business where only the large corps can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants just to comply with them?

Small businesses are much more hurt by BigCorp forming small businesses that have the resources to steal gov contracts that government regulations say must go to small businesses.

BigCorp fucks over small businesses every day. In the last couple of years, the rate of number of business failure has exceeded rate of business starups.

Another huge impediment is small businesses that can't compete with insanely overloaded benefits that BigCorps use to consume all the best talent.

Those benefit packages are golden chains that keep talented but unhappy employees from leaving.

A lots small businesses can't get loans, and when they can, the rate is "sub-prime" compared to what BigCorp pays.

Every time you put post here, you prove you don't have fucking clue.

[rmt]

I agree with much of what the article says but here are two personal examples where either government is partly responsible for burdening small business or its high tax rate is helping to cause the consolidation/merger of companies.

My husband accepted a job offer from a small company and the office manager/HR person told us that they allowed $700 for health insurance. We could either choose to use it to pay for the health insurance they had or use it to buy health insurance elsewhere. I, you all know, hate Obamacare and knew that being allowed the freedom to buy whatever insurance I wanted with that $700 would not be allowed - and sure enough, if caught, this small company would have to pay $100 PER DAY PER EMPLOYEE. The poor HR lady was flabbergasted - this error, if caught, would shut the company down. I'm relatively sure that her next request was to ask the boss if they could afford a lawyer/CPA to check if they were violating any other rule.

He also worked for the drug company Actavis. Rumor went around that Allergan was acquiring Actavis, not for any drug Actavis had, but simply because of tax reasons. Actavis had re-organized in Ireland and paid less taxes. That merger/take over took place fine. Then Pfizer tried to take over Allergan for the same reason. Unfortunately for them, the government got wind of it and put in new rules and well, in effect, stopped the merger because if there was no tax advantage, there was no reason to merge. I am in favor of lowering the corporate tax rate so that these companies have no reason to merge/run to Ireland/Canada (Burger King)/wherever (and close off the loopholes) - but just the mere mention of that gets most of you up in arms (tee hee).

What Warren doesn't say is that government rules/regulations/policies/laws are partly responsible for creating the problem in the first place - that a Democrat law like Obamacare has DECREASED competition e.g. Alaska now has only one health insurance company available on the exchange and BCBS has pulled out of Minnesota.

http://www.investors.com/politics/policy-analysis/minnesota-shows-everything-wrong-with-obamacare/

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/alaska-obamacare-collapse-224149

[101A]

Anyone having a dog whistle negative response to this because it's coming from Warren didn't read what she said. If she could get a campaign behind this in a real way, I'd be behind that campaign (I'm sure both parties are anxiously awaiting my endorsement). I will be very surprised if Hillary goes this direction at all. Trust busting is the absolute opposite of what I would expect from her (hope I'm wrong). There's a chance Trump might, but I don't have any confidence he's paying any attention, or cares.

[101A]

I agree with much of what the article says but here are two personal examples where either government is partly responsible for burdening small business or its high tax rate is helping to cause the consolidation/merger of companies.

My husband accepted a job offer from a small company and the office manager/HR person told us that they allowed $700 for health insurance. We could either choose to use it to pay for the health insurance they had or use it to buy health insurance elsewhere. I, you all know, hate Obamacare and knew that being allowed the freedom to buy whatever insurance I wanted with that $700 would not be allowed - and sure enough, if caught, this small company would have to pay $100 PER DAY PER EMPLOYEE. The poor HR lady was flabbergasted - this error, if caught, would shut the company down. I'm relatively sure that her next request was to ask the boss if they could afford a lawyer/CPA to check if they were violating any other rule.

He also worked for the drug company Actavis. Rumor went around that Allergan was acquiring Actavis, not for any drug Actavis had, but simply because of tax reasons. Actavis had re-organized in Ireland and paid less taxes. That merger/take over took place fine. Then Pfizer tried to take over Allergan for the same reason. Unfortunately for them, the government got wind of it and put in new rules and well, in effect, stopped the merger because if there was no tax advantage, there was no reason to merge. I am in favor of lowering the corporate tax rate so that these companies have no reason to merge/run to Ireland/Canada (Burger King)/wherever (and close off the loopholes) - but just the mere mention of that gets most of you up in arms (tee hee).

What Warren doesn't say is that government rules/regulations/policies/laws are partly responsible for creating the problem in the first place - that a Democrat law like Obamacare has DECREASED competition e.g. Alaska now has only one health insurance company available on the exchange and BCBS has pulled out of Minnesota.

http://www.investors.com/politics/policy-analysis/minnesota-shows-everything-wrong-with-obamacare/

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/alaska-obamacare-collapse-224149

This is true, and that HR manager should be fired. Even without Obamacare, giving your employees money to buy other insurance has always been a bad idea.

[rmt]

This is true, and that HR manager should be fired. Even without Obamacare, giving your employees money to buy other insurance has always been a bad idea.

It's a small company - she's not really an HR manager - just the office manager manning the phones, doing the miscellaneous stuff outside of programming and marketing and doubling as HR person but this is how most small businesses start out.

[101A]

It's a small company - she's not really an HR manager - just the office manager manning the phones, doing the miscellaneous stuff outside of programming and marketing and doubling as HR person but this is how most small businesses start out.

Good point, didn't realize the business was THAT small. Broker should be replaced, if he/she knew what was going on.

[rmt]

Anyone having a dog whistle negative response to this because it's coming from Warren didn't read what she said. If she could get a campaign behind this in a real way, I'd be behind that campaign (I'm sure both parties are anxiously awaiting my endorsement). I will be very surprised if Hillary goes this direction at all. Trust busting is the absolute opposite of what I would expect from her (hope I'm wrong). There's a chance Trump might, but I don't have any confidence he's paying any attention, or cares.

Well, seems like big business is not keen on Trump's trade policies and going toward Hillary so I doubt she will be trust-busting.

Clinton campaign was actively reaching out to industry leaders across the political spectrum. Former Walmart executive Leslie Dach has been involved in outreach efforts to business leaders on the campaign's behalf, according to a source familiar with Dach's role.
Clinton aides acknowledge the split between Trump and the business community presents an opportunity to gain allies, winning over Republican-leaning interests or at least persuading them to stay neutral...

"So the fact that you've got Republican CEOs endorsing Hillary is remarkable."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-business/

[rmt]

Good point, didn't realize the business was THAT small. Broker should be replaced, if he/she knew what was going on.

Virtually all small companies are lean, mean machines - they have to be - to survive. In contrast, dh's current job is with a federal contractor - talk about gross waste, incompetency and inefficiency of government - it's DISGUSTING - particularly so coming from a mostly small company background.

[rmt]

I'll share another personal example of big corp gobbling up small business. I LOVE a reading app called STANZA - been using it for years now. Amazon bought it out - wanted to push Kindle and didn't want to deal with the competition. But I love this product so much (don't like Kindle or iBooks) - I do a lot of reading (romance novels, English lit, etc.) - it's what I use my phone mostly for - but can't upgrade my iPhone because the later versions don't support STANZA. So now I'm stuck with iPhone 4 - can't do Trivia Crack with my dh, can't do QuizUp with my kids, can't buy/sell stocks on the road - what a trade off. Hubby says he'll write a STANZA like app for me so I can upgrade my phone (when he retires) - lol - when will that be.

[boutons_deux]

I'll share another personal example of big corp gobbling up small business. I LOVE a reading app called STANZA - been using it for years now. Amazon bought it out - wanted to push Kindle and didn't want to deal with the competition. But I love this product so much - I do a lot of reading (romance novels, English lit, etc.) - it's what I use my phone mostly for - but can't upgrade my iPhone because the later versions don't support STANZA. So now I'm stuck with iPhone 4 - can't do Trivia Crack with my dh, can't do QuizUp with my kids, can't buy/sell stocks on the road - what a trade off. Hubby says he'll write a STANZA like app for me so I can upgrade my phone (when he retires) - lol - when will that be.

but "government is the problem", right?

St Ronnie the Diseased mouthed that VRWC/BigCorp LIE 35 years ago, and you believe it as the Bible truth.

Barnes and Noble bought a book stored in San Antonio called Book Stop. A very serious bookstore, in a great neighborhood, good staff, etc.

B&N bought it and closed it, but "government is the problem", right? Now Book Stop clients have no local bookstore, and other businesses in that commercial center have less traffic. B-S clients now have to drive miles to get to B&N mega store.

[rmt]

but "government is the problem", right?

St Ronnie the Diseased mouthed that VRWC/BigCorp LIE 35 years ago, and you believe it as the Bible truth.

Barnes and Noble bought a book stored in San Antonio called Book Stop. A very serious bookstore, in a great neighborhood, good staff, etc.

B&N bought it and closed it, but "government is the problem", right? Now Book Stop clients have no local bookstore, and other businesses in that commercial center have less traffic. B-S clients now have to drive miles to get to B&N mega store.

boutons, that post has nothing to do with government. I was just sharing - sigh. Probably even B&N will close down because of competition from Amazon - about the only reason I go there is if ds needs a book and forgets to tell me until the evening before.

[boutons_deux]

Probably even B&N will close down because of competition from Amazon

but "government is the problem", right?

btw, that Book Stop store, I think the original one was in Austin, was a small business destroyed by BigCorp.

but "government is the problem", right? (your blatant position throughout this thread)

[rmt]

but "government is the problem", right?

btw, that Book Stop store, I think the original one was in Austin, was a small business destroyed by BigCorp.

but "government is the problem", right? (your blatant position throughout this thread)





boutons, you are putting words in my mouth. Look, I comment on the article and I'm HOUNDED by you people. Winehole asks me a question which I answered and then I happen to share something in my life relating to the subject - not criticizing government at all in that post and then another comment in response to your comment and you're still hounding me. Lighten up and celebrate Hillary's lack of indictment - uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't have added that - I'll be accused of blaming the government :-) Maybe I'll just shut up for the rest of the day and celebrate NUGT hitting 155.

[pgardn]

boutons, you are putting words in my mouth. Look, I comment on the article and I'm HOUNDED by you people. Winehole asks me a question which I answered and then I happen to share something in my life relating to the subject - not criticizing government at all in that post and then another comment in response to your comment and you're still hounding me. Lighten up and celebrate Hillary's lack of indictment - uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't have added that - I'll be accused of blaming the government :-) Maybe I'll just shut up for the rest of the day and celebrate NUGT hitting 155.


Boots wants you to clearly state that government and its lawmaking should bust up big companies who gobble up competitors.

[boutons_deux]

Boots ths wants you to clearly state that government laws should bust up big companies who gobble up competitors.

Unregulated businesses and capital owning and operating govt for their predatory profiteering must be solved some way because they are a bigger threat than Muslim terrorism.

What's your solution?

[pgardn]

When Trump visits Unions, etc... He could make big progress in this area. But he goes around anti-trust and mainly attacks free trade through xenophobia. It's probably going to work to a degree. Trump likes Oligarchy. He admires Putin and friends. He deals with Oligarchs in China.

[pgardn]

Unregulated businesses and capital owning and operating govt for their predatory profiteering must be solved some way because they are a bigger threat than Muslim terrorism.

What's your solution?

Governments making precise rules that dont have unintended consequences.
My post to rmt has nothing to do with my opinion on the subject boots. It's my opinion of what you want her to say.

And we should not make out like small businesses are angels either. Small businesses can be quite good at avoiding taxes. Like making up shit that will never be checked as legit deductions.

[boutons_deux]

When Trump visits Unions, etc... He could make big progress in this area. But he goes around anti-trust and mainly attacks free trade through xenophobia. It's probably going to work to a degree. Trump likes Oligarchy. He admires Putin and friends. He deals with Oligarchs in China.

Trash will lie to unions about "bringing jobs back from overseas" because he fucking knows (or just maybe he's too fucking stupid and ignorant to know) he can't reverse BigCorp's 40-year SUCCESSFUL push for globalization and relentless trashing and busting of unions.

Globalization has raised overseas workers incomes a little bit from VERY low down, while exporting from USA, destroying good paying jobs in USA.

One result? White Americans' mortality rate due to drugs, alcohol, and suicides has been rising, unique among all developed countries.

[pgardn]

Unions help trash and bust themselves as well. People got put in a position of power and they took just like many big organizations that choose the wrong leaders.

And we have become a nation of consumers with no conscience, this goes for poorer folks as well. People have bought into instant self gratification and striving for material goods. People from all class levels.

[101A]

Unregulated businesses and capital owning and operating govt for their predatory profiteering must be solved some way because they are a bigger threat than Muslim terrorism.

What's your solution?

I own a small business. There's tons of regulation on me. It's the single most significant factor making
it difficult for me to compete with bigger concerns and their accountants and lawyers. I get offers to be bought on a nearly weekly basis. Their pitches almost always include a "we'll take all those hassles off your hands."

[pgardn]

Very good discussion of this yet again on NPR OnPoint last night in San Antonio. 7pm

They also touched on Trump's popularity due to leaders not reading the electorate properly.
Winehole touched on this subject in another thread. it is the theme of would be Democrat blue collar workers turning to Trump. Latching on to xenophobia. The same theme in Brexit.

[Winehole23]

I agree with much of what the article says but here are two personal examples where either government is partly responsible for burdening small business or its high tax rate is helping to cause the consolidation/merger of companies.The coordinating conjunction sets off the following as contrast or contradiction, but the examples cited straightforwardly support Warren's thesis about consolidation, about why it's bad, and about who is responsible.


My husband accepted a job offer from a small company and the office manager/HR person told us that they allowed $700 for health insurance. We could either choose to use it to pay for the health insurance they had or use it to buy health insurance elsewhere. I, you all know, hate Obamacare and knew that being allowed the freedom to buy whatever insurance I wanted with that $700 would not be allowed - and sure enough, if caught, this small company would have to pay $100 PER DAY PER EMPLOYEE. The poor HR lady was flabbergasted - this error, if caught, would shut the company down. I'm relatively sure that her next request was to ask the boss if they could afford a lawyer/CPA to check if they were violating any other rule.

He also worked for the drug company Actavis. Rumor went around that Allergan was acquiring Actavis, not for any drug Actavis had, but simply because of tax reasons. Actavis had re-organized in Ireland and paid less taxes. That merger/take over took place fine. Then Pfizer tried to take over Allergan for the same reason. Unfortunately for them, the government got wind of it and put in new rules and well, in effect, stopped the merger because if there was no tax advantage, there was no reason to merge. I am in favor of lowering the corporate tax rate so that these companies have no reason to merge/run to Ireland/Canada (Burger King)/wherever (and close off the loopholes) - but just the mere mention of that gets most of you up in arms (tee hee).In many previous threads on corporate taxes, lowering the corporate rate came up without anyone pulling a gun...

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191741
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135561
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150176
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=254514
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252960
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194618


What Warren doesn't say is that government rules/regulations/policies/laws are partly responsible for creating the problem in the first place - that a Democrat law like Obamacare has DECREASED competition e.g. Alaska now has only one health insurance company available on the exchange and BCBS has pulled out of Minnesota.Actually, Warren does think the government has a role in creating the problem. She does not put the focus on Obamacare, it is true, but I'm not sure that weakens her argument, it only mean's she's a Democrat and likes Obamacare.

[velik_m]

And she doesn't think that government with its myriad of rules and regulations is partly responsible for putting burden on small business where only the large corps can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants just to comply with them?

Big businesses push for more regulation when they profit from it and for less regulation when they profit from it. And yes small businesses usually suffer the results the most.

In the end it should not by about more regulation or less regulation, it should be about better regulation. Of course no politician dares to run on that premise, because then they would have to answer question what that better regulation would look like. It's easier to just say "more" or "less", and leave it to the people to project their own desires on that. Plus that way you can still make the sponsors happy, because they want both anyway, and you keep the "promise" to the people at the same time.

[z0sa]

This and the disastrous free trade agreements are the biggest issues facing the American workforce today. No doubt.

[boutons_deux]

This and the disastrous free trade agreements are the biggest issues facing the American workforce today. No doubt.

The trashing and crushing of the unions (united we stand) means BigCorp can screw individuals (divided we fall), cutting pay, benefits, pensions, jobs, has been going for 45 years as fundamental plank the VRWC strategy.

[rmt]

Oh, the irony of it all:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacare-and-big-insurance-1469398551

[ElNono]

Oh, the irony of it all:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacare-and-big-insurance-1469398551

I don't like Barrycare, but the article starts with a premise that's completely unproven...

Has she checked with the White House? The logic of ObamaCare is that larger and more integrated conglomerates are superior to a market with many insurers, doctors and hospitals vying for consumer business. The law promotes corporatism on the theory that larger systems are more efficient, but also because giants are easier to control politically and will standardize care as ordered.

AFAIK, there's nothing in Barrycare about that.

[boutons_deux]

I don't like Barrycare, but the article starts with a premise that's completely unproven...

Has she checked with the White House? The logic of ObamaCare is that larger and more integrated conglomerates are superior to a market with many insurers, doctors and hospitals vying for consumer business. The law promotes corporatism on the theory that larger systems are more efficient, but also because giants are easier to control politically and will standardize care as ordered.

AFAIK, there's nothing in Barrycare about that.

it's WSJ. of course, it's pure anti-ACA bullshit. Since when is WSJ pro-competition, in any sense except lip service? :lol

[boutons_deux]

Small businesses are much more hurt by BigCorp forming small businesses that have the resources to steal gov contracts that government regulations say must go to small businesses.

BigCorp fucks over small businesses every day. In the last couple of years, the rate of number of business failure has exceeded rate of business starups.

Another huge impediment is small businesses that can't compete with insanely overloaded benefits that BigCorps use to consume all the best talent.

Those benefit packages are golden chains that keep talented but unhappy employees from leaving.

A lots small businesses can't get loans, and when they can, the rate is "sub-prime" compared to what BigCorp pays.

Every time you put post here, you prove you don't have fucking clue.

complete fraud by BigCorp, aided and abetted by a compliant, corrupt? SBA

Giant Corporations Are Reaping Billions From Federal “Small Business” Contracts

In 2015, according to a recent lawsuit by an advocacy group for actual small businesses, the SBA counted contracts with 150 other Fortune 500 companies in its fulfillment of the federal government's small business contracting obligations.

"The Small Business Administration has become perverted," says Lloyd Chapman, founder of the American Small Business League, which filed the suit in May. "At some point their mission changed to helping the government and contractors circumvent the Small Business Act."

"The Small Business Act is the largest economic stimulus program for the middle class in US history," Chapman proclaims. "And we are its protectors."

Indeed, his and other watchdog groups have repeatedly accused the SBA of failing to fulfill its original mission. Under the law, the agency is required to ensure that at least 23 percent of federal contract money goes to small businesses. The actual figure, Chapman calculates, is around 4 percent, a difference of hundreds billions of dollars each year.

The SBA argues that actual misreporting of small business contracts is rare, and insists that it is not the fault of its employees. The corporate behemoths may simply ignore the requirement to recertify the size of the firms they acquire. Additionally, Clements said, "There is always the possibility of human error" when the government's contracting officers record a company’s data. (Chapman counters that if human errors were to blame, then the small firms would get misclassified as large ones, too—and nobody in his group has ever seen that happen.)

Every year since 2005, the SBA's Office of the Inspector General has ranked "small business contracting" as the agency’s most serious management challenge. "As an advocate for small business, SBA should strive to ensure that only eligible small firms obtain and perform small business awards,"

In arriving at its 23 percent figure, the agency does not include any contracts for work performed outside the United States or in service of 27 different federal agencies, including the Postal Service, the federal courts, the NSA, and the CIA. It also excludes a large amount of contract spending related to Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans' health. Finally, it doesn't count contracts commissioned by state and local agencies using federal grant money.

the SBA's exclusions cover the majority of federal discretionary spending, according to an analysis by law professor Charles Tiefer, an expert on government contracts at the University of Baltimore. Tiefer calculates that, in 2011, the SBA excluded $677 billion worth of federal grants and contracts from $1.1 trillion in overall spending, which allowed the agency to claim that 22 percent of the contracting dollars went to small businesses that year.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/fortune-500-corporations-federal-small-business-contracts-administration-lawsuit

SMB are the real job creators, no BigCorp that is primarily interested in eliminating as many (US-based) employees as possible.

[CosmicCowboy]

The minority set asides are even a bigger scam.

They "pay to play" and get contracting officers to divert the paperwork to them so it's easy for the contracting officers to meet their quotas.

It works like this:

Lets say Lackland or Randolph need something (material, or a turn key job done)

The guys at the base call me.

I meet or talk with with the guys at the base, they give me the specifications, I give them a price.

Then a couple weeks later I get a call from one of these minority resellers giving me a purchase order.

I do all the work or supply the material working directly with the guys at the base.

When I am done, the guys at the base accept the material/job.

I then bill the minority reseller.

They take my invoice, mark it up 25% and bill the government.

The only thing they do for that 25% is issue a PO and issue a check. They never leave the office except to keep bribing the contracting officers.

[rmt]

Obamacare was supposed to make insurance markets more competitive and it hasn't. First UnitedHealth pulled out of a number of states - now Humana. The health insurance companies are merging and Obama's DOJ is trying to stop them. Government and its unintended consequences - thought the article fit here better than the usual Obamacare thread.

[boutons_deux]

Obamacare was supposed to make insurance markets more competitive and it hasn't. First UnitedHealth pulled out of a number of states - now Humana. The health insurance companies are merging and Obama's DOJ is trying to stop them. Government and its unintended consequences - thought the article fit here better than the usual Obamacare thread.

yep, BigInsurance is pulling out of some markets because it can't screw over sick people for as much money as before.

That's not ACA's fault, it's the for-profit BigInsurance.

The last thing BigCorp wants is true competition.

[rmt]

The minority set asides are even a bigger scam.

They "pay to play" and get contracting officers to divert the paperwork to them so it's easy for the contracting officers to meet their quotas.

It works like this:

Lets say Lackland or Randolph need something (material, or a turn key job done)

The guys at the base call me.

I meet or talk with with the guys at the base, they give me the specifications, I give them a price.

Then a couple weeks later I get a call from one of these minority resellers giving me a purchase order.

I do all the work or supply the material working directly with the guys at the base.

When I am done, the guys at the base accept the material/job.

I then bill the minority reseller.

They take my invoice, mark it up 25% and bill the government.

The only thing they do for that 25% is issue a PO and issue a check. They never leave the office except to keep bribing the contracting officers.

Sickening. And we wonder about government waste.

OT: The government wants to look like they're reducing size - contracts out IT work and signs a SEVEN year contract with private company which has to abide by all the security/government rules - next administration on the hook for a long time.

[rmt]

yep, BigInsurance is pulling out of some markets because it can't screw over sick people for as much money as before.

That's not ACA's fault, it's the for-profit BigInsurance.

The last thing BigCorp wants is true competition.

The mandated essential benefits drive the price of policies up - not enough people buy - not worth it for the big insurance companies. Face it, boutons, unless one gets a subsidy, Obamacare is crap.

[boutons_deux]

The mandated essential benefits drive the price of policies up - not enough people buy - not worth it for the big insurance companies. Face it, boutons, unless one gets a subsidy, Obamacare is crap.

Without the ACA, the usual "catastrophe insurance" is crap

Face it, RMT, American for-profit health has been sucking Americans' wealth for 35+ years.

That's not ACA's fault.

[ElNono]

Obamacare was supposed to make insurance markets more competitive and it hasn't.

But you just posted an article that says exactly the opposite (The law promotes corporatism on the theory that larger systems are more efficient).

Barrycare, in a way, tried to do both: Disincentive competition by not allowing it across state lines, while trying to incentive competition at the local level with the (now failed) Coops, among other things.

But I feel it's wrong to point that as the biggest failure of the law. It's kinda missing the forest from the tree, and it really avoids talking about the real failure: cost. The real failure is that it didn't address cost. With that unchecked, the rest is just a fallout from that. That's why proposals that have very mild or no cost control at all are doomed to fail, and are going to keep costing Americans way, way more than the rest of the world (which really means we keep subsidized them). HSAs aren't going to fix that. Competition across state lines are not really going to fix that either. As long as the service providers (drug makers, device makers, hospitals, etc) can charge whatever they want, due to patent protections or based on what the market will bear, as opposed to what it costs them + a modest profit, nothing is going to change. All those providers and insurance companies don't have a duty to the patients, they have a duty to their shareholders to extract as much money as they can. There's nothing inherently wrong about that, it's "free market" after all, but every country not named the US had to, at some point, put on the table if "profit motive" is more important that a healthy citizenship. The US has been avoiding that like the plague, and we're paying through the nose for that.

The system prior to Barrycare had the exact same problem, and if there's anything to lament from Barrycare is that it was a wasted opportunity to actually address the crux of the problem. On the other hand, there's too many players sucking up too much money out of this (and the previous) system, so actually doing something about it is going to take a massive popular uproar about it.

[rmt]

But you just posted an article that says exactly the opposite (The law promotes corporatism on the theory that larger systems are more efficient).

Barrycare, in a way, tried to do both: Disincentive competition by not allowing it across state lines, while trying to incentive competition at the local level with the (now failed) Coops, among other things.

But I feel it's wrong to point that as the biggest failure of the law. It's kinda missing the forest from the tree, and it really avoids talking about the real failure: cost. The real failure is that it didn't address cost. With that unchecked, the rest is just a fallout from that. That's why proposals that have very mild or no cost control at all are doomed to fail, and are going to keep costing Americans way, way more than the rest of the world (which really means we keep subsidized them). HSAs aren't going to fix that. Competition across state lines are not really going to fix that either. As long as the service providers (drug makers, device makers, hospitals, etc) can charge whatever they want, due to patent protections or based on what the market will bear, as opposed to what it costs them + a modest profit, nothing is going to change. All those providers and insurance companies don't have a duty to the patients, they have a duty to their shareholders to extract as much money as they can. There's nothing inherently wrong about that, it's "free market" after all, but every country not named the US had to, at some point, put on the table if "profit motive" is more important that a healthy citizenship. The US has been avoiding that like the plague, and we're paying through the nose for that.

The system prior to Barrycare had the exact same problem, and if there's anything to lament from Barrycare is that it was a wasted opportunity to actually address the crux of the problem. On the other hand, there's too many players sucking up too much money out of this (and the previous) system, so actually doing something about it is going to take a massive popular uproar about it.

To me, the biggest failure of Obamacare is the cost - I believe that allowing true competition will lower costs. I've already posted about my $80 diagnostic (not screening which is cheaper) and $80 bilateral (again a step up) ultrasound when paying directly (no insurance). I've posted links to $69 comprehensive blood test batteries at direct labs.com and reasonable surgery prices at surgerycenterok.com. And when my parents used to hit the Medicare doughnut, I'd order their drugs from Canadian pharmacies - much cheaper than from the US. These are just a few examples of what is already out there - of course, hardly any one knows about these prices or uses them because of the way insurance and in particularly Obamacare with its mandated essential benefits already baked in is. If the majority of the US - the young, healthy, people with non-major health problems (maybe just hypertension, pre-diabetes, etc) could buy catastrophic insurance and make use of HSAs, that would leave a whole lot of money/resources to treat the relatively few people with major health problems. This competition would encourage, not stifle innovation of medical products, drugs, etc.

Instead, we have Obamacare which does encourage merging of health insurers, big hospital systems, consolidation of physicians, etc. - all things which HIDE the true cost of healthcare and run up costs with extra administration, insurance coding, medical records, etc and no regard to cost. What we should have is many smaller, cheaper, stand-alone businesses which compete and cater to a specific healthcare need (see lasik and my above examples), outpatient clinics, and urgent care/walk-in clinics. Then we can truly comparison shop for our healthcare as we do everything else. Only true emergencies and immediate surgeries should be at the hospital - that alone would cut down costs significantly.

Please take a look at the GOP replacement policy. The 2 things I would add is to allow use of HSA dollars to anyone (non-immediate family members) - friends, parents, aunts, etc. and passing the HSA on to heirs (takes away the incentive to waste money on unnecessary end-of-life procedures). I'd even extend use of HSA for medical tourism - if it can be done cheaper elsewhere, why not.

http://abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf

[rmt]

For those of you who are Christians and are struggling with the cost of healthcare, you might want to consider Christian Healthcare Ministries. For as little as $45 per month, you are covered for $125,000 per illness (additional coverage available with Brother's Keeper). Pre-existings go away after 3 years and are covered 1st year at $15k, 2nd year at $10k and 3rd year at $25k. There are other health sharing ministries but only CHM and Liberty HealthShare allow pre-existing conditions. They are valid ACA replacements - no penalty.

http://www.chministries.org/programs.aspx

And all kids count as only 1 unit.

[boutons_deux]

"biggest failure of Obamacare is the cost"

1000s of orgs, docs refuse to treat Medicare/Medicaid patients because of lower compensation.

If ACA had really regulated prices, BigHealthCare would have blocked ACA.

iow, BigHealthCare makes govt policy through its proxy legislators.

"allowing true competition will lower costs."

:lol No "true competition" in FOR-PROFIT BigHealthCare America! :lol

[rmt]

"biggest failure of Obamacare is the cost"

1000s of orgs, docs refuse to treat Medicare/Medicaid patients because of lower compensation.

If ACA had really regulated prices, BigHealthCare would have killed ACA. iow, BigHealthCare makes govt policy through its proxy legislators.

"allowing true competition will lower costs."

:lol No "true competition" in FOR-PROFIT BigHealthCare America! :lol




With HSAs and no insurance involved, my kids' annual checkup at pediatrician was $90. Toss in a few blood tests every couple of years - cheap. $75 if they have the flu - no extra insurance personnel - catastrophic insurance for them would be dirt cheap - this is how it would be for the majority of the US. C'mon, you're the one against BIGxxx. Why should the doctors, blood labs, diagnostic centers, etc object - they'd get all the money and not deal with insurance. Don't dismiss it summarily just because it's the repub plan.

[ElNono]

To me, the biggest failure of Obamacare is the cost - I believe that allowing true competition will lower costs. I've already posted about my $80 diagnostic (not screening which is cheaper) and $80 bilateral (again a step up) ultrasound when paying directly (no insurance). I've posted links to $69 comprehensive blood test batteries at direct labs.com and reasonable surgery prices at surgerycenterok.com. And when my parents used to hit the Medicare doughnut, I'd order their drugs from Canadian pharmacies - much cheaper than from the US. These are just a few examples of what is already out there - of course, hardly any one knows about these prices or uses them because of the way insurance and in particularly Obamacare with its mandated essential benefits already baked in is. If the majority of the US - the young, healthy, people with non-major health problems (maybe just hypertension, pre-diabetes, etc) could buy catastrophic insurance and make use of HSAs, that would leave a whole lot of money/resources to treat the relatively few people with major health problems. This competition would encourage, not stifle innovation of medical products, drugs, etc.

Instead, we have Obamacare which does encourage merging of health insurers, big hospital systems, consolidation of physicians, etc. - all things which HIDE the true cost of healthcare and run up costs with extra administration, insurance coding, medical records, etc and no regard to cost. What we should have is many smaller, cheaper, stand-alone businesses which compete and cater to a specific healthcare need (see lasik and my above examples), outpatient clinics, and urgent care/walk-in clinics. Then we can truly comparison shop for our healthcare as we do everything else. Only true emergencies and immediate surgeries should be at the hospital - that alone would cut down costs significantly.

Please take a look at the GOP replacement policy. The 2 things I would add is to allow use of HSA dollars to anyone (non-immediate family members) - friends, parents, aunts, etc. and passing the HSA on to heirs (takes away the incentive to waste money on unnecessary end-of-life procedures). I'd even extend use of HSA for medical tourism - if it can be done cheaper elsewhere, why not.

http://abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf

I did. It does nothing to control costs. Competition from what, insurance companies? They need to pay the service providers and make money on top of that, otherwise, they'll close doors. There's no pushing service providers when they hold a patent and nobody else can manufacture their shit. That's why medical patents are circumvented all the time in 3rd world countries, or pharma is simply forced to grant a local lab a license to produce a drug at a severe discount (India is a good example of that).

I just finished paying over $8000 for an ambulance ride, emergency services for about 2 hours and one night stay at a hospital. That's with a 70% discount from the hospital (which originally billed over $12000).

They're ridiculous numbers, and there's no shopping around when you have an emergency. For anything I can shop around, it's just much cheaper for me to head to Argentina with the family and get shit done there (any expensive dentistry, etc, including the $2000 flight trip), but that's besides the point of the fact that costs are way out of control here in the US. It's a perverse system too, where actual costs are hidden under insurance if you have it. If you're too poor, you get Medicaid and you're covered. If you're too rich, then well, you can probably afford to buy insurance (at an exorbitant price, compared to the rest of the world). If you run a small business or are self-employed and you're a bit tight on money, you gotta go at it without insurance, which amounts nearly to bankruptcy if you get hit with anything serious. If this sounds a lot like the system before Barrycare, it's because it's exactly how it was. Barrycare didn't do anything about cost, so you're basically on the same boat, but with expanded coverage for the poor segment, and possibly more expensive coverage for the richer segment. Unless cost is actually addressed, nothing is going to change.

[rmt]

I did. It does nothing to control costs. Competition from what, insurance companies? They need to pay the service providers and make money on top of that, otherwise, they'll close doors. There's no pushing service providers when they hold a patent and nobody else can manufacture their shit. That's why medical patents are circumvented all the time in 3rd world countries, or pharma is simply forced to grant a local lab a license to produce a drug at a severe discount (India is a good example of that).

I just finished paying over $8000 for an ambulance ride, emergency services for about 2 hours and one night stay at a hospital. That's with a 70% discount from the hospital (which originally billed over $12000).

They're ridiculous numbers, and there's no shopping around when you have an emergency. For anything I can shop around, it's just much cheaper for me to head to Argentina with the family and get shit done there (any expensive dentistry, etc, including the $2000 flight trip), but that's besides the point of the fact that costs are way out of control here in the US. It's a perverse system too, where actual costs are hidden under insurance if you have it. If you're too poor, you get Medicaid and you're covered. If you're too rich, then well, you can probably afford to buy insurance (at an exorbitant price, compared to the rest of the world). If you run a small business or are self-employed and you're a bit tight on money, you gotta go at it without insurance, which amounts nearly to bankruptcy if you get hit with anything serious. If this sounds a lot like the system before Barrycare, it's because it's exactly how it was. Barrycare didn't do anything about cost, so you're basically on the same boat, but with expanded coverage for the poor segment, and possibly more expensive coverage for the richer segment. Unless cost is actually addressed, nothing is going to change.

For routine/small health events, competition from those non-hospital businesses I mentioned above - paid directly by HSA dollars - no insurance companies involved - some are already out there but not enough because of the way insurance is set up (cost invisible to the user). What I'm advocating is virtually eliminating policies by insurance companies except for catastrophic insurance. Then only emergencies and true major health problems (like cancer) would fall under insurance. The rest of routine, non-emergency, non-major events would be comparison-shopped (prices posted everywhere) - that, I think, covers the majority of non-Medicare US. The GOP plan allows for continuation of employer-sponsored insurance (so as to cause less disruption) but if given the choice between that and catastrophic/more flexible HSA combo, many might eventually transport to the combo.

Emergencies cannot be comparison-shopped - but that's what catastrophic insurance should be about. I sympathize with those in the middle (I'm one of these) - too rich for Medicaid and straddled with these high premiums, deductibles and co-pays. May I suggest that you take a look at the health sharing ministries below as a model? The gold level (with Brother's keeper [unlimited assistance]- about $5500/yr for a whole family) would be the equivalent of employer-sponsored insurance [without routine checkups/labs] and the bronze ($1720/yr for a family) would be like catastrophic insurance. It's only for Christians but it has worked for many years since iirc 1981 - self-sustaining - very little going toward administration - and all routine/small events taken care of by user (or what I advocate for the general population - HSA $s). It's flexible - covers any doctor/hospital anywhere in the US - Liberty HealthShare even covers internationally as long as the receipt is in English.

Can you afford $1720/yr for your family in catastrophic insurance (rhetoric question)? Why can't the US use something like this model? Because we are trained/conditioned to expect coverage for routine checkups/labwork and not shop like we do for everything else? If it's my (HSA) dollars, you bet I'm gonna find the cheapest, best reviewed xxx around. I don't have the answer to new drugs/medical products for which there are patents as far as cost (controls) are concerned that would not discourage research. Other un-patented drugs can be shopped - Metformin and amoxicillin is free at my local Publix (supermarket). Walmart has a lot of $4 drugs, etc.

http://www.chministries.org/programs.aspx

[ElNono]

For routine/small health events, competition from those non-hospital businesses I mentioned above - paid directly by HSA dollars - no insurance companies involved - some are already out there but not enough because of the way insurance is set up (cost invisible to the user). What I'm advocating is virtually eliminating policies by insurance companies except for catastrophic insurance. Then only emergencies and true major health problems (like cancer) would fall under insurance. The rest of routine, non-emergency, non-major events would be comparison-shopped (prices posted everywhere) - that, I think, covers the majority of non-Medicare US. The GOP plan allows for continuation of employer-sponsored insurance (so as to cause less disruption) but if given the choice between that and catastrophic/more flexible HSA combo, many might eventually transport to the combo.

Emergencies cannot be comparison-shopped - but that's what catastrophic insurance should be about. I sympathize with those in the middle (I'm one of these) - too rich for Medicaid and straddled with these high premiums, deductibles and co-pays. May I suggest that you take a look at the health sharing ministries below as a model? The gold level (with Brother's keeper [unlimited assistance]- about $5500/yr for a whole family) would be the equivalent of employer-sponsored insurance [without routine checkups/labs] and the bronze ($1720/yr for a family) would be like catastrophic insurance. It's only for Christians but it has worked for many years since iirc 1999 - self-sustaining - very little going toward administration - and all routine/small events taken care of by user (or what I advocate for the general population - HSA $s). It's flexible - covers any doctor/hospital anywhere in the US - Liberty HealthShare even covers internationally as long as the receipt is in English.

Can you afford $1720/yr for your family in catastrophic insurance (rhetoric question)? Why can't the US use something like this model? Because we are trained/conditioned to expect coverage for routine checkups/labwork and not shop like we do for everything else? If it's my (HSA) dollars, you bet I'm gonna find the cheapest, best reviewed xxx around. I don't have the answer to new drugs/medical products for which there are patents as far as cost (controls) are concerned that would not discourage research. Other un-patented drugs can be shopped - Metformin and amoxicillin is free at my local Publix (supermarket). Walmart has a lot of $4 drugs, etc.

http://www.chministries.org/programs.aspx

Here in New Jersey, the cheapest catastrophic insurance for an individual like me is ~$300 a month. And that's with subsidies and like a $4000 deductible. I looked, it's an absolute rip off. I'm also generally a healthy individual that's not too old either.

I actually do have access to doctors (and a free physical), because I worked on the healthcare industry for many years and made friends, but a most people don't have any of that.

CHM sounds nice, but it's not an insurance and you get the whole bill, which then you forward to them for charity reimbursement. It's charity care, not insurance. It's not a solution to the cost problem at all.

You first recommend buying discount drugs from Canada (which big pharma made sure it's illegal, BTW), but then tell me that cost-control kills research here in the US? I mean, who do you think it's subsidizing Canada's cost controls? We, the suckers that live in the US, and pay 40x more for the same drug.

Fortunately we're making good money this year, and I'll probably will sign up for something at the end of the year. But that's besides the point: the cost problem is very real and unaddressed, and until it is addressed, we're going to continue being the suckers.

One thing I though was positive about Barrycare is that it shook the status quo, which, IMO, was a good thing, even if ACA itself was shit. Hopefully we stop being suckers, move to something like a mixed single-payer system, like the rest of the modern world, tbh... unfortunately, there's too much money in this thing to do what's better for the American people.

[ElNono]

BTW, I'm not against your comparison shopping strategy for non-catastrophic coverage, but HSAs don't reduce costs by themselves. Doctors have to pay for the machines and supplies too. There's no such thing as a thriving competitive market for a lot of that stuff. Heck, getting devices or supplies approved is a major cost sink already, so it's little surprise certain megacompanies enjoy certain monopolies in some of those areas (like GE Health, etc).

And again, we hit the patent problem. Can we really wait 8 years or so to go from catscans to MRI because a company wants to milk it? How many Americans have to die so a few fatcats can stuff their pockets?

[rmt]

Here in New Jersey, the cheapest catastrophic insurance for an individual like me is ~$300 a month. And that's with subsidies and like a $4000 deductible. I looked, it's an absolute rip off. I'm also generally a healthy individual that's not too old either.

I actually do have access to doctors (and a free physical), because I worked on the healthcare industry for many years and made friends, but a most people don't have any of that.

CHM sounds nice, but it's not an insurance and you get the whole bill, which then you forward to them for charity reimbursement. It's charity care, not insurance. It's not a solution to the cost problem at all.

You first recommend buying discount drugs from Canada (which big pharma made sure it's illegal, BTW), but then tell me that cost-control kills research here in the US? I mean, who do you think it's subsidizing Canada's cost controls? We, the suckers that live in the US, and pay 40x more for the same drug.

Fortunately we're making good money this year, and I'll probably will sign up for something at the end of the year. But that's besides the point: the cost problem is very real and unaddressed, and until it is addressed, we're going to continue being the suckers.

One thing I though was positive about Barrycare is that it shook the status quo, which, IMO, was a good thing, even if ACA itself was shit. Hopefully we stop being suckers, move to something like a mixed single-payer system, like the rest of the modern world, tbh... unfortunately, there's too much money in this thing to do what's better for the American people.

But unlike CHM, HSA is like a debit card - at point of sale. Theoretically, with the cost savings of only a catastrophic policy, employer and/or user would pre-fund the HSA (or accumulated from previous years or with my suggestion to be able to get funds from others). Let's use the existing CHM and pretend that it opens up to you - you pay $45 per month with a $5000 deductible [and $25/quarter for extra $100k coverage] - you put the difference between the $300 and $45 per month into an HSA - $255 per month and it accumulates over time - from which you can use for routine events or eventually for the deductible in case of emergency. This system has worked since 1981 (without the HSA) and paid with taxed $s but other than ALL the special interests which would be against a model like this, why could this not be a viable, cost-effective healthcare model? I have used CHM, shopped and paid for routine care (and been astounded at how cheap it really is paying DIRECTLY to the provider) and it is far cheaper than Obamacare or what came before - even paying for everything with taxed dollars.

I didn't know big pharma made buying discount drugs from Canada illegal. It wasn't a couple years ago but then Lipitor came off patent and my parents didn't hit the doughnut anymore. Yes, we are the ones subsidizing it but how do you think imposing cost controls will encourage research of new drugs? So do we not have new drugs/medical equipment if there is no profit incentive and therefore research money? What are your suggestions regarding the drugs?

Sorry, but I don't agree with single-payer. Anything government gets into is usually rife with waste and inefficiency - also, without the profit motive, we will not attract the best and brightest as doctors, researchers, inventors, etc (you can see how little reimbursement there is for Medicaid patients). I prefer catastrophic insurance with heavy HSA use.

[ElNono]

But unlike CHM, HSA is like a debit card - at point of sale. Theoretically, with the cost savings of only a catastrophic policy, employer and/or user would pre-fund the HSA (or accumulated from previous years or with my suggestion to be able to get funds from others). Let's use the existing CHM and pretend that it opens up to you - you pay $45 per month with a $5000 deductible [and $25/quarter for extra $100k coverage] - you put the difference between the $300 and $45 per month into an HSA - $255 per month and it accumulates over time - from which you can use for routine events or eventually for the deductible in case of emergency. This system has worked since 1981 (without the HSA) and paid with taxed $s but other than ALL the special interests which would be against a model like this, why could this not be a viable, cost-effective healthcare model? I have used CHM, shopped and paid for routine care (and been astounded at how cheap it really is paying DIRECTLY to the provider) and it is far cheaper than Obamacare or what came before - even paying for everything with taxed dollars.

Why do I pay $45 a month if I have to fork off a $5000 deductible out of pocket? That's crazy. $5000 is a lot of money. For $5000 you get amazing healthcare, and not on third world shitholes, but countries like Germany. People here in the US really have a completely distorted idea of what the costs of care are. Aside that incident last year, which was the first ever for me, I've never ever in my life spent more than $500 in healthcare in a single year. So what's the point of handing out $45 a month?

And HSA is a savings account. To get the highest interest rate (0.25%), you have to have at least a $10000 balance. That interest rate can't even keep up with inflation, much less how much gouging goes on in healthcare prices in the US. The math just doesn't add up. Not only that, it doesn't address cost, because you're still paying full price for all services. How does that discourage pricing to what the market will bear? It doesn't.


I didn't know big pharma made buying discount drugs from Canada illegal. It wasn't a couple years ago but then Lipitor came off patent and my parents didn't hit the doughnut anymore. Yes, we are the ones subsidizing it but how do you think imposing cost controls will encourage research of new drugs? So do we not have new drugs/medical equipment if there is no profit incentive and therefore research money? What are your suggestions regarding the drugs?

Sorry, but I don't agree with single-payer. Anything government gets into is usually rife with waste and inefficiency - also, without the profit motive, we will not attract the best and brightest as doctors, researchers, inventors, etc (you can see how little reimbursement there is for Medicaid patients). I prefer catastrophic insurance with heavy HSA use.

That's why I prefer a mixed system, like in a lot of counties like Australia or Germany (IIRC, Germany is multi-payer, but basically the same thing). You get the base coverage from the state, with price controls, and if you want better service and can afford it, then you can go purchase a private plan. But you don't have to worry about going bankrupt if you hit the emergency room. Not only that, our system is absurdly inefficient. People crowd emergency rooms for regular care, then get billed a ton of money, most of which is never paid and the government ends up footing the bill for anyways. The expansion of Medicaid was supposed to alleviate that, but it really hasn't happened.

I can't deny I feel like a sucker for actually being a stand up individual and paying every one of those bills.

As far as research, there's still money to be made there, even if it's not the $500 billion dollars a year (of which half end up going to marketing anyways). Price control doesn't mean sell at cost. Plus, we were researching a ton of drugs and devices in universities, here in the US and overseas, way before we had the full blown corporatization of healthcare. Heck, a lot of these drugs and discoveries are actually researched in universities, some of them federally subsidized, then sold for exploitation to some company. Furthermore, research nowadays is guided towards what can reap more profits, not actually what people really need. We have a crisis in anti-biotics now with all new kinds of superbugs, but, hey, the money is on anti-cancer now.

[ElNono]

BTW, I enjoy the conversation, even if we don't agree on every (or most) things. I think this stuff needs to be talked about more, tbh... instead of the echo chamber that is our politics today.

[rmt]

BTW, I enjoy the conversation, even if we don't agree on every (or most) things. I think this stuff needs to be talked about more, tbh... instead of the echo chamber that is our politics today.

Ditto - nice to toss around ideas without the partisan stuff and name calling - one thing for sure, we can't keep going on like this in healthcare - it's gonna bankrupt us.

[boutons_deux]

Y'all are naive if you think the USA is going to stop over-paying for healthcare by $1T+ per year.

Will you ever get the message that the USA is owned and operated by VRWC/1%/BigCorp through their corruption/ownership of politicians to suck wealth from the 99%?

Hillary tried to get costs down "too much" and so her health plan was "Harry and Louise-d" to death by BigHealthCare.

ACA survived ( didn't get "Harry and Louise-d" )only because it didn't address health care cost as the fundamental problem.

ACA was "3rd world" humanitarian effort to get health care for "third world" Americans.

Reducing healthcare cost is reducing Big HealthCare profits. Ain't gonna happen.

Medicare/Medicaid set prices, and lots of providers refuse those patients, not enough profit.

[Winehole23]

The relative decline of St. Louis—along with that of other similarly endowed heartland cities—is therefore not simply, or even primarily, a story of deindustrialization. The larger explanation involves how presidents and lawmakers in both parties, influenced by a handful of economists and legal scholars, quietly altered federal competition policies, antitrust laws, and enforcement measures over a period of thirty years. These changes, which enabled the same kind of predatory corporate behavior that took the Rams away from St. Louis, also robbed the metro area of a vibrant economy, and of hundreds of locally based companies. This economic uprooting, still all but unaddressed by today’s politicians or presidential candidates, accounts for much of the relative stagnation of other Middle American communities, and for much of the anger roiling voters this election cycle.http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/maraprmay-2016/the-real-reason-middle-america-should-be-angry/

[Winehole23]

The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 applied common carriage rules to railways, and sapped their industrialist owners of the power to discriminately pick winners and losers. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 addressed the anticompetitive practices of monopolists. Years later, the Mercantile National Bank of St. Louis president Festus J. Wade celebrated these laws, especially a 1912 decision based on them to break up a railroad monopoly that was choking off commerce from entering the city. “Railroad managers,” he said, “can no longer combine against an industry and crush it out of existence because of a disagreement with the head of a manufacturing establishment.”


The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 created a central banking system in which decisions over national monetary policy were made by twelve regional Federal Reserve banks, one of which was built (and still exists) in St. Louis. The McFadden Act of 1927 likewise dispersed lending activity by confining national banks to their headquartered states. This rule preserved the flow of capital within local communities, made bankers attuned to their community’s needs, and prevented New York financiers from gobbling up St. Louis banks. It also addressed the public’s concern that if large banking organizations operated in multiple regions, they would evade adequate supervision.


The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 broke up the “Big Five” meatpacking cartel that previously had manipulated prices across the nation, giving undue preference to certain businesses and localities, and controlling non-meat production in the warehousing, wholesale, and retail industries. That move gave smaller companies like the St. Louis Independent Packing Company, of the famed “Mayrose” jingle, the opportunity to compete fairly.


The Wheeler-Rayburn Act of 1935 prohibited electricity, gas, and water utilities from speculating in unregulated businesses with ratepayers’ money and ensured that companies like Union Electric would remain locally headquartered and focused. The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 protected small retailers by prohibiting manufacturers from giving larger discounts to chain stores, and the Miller-Tydings Act of 1937 did the same by permitting manufacturers to set a minimum price at which their goods could be sold. These laws safeguarded local-area retailers like Central Hardware and Bettendorf-Rapp supermarkets, as well as neighborhood pharmacies, bakeries, restaurants, clothing stores, and grocers—including those servicing the city’s predominant minority and African-American communities (see “Redlining From Afar (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchaprilmay_2016/features/redlining_from_afar_how_consol059898.php)”).


After World War II, Congress continued strengthening these anti-monopoly laws. The 1950 Celler-Kefauver Act, for instance, closed a loophole that allowed companies to thwart competition by gobbling up competitors’ regional suppliers. At the Wholesale Grocers Association convention held in St. Louis, the law’s cosponsor, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, declared that the 1950 act would “blast out those pillboxes of monopoly . . . that threaten our free enterprise.”

[Winehole23]

under the Reagan administration, the federal government fundamentally changed course on antitrust enforcement. The Reagan Justice Department wrote new guidelines that rejected regional equity or local control as considerations in deciding whether to block mergers or prosecute monopolies. Enforcers were instructed to wave through mergers and tolerate consolidation, as long as there was no active collusion and consumers didn’t immediately suffer higher prices. Even more, Reagan’s administration cut the budgets of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, leaving both agencies with limited resources for enforcement.

Between 1980 and 1985, sixty-two Fortune 500 companies were subject to corporate takeovers, and the single greatest increase in corporate acquisitions in U.S. history took place between 1984 and 1985. This relaxed enforcement philosophy, compounded by other legislative action, quickened the consolidation of specific industries.


Throughout the 1980s, state politicians chiseled away at restrictions on interstate banking, and in 1994 the Clinton administration followed suit with the passage of the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act. Since 1984, the number of independent banks has fallen by more than half, from 15,663 to 6,799 in 2011. Of those now-defunct banks, more than 8,352 either merged or were consolidated.

[Winehole23]

These changes in anti-monopoly policy also affected local retailers. The Consumer Goods Pricing Act of 1975 overturned the Miller-Tydings Act of 1937, and led to the end of most “fair trade” laws. In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration’s Justice Department and FTC stopped enforcing the Robinson-Patman Act. Together, these changes led to consolidation among retailers and gave the new mega-retailers tremendous power over their suppliers.

[Winehole23]

The economic fates of their communities may not be the result of their own failings, or of an inability to lure educated “creative class” types, or of off-shoring or deindustrialization, or of the workings of a mysterious and immutable free market. Rather, their fates may be the result of decisions in Washington, influenced by a small group of legal scholars and economists, to overturn antitrust laws passed by elected officials of both parties over the course of the twentieth century. These decisions quietly changed the rules of America’s economy to be more like the NFL’s, in which monopoly power isn’t fought but catered to, in which economic opportunity isn’t disbursed but consolidated, in which fewer cities—and fewer Americans—get a fair chance to compete.

[Winehole23]

ergo, inequality isn't a natural side effect of capitalism. capitalism needs the not so hidden hand of government to achieve that.

politics counts too.

[Th'Pusher]

ergo, inequality isn't a natural side effect of capitalism. capitalism needs the not so hidden hand of government to achieve that.

politics counts too.

I don't know that you can draw that conclusion based on what you've posted. You've presented a case that government policy can exacerbate inequality. I don't think you've shown that unfettered capitalism would not also result in the same or worse.

[boutons_deux]

ergo, inequality isn't a natural side effect of capitalism. capitalism needs the not so hidden hand of government to achieve that.

politics counts too.

what bullshit. Unrestrained capitalism, eg USA, amasses so much wealth that it buys, with pocket change, the govt it needs to keep amassing wealth.

Govt is the only countervailing power opposite capitalism. When govt is corrupted, compromised, captured by capitalists, we're all fucked and unfuckable.

[Winehole23]

I don't know that you can draw that conclusion based on what you've posted. You've presented a case that government policy can exacerbate inequality. I don't think you've shown that unfettered capitalism would not also result in the same or worse.I agree, but unfettered capitalism has never existed. capitalism presumes a context of legal and political stability. enforceability of contracts and a government that won't rob them blind, for starters.

[Winehole23]

if I'm correct about that, it follows that that inequality, in part, is a political artefact.

if not, not.

you could be right.

[boutons_deux]

America’s Monopoly Problem

How big business jammed the wheels of innovation

In the past few decades, however, the economy has come to resemble something more like a stagnant pool. Entrepreneurship, as measured by the rate of new-business formation, has declined in each decade since the 1970s, and adults under 35 (a k a Millennials) are on track to be the least entrepreneurial generation on record.

This decline in dynamism has coincided with the rise of extraordinarily large and profitable firms that look discomfortingly like the monopolies and oligopolies of the 19th century. American strip malls and yellow pages used to brim with new small businesses. But today, in a lot where several mom-and-pop shops might once have opened, Walmart spawns another superstore. In almost every sector of the economy—including manufacturing, construction, retail, and the entire service sector—the big companies are getting bigger.

The share of all businesses that are new firms, meanwhile, has fallen by 50 percent since 1978. According to the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank dedicated to advancing the ideals of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, “markets are now more concentrated and less competitive than at any point since the Gilded Age.”

How long does it take for her to interact with a market that isn’t nearly monopolized?

She wakes up to browse the internet, access to which is sold through a local monopoly.

She stocks up on food at a superstore such as Walmart, which owns a quarter of the grocery market.

If she gets indigestion, she might go to a pharmacy, likely owned by one of three companies controlling 99 percent of that market.

If she’s stressed and wants to relax outside the shadow of an oligopoly, she’ll have to stay away from ebooks, music, and beer; two companies control more than half of all sales in each of these markets.

There is no escape—literally.

She can try boarding an airplane, but four corporations control 80 percent of the seats on domestic flights.

Politicians from both parties publicly worship the solemn dignity of entrepreneurship and small businesses. But by the numbers, America has become the land of the big and the home of the consolidated.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/10/americas-monopoly-problem/497549/

[boutons_deux]

OTOH ...

Public spending on R&D has positive effects

A recent evaluation by Statistics Norway shows that

governmental support of R&D and innovation in the private sector has positive effects. The tax incentive scheme SkatteFUNN is found to be particularly cost effective.

"These are very interesting findings, and we are pleased that the evaluation shows that research is profitable, for society and businesses alike. A more research oriented industry is necessary to ensure value creation, competitiveness and efficient utilisation of resources. The Research Council will encourage more research-based innovation (http://phys.org/tags/innovation/) in all business sectors in the future," says Arvid Hallén, Director General of the Research Council of Norway (RCN).

The report, "Evaluation of R&D- and innovation-supporting policies" (in Norwegian only), was published by Statistics Norway on 8 April.

They have studied the effects of government financing policies aimed at promoting value creation and innovation.

http://phys.org/news/2016-09-positive-effects.html

[Winehole23]

AT&T has reached a deal to buy Time Warner Inc. (http://www.latimes.com/topic/business/time-warner-inc.-ORCRP015301-topic.html) for $85.4 billion — a blockbuster marriage that would transform the telephone company into the nation’s largest entertainment company and a major force in Hollywood.


The agreement, which was hammered out at breakneck speed and announced by the two companies Saturday afternoon,accelerates the wave of consolidation sweeping through the telecommunications and media industries.



http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-att-time-warner-deal-20161022-snap-story.html

[Winehole23]

Telecommunications companies are becoming media companies. That explains AT&T’s agreement to buy Time Warner for $85.4 billion. But something else explains it, too.

Media companies are becoming telecoms.


Internet firms like Google and Facebook and Amazon and Netflix are the new media companies. They deliver enormous amounts of video online, posing a direct threat to old-school television and movie companies. But they also are becoming telecoms, threatening the likes of AT&T and Verizon.


They finance undersea cables that link their data centers. They buy fiber optic infrastructure. Facebook builds open source telco gear (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-01-01/business/1997001049_1_ncr-excel-communications-phone-business), Google offers high-speed Internet service, Amazon hopes to become an Internet service provider (https://www.wired.com/2016/10/amazon-isp-makes-perfect-sense/) in Europe.
As this happens, telecoms must fight back. And this means challenging tech giants on the media front.


The proposed AT&T/Time Warner deal combines two powerhouses. AT&T is the nation’s largest pay TV provider, the second-largest wireless provider, and the third-largest home Internet provider.

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/att-buying-time-warner-future-google/

[boutons_deux]

Praxair to Buy Linde for $35 Billion in Industrial-Gas Deal


http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/12/20/praxair-to-buy-linde-for-35-billion-in-industrial-gas-deal/

[boutons_deux]

These Professors Make More Than a Thousand Bucks an Hour Peddling Mega-Mergers

Today, "in front of the government, in many cases the most important advocate is the economist and lawyers come second," said James Denvir, an antitrust lawyer at Boies, Schiller.

Economists who specialize in antitrust—affiliated with Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, the University of California, Berkeley, and other prestigious universities—reshaped their field through scholarly work showing that mergers create efficiencies of scale that benefit consumers.

But they reap their most lucrative paydays by lending their academic authority to mergers their corporate clients propose.

Corporate lawyers hire them from Compass Lexecon and half a dozen other firms to sway the government by documenting that a merger won't be "anti-competitive": in other words, that it won't raise retail prices, stifle innovation, or restrict product offerings.

Their optimistic forecasts, though, often turn out to be wrong, and the mergers they champion may be hurting the economy.
Some of the professors earn more than top partners at major law firms. Dennis Carlton, a self-effacing economist at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and one of Compass Lexecon's experts on the AT&T-Time Warner merger,

charges at least $1,350 an hour (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3219682-Carlton-Expert-Report-Kleen.html#document/p3/a328327). In his career, he has made about $100 million, including equity stakes and non-compete payments,

Carlton has written reports or testified in favor of dozens of mergers, including those between AT&T-SBC Communications and Comcast-Time Warner, and three airline deals: United-Continental, Southwest-Airtran, and American-US Airways.

American industry is more highly concentrated than at any time since the gilded age.

Need a pharmacy? Americans have two main choices.

A plane ticket? Four major airlines.

They have four choices to buy cell phone service.

Soon one company will sell more than a quarter of the quaffs of beer around the world.

Mergers peaked last year at $2 trillion in the US The top 50 companies in a majority of American industries gained share between 1997 and 2012, and "competition may be decreasing in many economic sectors,"

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/these-professors-make-more-thousand-bucks-hour-peddling-mega-mergers

such sacred "free markets" and such holiest "competition" deliver the perfect solution to ... BigCorp and capitalists fleecing America and Americans.

[Winehole23]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170103/06383236391/att-already-backing-off-biggest-time-warner-merger-promise-cheaper-tv.shtml

[boutons_deux]

5 different things people mean when they say we need to revive antitrust

Antitrust regulation and economic concentration are suddenly everywhere in progressive thinking about economic policy.

1) We should be stricter with existing doctrine

Under current antitrust doctrine, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission scrutinize so-called “horizontal” mergers — mergers where the two merging companies basically do the same thing — to see if the merger will result in higher prices or reduced choices for consumers.

2) We should be more skeptical of vertical mergers

Under the guidelines the Justice Department has used since the early 1980s, there is a fairly strong presumption that a merger that isn’t horizontal — like AT&T’s proposed takeover of Time Warner — should be allowed.

This often seems intuitively wrong to people who view octopus-like conglomerates who have their fingers in many related pies as especially menacing. The written guidelines on this subject haven’t been updated since 1984 and express an extremely lenient view of vertical mergers.

3) We should emphasize harms beyond consumers

Probably the greatest victory of the “law and economics” movement has been its success at persuading the courts, antitrust regulators, and the antitrust bar more broadly that the high-level goals of American antitrust law can be boiled down to a narrow focus on consumer impacts.

4) We should re-emphasize broader worries about concentration

The classic midcentury political economy of the United States featured lot of legal restriction on firm size that had little or nothing to do with antitrust law’s interest in economic concentration. Strict rules limited the number of different cities in which a given company could own a television station while also constraining joint ownership of TV stations and newspapers.

A bank was not allowed to have branches in more than one state, and a bank that engaged in basic borrowing and lending wasn’t allowed to be part of the same company that sold insurance or did securities underwriting.

Most of these kind of rules have either been formally repealed or else turned into dead letters by the use of regulators’ discretionary authority.

5) We should take a harder line on “predatory pricing”

Nobody likes to be undercut on price by a competitor. But it’s especially galling to find yourself undercut on price by a competitor that can get away with losing money thanks to its support from deep-pocketed venture capitalists.

That’s the situation traditional taxi companies competing with Uber and traditional mattress companies competing with a new breed of online retailers find themselves in.

And then, of course, there’s Amazon — a giant company with ultra-low profit margins that rather infamously used steep discounts to bully Diapers.com (https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=66960X1516588&xs=1&url=http%3A%2F%2FDiapers.com) into giving up and selling itself to Amazon.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/7/16249698/anti-trust-revival

[boutons_deux]

Because the Repugs LOVE free market competition, to death

Walgreens gets regulatory nod for slimmed-down Rite Aid deal

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rite-aid-m-a-walgreens-boots/walgreens-gets-regulatory-nod-for-slimmed-down-rite-aid-deal-idUSKCN1BU1KP

[boutons_deux]

John Oliver blasts corporate mergers — starting with the ‘sh*tty’ company trying to buy HBO

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/john-oliver-blasts-corporate-mergers-starting-with-the-shtty-company-trying-to-buy-hbo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

America Has a Monopoly Problem—and It’s Huge

The Nobel Prize winner argues that an economy dominated by large corporations has failed the many and enriched the few.

There is a widespread sense of powerlessness, both in our economic and political life.

We seem no longer to control our own destinies.

If we don’t like our Internet company or our cable TV, we either have no place to turn, or the alternative is no better.

Monopoly corporations are the primary reason that drug prices in the United States are higher than anywhere else in the world.

Whether we like it or not, a company like Equifax can gather data about us, and then blithely take insufficient cybersecurity measures,

exposing half the country to the risk of identity fraud, and

then charge us for but a partial restoration of the security that we had before a major breach.

Chicago economists would argue—with little backing in either theory or evidence :lol — that one shouldn’t even worry about monopoly:

In an innovative economy, monopoly power would only be temporary, and the ensuing contest to become the monopolist maximized innovation and consumer welfare.

Over the past four decades, economic theory and evidence has laid waste to such claims and the belief that some variant of the competitive equilibrium model provides a good, or even adequate, description of our economy.

But if we begin with the obvious, opposite hypothesis—that what we see in our daily life is true, that our economy is marked in industry after industry by large concentrations of market power—then we can begin to simultaneously understand much of what is going on.

There has been an increase in the market power and concentration of a few firms in industry after industry, leading to

an increase in prices relative to costs (in mark-ups).

This lowers the standard of living every bit as much as it lowers workers’ wages.

When I wrote The Price of Inequality five years ago, I attributed much of the increase in inequality to this

redistribution from workers and ordinary savers to the owners of these oligopolies and monopolies.

I explained the multiple sources of this increase in market power. Some of it might have been a natural result of the evolution of our economy, growth in industries with what economists call network externalities, which might lead to natural monopolies; some was the result of a shift in demand to local services, segments of the economy where local market power, based on differential information was more significant.

But much of it was based on changing the implicit rules of the game—

new antitrust standards that made the creation, abuse, and leveraging of market power easier—

and the failure of antitrust standards to keep up with the changing evolution of the economy.

That was why two years ago, the Roosevelt Institute called for Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy, and over the past two years has amplified this message, especially as it relates to market power.

This increase in market power helps explain simultaneously the

slowdown in productivity growth,

the sluggishness of the economy, and

the growth of inequality—

in short, the poor performance of the American economy in so many dimensions.

https://www.thenation.com/article/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/

The oligarchy hired whores to rig the economy, and the whores have "serviced" and are "servicing" their johns excellently.

America is fucked and unfuckable.

[housious]

America isn't fucked at all. In fact, any person born in the United States that isn't making decent/good money by the age of 35 is functionally retarded.

Corporate mergers may provide fewer options for consumers, but larger corps also provide more stable and predictable income for workers. True monopolies should be broken, but large companies merging isn't always a bad thing. In fact, quite often it's a great thing.

[boutons_deux]

America isn't fucked at all. In fact, any person born in the United States that isn't making decent/good money by the age of 35 is functionally retarded.

Corporate mergers may provide fewer options for consumers, but larger corps also provide more stable and predictable income for workers. True monopolies should be broken, but large companies merging isn't always a bad thing. In fact, quite often it's a great thing.

goddamn, you're fucking stupid

[SpursforSix]

https://i.imgur.com/Q5o8QmZ.gif

[boutons_deux]

Mergers and Monopoly: How Concentration Changes the Electricity Business (https://ilsr.org/electricity-mergers-and-monopoly/)

Executive Summary

A wave of consolidation has swept across the U.S. economy over the past decade, reshaping already-powerful corporations into financial and political powerhouses. The trend has taken particular hold among electric utilities, a sector where monopoly reigns virtually unchecked.

Consolidated, investor-owned utilities now have service territories that span several states and include millions of customers. They say gobbling competitors delivers operational efficiencies and cost savings. But who sees the benefits? And what are the unspoken costs?

This report explains how concentration of power in monopoly utilities delivers fewer customer benefits than alleged, and how the unmentioned costs of concentrating power in a few firms undermines protection of the public interest.

The House Always Wins

Despite efforts to cast consolidation as customer-friendly,

the benefits are heavily weighted in favor of utility shareholders.

Unequal Financial Benefits

Most utility mergers feature large benefits for company shareholders, but much smaller benefits for customers.

When Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power generator, unveiled in 2014 its plan to swallow Washington, D.C.-based utility Pepco in a $6.8 billion deal, it pledged $100 million toward a fund earmarked for rate credits, low-income assistance, and energy efficiency across its multi-state territory.

That translates to just $50 per customer, compared with the whopping $1.1 billion that the merger unlocked for Pepco shareholders.

https://ilsr.org/electricity-mergers-and-monopoly/

[boutons_deux]

Qualcomm is a tech success story that might be coming to an untimely end.

Most everyone has heard about Broadcom positioning itself to buy out Qualcomm (https://www.androidcentral.com/broadcom-interested-buying-qualcomm-over-100-billion).

I'll leave the complete financial strategy for the experts to sort through, but the gist is that Broadcom is trying to spend $70 per share (over $100 billion in total) to buy out Qualcomm (https://www.androidcentral.com/qualcomm), who wants no part of it. Many on Wall Street like the idea (http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2017/11/06/the-good-and-the-bad-in-a-qualcomm-broadcom-merger/), as Broadcom will likely be able to play nice with Apple and Intel so stock prices rise for all three companies, and

there is a good chance the deal could happen and not be rejected by regulators.

There's a darker side, though, and it has to do with the abstract idea we call innovation.

Specifically, that this

takeover will kill the entrepreneurial spirit that Qualcomm fosters and new breakthroughs in the semiconductor space will suffer.

Our own Daniel Bader goes into great detail (https://www.androidcentral.com/explaining-broadcom-qualcomm-acquisition) about how this will affect the mobile space, and it is a must-read.

https://www.androidcentral.com/broadcom-buying-qualcomm-could-grind-innovation-screeching-halt (https://www.androidcentral.com/broadcom-buying-qualcomm-could-grind-innovation-screeching-halt)

===============

Why Broadcom's $130 billion Qualcomm deal would be bad for mobile innovation

https://www.androidcentral.com/explaining-broadcom-qualcomm-acquisition

[boutons_deux]

FCC Boss Demolishes Media Ownership Rules In Massive Gift To Sinclair Broadcasting

But Pai has also been taking heat for his pursuit of another pet project:

gutting media consolidation and ownership rules solely for the benefit of Sinclair Broadcasting, which is seeking approval for its $3.9 billion bid for Tribune.

In the last few months, Pai has, as promised, been "taking a weed whacker" to rules intended to protect local reporting, media competition, and opinion diversity.

That has included

killing an 80 year rule (http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/fcc-main-studio-rule-ajit-pai-sinclair-1202597651/) intended to protect local competitors and journalism from unchecked monopoly control of a market,

and taking an axe to some protections (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-27/sinclair-s-washington-winning-streak-has-democrats-crying-foul) but

bringing back others solely to Sinclair's benefit:

"On Tuesday, the FCC eliminated a requirement for broadcasters to keep a local studio.

A day later, Pai called for easing ownership restrictions, potentially taking pressure off Sinclair’s $3.9 billion deal for Tribune Media Co.’s TV stations.

Earlier, he had restored an obsolete rule, making the deal possible.

On Thursday, the agency moved toward blessing a new broadcasting standard that may enrich Sinclair as it offers viewers sharper pictures."


https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171031/10202138520/fcc-boss-demolishes-media-ownership-rules-massive-gift-to-sinclair-broadcasting.shtml

America is fucked and unfuckable. The anti-democratic crimes that the oligarchy / Repug kakistoracry commits will be irreversible

[boutons_deux]

House Democrats seek probe of FCC chairman’s treatment of Sinclair

https://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ajit-Pai-Screen-Capture-800x430.jpg

Two U.S. House Democrats on Monday asked the Federal Communications Commission inspector general to probe whether FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was biased in favor of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is seeking approval of a $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co.

Representatives Frank Pallone and Elijah Cummings cited FCC decisions that benefited Sinclair, the largest U.S. television broadcast group, and a media report last year that the

election campaign of President Donald Trump struck a deal with Sinclair for favorable coverage.

“All of these actions – when taken in context with reported meetings between the Trump administration, Sinclair, and Chairman Pai’s office – have raised serious concerns about whether Chairman Pai’s actions comply with the FCC’s mandate to be independent,”

Sinclair forces its stations to “air pro-Trump propaganda and then seeks favors from the Trump administration.”

Any claim that Chairman Pai is modifying the rules now to benefit one particular company is completely baseless.” :lol

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, told a congressional committee last month,

“All of our media policy decisions seem to be custom-built for this one company.”

Sinclair announced plans in May to acquire Tribune’s 42 TV stations in 33 markets as well as cable network WGN America,

extending its reach to 72 percent of American households.

The FCC is set to vote Thursday on Pai’s plan to eliminate the ban on cross-ownership of a newspaper and TV station in a major market and

make it easier for media companies to buy additional TV stations in the same market.

Approval would make it easier for Sinclair to acquire more TV stations.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/house-democrats-seek-probe-of-fcc-chairmans-treatment-of-sinclair/

In San Antonio, Sinclair already owns KMYS, WOAI-TV, KABB

No Tribune stations in SA.

[boutons_deux]

6 Ways to Rein In Today’s Toxic Monopolies

Monopolies are strangling competition and cutting off opportunity. Here’s how to stop them.


https://www.thenation.com/article/six-ways-to-rein-in-todays-toxic-monopolies/ (https://www.thenation.com/article/six-ways-to-rein-in-todays-toxic-monopolies/)

Another aspect of corporate consolidation is when, eg, a cable company is the only such employer in an area,

so doesn't have to compete with salary and benefits for labor with another cable company.

[boutons_deux]

Andeavor (ex Tesoro) leaving San Antonio

https://www.mysanantonio.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/Marathon-Petroleum-reportedly-plans-to-buy-San-12873763.php?utm_campaign=mysa_breakingnews&utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter

How many Andeavor corporate jobs LOST from this consolidation?

[Winehole23]

Comcast bids on Fox one day after merger with AT&T is ok'd:


Comcast bids $65 billion for 21st Century Fox assets, topping Disney

Comcast, the parent of CNBC, offered Fox shareholders $35 a share in cash and 100 percent of the shares the company left behind after the deal.
The deal is a 19 percent premium to the value of Disney's offer as of noon on Wednesday.
The announcement comes one day after a federal judge cleared the way for AT&T's megadeal for Time Warner, a decision that is expected to unleash a wave of big mergers.




https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/13/comcast-bids-65-billion-for-21st-century-fox-assets.html

[Winehole23]

Amex wins antitrust case, Justice Thomas writes the majority opinion:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1454_5h26.pdf

[Winehole23]

within one week of the merger, AT&T/Time Warner has proven USG Cassandras more or less correct:


Within one week, AT&T announced a plan to use Time Warner’s television content to drive rival customers to its products. It’s just one of several announcements from the new conglomerate that show the government was right: AT&T is determined to use its economic and political power to expand its reach and dominate markets.

On Thursday, AT&T unveiled a service (https://www.cnet.com/news/at-t-unveils-new-unlimited-plans-with-watchtv-live-television-bundle/) called WatchTV, a “skinny bundle” of 31 television channels, many of them under AT&T’s control after the Time Warner merger, as well as on-demand content from those channels. Subscribers to AT&T’s two new unlimited data plans get WatchTV for free, and the pricier plan includes HBO, the crown jewel of the Time Warner merger. Non-AT&T customers who want WatchTV can get it for $15 per month—but without access to John Oliver and Silicon Valley, which would cost another $15 (https://order.hbonow.com/) through HBO Now.

AT&T considers this an expansion of consumer choice, a new option for cord-cutters seeking cheap streaming TV. But in reality, AT&T is using its exclusive access to HBO and other Time Warner programming to push people to sign up for its phone plans. It’s no coincidence that AT&T also quietly announced price increases (https://www.cnet.com/news/at-t-unveils-new-unlimited-plans-with-watchtv-live-television-bundle/) for the unlimited data plans it’s trying to attract people to. https://newrepublic.com/article/149305/atttime-warner-merger-already-government-feared

[ElNono]

The Justice Department will appeal the AT&T-Time Warner merger approval (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/12/justice-department-will-appeal-time-warner-att-merger-approval-dow-j.html), according to a court document filed Thursday. In one of the largest U.S. antitrust cases in decades, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled last month that the merger could go on despite the government's resistance (https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/06/12/2047246/judge-rules-att-can-acquire-time-warner). The feds did not seek a stay that would have prevented the merger from taking place, and AT&T and Time Warner closed the deal directly after Leon's ruling. (https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/06/15/0031256/att-completes-85-billion-time-warner-acquisition)

[Winehole23]

Boston Globe: break up Google.


“It is ironic that the company perhaps most responsible for unleashing a tidal wave of human creativity, learning, and, yes, competition is also stifling it. It is frustrating competition, discouraging innovation, punishing American business, and distorting the free marketplace of commerce and ideas. Europe has led the wider fight over the right to privacy and the regulation of data, but the time is right for the United States to lead on dismantling tech monopolies — starting with the most powerful player. So, how to start? [T]here are several ways to carve up Alphabet, the holding company of which Google is by far the largest and most important piece….https://apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/graphics/2018/06/break-google/

[RandomGuy]

America isn't fucked at all. In fact, any person born in the United States that isn't making decent/good money by the age of 35 is functionally retarded.

Corporate mergers may provide fewer options for consumers, but larger corps also provide more stable and predictable income for workers. True monopolies should be broken, but large companies merging isn't always a bad thing. In fact, quite often it's a great thing.

Not really. Even duopolies can curtail public utility (in the economics sense of that term).

Historically small numbers of large companies invariably end up in cartel behavior, and rent-seeking.

Further, tilting the balance of power to larger corporations means that labor's ability to negotiate is reduced, in a manner very similar to what happens with those company's products.

Economics 101.

[boutons_deux]

Housious is GODDAMN fucking stupid, typical right wing shit fer brains

[boutons_deux]

Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea


With a single scholarly article, Lina Khan, 29, has reframed decades of monopoly law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/technology/monopoly-antitrust-lina-khan-amazon.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/technology/monopoly-antitrust-lina-khan-amazon.html)

[Winehole23]

cool article, thanks for posting

[boutons_deux]

cool article, thanks for posting

yeah, will the oligarchy allow stricter anti-monopoly regulations? hell no

pro-business / anti-employee+consumer extremist K or similar asshole gets seated, SCOTUS will be viciously 5-4 (even 6-3) pro-oligarchy, anti-non-oligarchy for decades.

[Winehole23]

you be you.

no matter what happens, stick with one take.

[boutons_deux]

you be you.

no matter what happens, stick with one take.

Occam's butcher knife: bloody with both explanatory and predictive power.

[boutons_deux]

Monsanto-Bayer Merger Hurts Farmers and Consumers (https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/11/monsanto-bayer-merger-hurts-farmers-and-consumers/)


The U.S. Department of Justice issued a stern warning in its lawsuit against the conditionally-approved mega-merger between Bayer and Monsanto in June.

The anti-competitive price effects of the merger would, according to the DOJ,

“likely result in hundreds of millions of dollars per year in harm, raising costs to farmers and consumers.”

The Justice Department warned that the combining of Bayer and Monsanto

would reduce competition for vegetable seeds, likely driving up prices.

Further, farmers might see prices for GMO cotton, canola, corn and soybean seeds increase, as well as price increases for herbicide and seed treatments.

After imposing some limited divestments on Monsanto, :lol

the DOJ approved this merger, :lol

enabling Monsanto to hide its controversial name brand

while giving Bayer anti-competitive control over seeds, pesticides, farmers and consumers worldwide.

But the harm to consumers and farmers will still exist.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/11/monsanto-bayer-merger-hurts-farmers-and-consumers/

[Winehole23]

Because of oligopolies, the US spends more on cellphone plans and and air travel than Europeans.

Economic concentration is expensive.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/13/america-was-once-the-land-of-free-markets-now-theyre-becoming-a-myth

[RandomGuy]

yeah, will the oligarchy allow stricter anti-monopoly regulations? hell no

pro-business / anti-employee+consumer extremist K or similar asshole gets seated, SCOTUS will be viciously 5-4 (even 6-3) pro-oligarchy, anti-non-oligarchy for decades.


you be you.

no matter what happens, stick with one take.

Is he wrong though?

There is more than a little evidence that points to the US having transitioned into an oligopoly. The majority of wealth in the country is inherited, just as a short-hand sniglet.

Big money conservatives have been pushing for control of courts and with Trump's presidency, winning that battle. the thread itself about consolidation points to the same, simply due to the gini effect.

One has to wonder at this point.

[Winehole23]

Very good article (if from a European perspective) by Nick Shaxson about the relation of tax policies and monopolization:

https://www.taxjustice.net/2019/11/01/if-tax-havens-scare-you-monopolies-should-too-and-vice-versa/

[Winehole23]

TBTF:

689415336731406336

[Winehole23]

Comcast imposes monthly data caps in the NE and Mid-Atlantic regions:


At issue is Comcast’s move on Monday that caps home internet usage at 1.2TB of data per month for its customers in 12 additional states, and charging customers up to $100 per month if they exceed the cap. Comcast’s move was flagged by Stop The Cap (https://stopthecap.com/2020/11/23/breaking-news-comcast-introducing-1-2-tb-data-cap-in-northeast-mid-atlantic-regions/), which discovered that the company had quietly updated language on its website. The new limits, which will take effect in March, are being imposed in states that have given Comcast and its subsidiaries more than $738 million in tax subsidies in the last few decades. Those states include New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, where state and local governments have given Comcast and its subsidiaries $484 million, $132 million, and $79 million in tax subsidies, respectively, according to data from Good Jobs First. In all, Comcast and its subsidiaries — which include NBC and MSNBC — have received nearly $1 billion in state and local subsidies. Additionally, Comcast received $861 million in federal tax subsidies (https://itep.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/121619-ITEP-Corporate-Tax-Avoidance-in-the-First-Year-of-the-Trump-Tax-Law.pdf) during the first year of the Trump tax cuts, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy


“This is why monopolies are bad,” tweeted (https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1331267670100983808?s=20) Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization. “Comcast can arbitrarily exploit us for profit during a pandemic just because it feels like it. Meanwhile, Comcast collects tons of tax breaks and government subsidies. Comcast should be broken up.”

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) recommended (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-363033A1.pdf) in March that internet service providers relax their data cap policies in order to “promote connectivity” during the pandemic. The recommendation was attached to an FCC campaign to ensure continued internet service throughout the pandemic, called the “Keep Americans Connected Pledge,” which Comcast signed. The pledge expired (https://www.fcc.gov/keep-americans-connected) on June 30.


https://www.dailyposter.com/p/comcasts-new-data-fees-follow-1-billion

[Winehole23]

New FCC appointees by president-elect Joe Biden could in theory crack down on data caps — but Biden and his party have deep ties to Comcast.

In all over the last decade, Comcast donors have delivered (https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/comcast-corp/totals?id=d000000461) more than $25 million to Democrats.

During the presidential primaries, 17 top Comcast executives maxed out their federal contributions to Biden, while Pete Buttigieg was the only other Democratic contender to receive a contribution from a Comcast executive (and he received only one), according to reporting (https://readsludge.com/2020/01/29/msnbcs-owners-shower-biden-with-campaign-cash/) from Sludge in January. Comcast’s senior executive vice president and top lobbyist, David Cohen, hosted (https://readsludge.com/2019/04/23/net-neutrality-skeptic-joe-biden-is-attending-a-fundraiser-held-by-comcasts-top-lobbyist/) Biden’s kickoff fundraiser for his presidential campaign in 2019.

[spurraider21]

Virginia on that list... and Comcast is the only provider in the area

there is technically CenturyLink, but all the local opinions ive seen is that Comcast is bad, but CLink is unusable

there is the smaller more hipster Ting which is well reviewed, but its always "coming soon to your area" wherever I am

[Winehole23]

Is he wrong though?

There is more than a little evidence that points to the US having transitioned into an oligopoly. The majority of wealth in the country is inherited, just as a short-hand sniglet.

Big money conservatives have been pushing for control of courts and with Trump's presidency, winning that battle. the thread itself about consolidation points to the same, simply due to the gini effect.

One has to wonder at this point.It's an interesting question. The recent appointment of two antitrust profs by Biden might be a signal fire.

[Winehole23]

Last month, three judges on the fourth circuit issued an extraordinary decision (https://www.dropbox.com/s/k63n01jnd8iwdpz/191397.p.pdf?dl=0) against a window and door making firm called Jeld-Wen. Three judges - two appointed by Obama and one by Trump - order a break-up of Jeld-Wen. And it wasn't even the gov't who brought the case, but a private plaintiff.

Jeld-Wen makes what are called doorskins, which make up the back and front of a door, and are expensive and difficult to produce. Jeld-Wen sold doorskins to door makers, but Jen-Weld also made and sold doors as well. So it both sold to its doorskin customers, and competed with them for the final buyer of doors.

There were three makers of doorskins until 2012, when Jeld-Wen bought one of its main competitors, CMI. Obama’s Department of Justice investigated the merger, twice, but didn’t do anything about it. Once there were only two players in the market, Jeld-Wen began cutting off its customers from being able to buy doorskins. Steves and Sons filed a suit in 2016, and a district court ruled in the plaintiff’s favor, ordering Jeld-Wen to sell the factory it bought from CMI. The fourth circuit just agreed.

This is remarkable, and an important precedent. It is also an embarrassment for public enforcers. Private litigants have broken up more firms - one - than government enforcers have in two decades. :wow
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/judges-break-up-door-making-conglomerate

[Winehole23]

For maximum extraction of profit, monopolies take risks but offload the cost when foreseeable mishaps — like a mega-container ship blocking the Suez Canal — threaten supply chains.

1376537109519986689

[Winehole23]

it's like the early 20th century, competition-wise, but the global scale of the economies makes it worse.

the dragons of finance and industry are buying up the world and renting it back to us.

1405879134295896065

[Winehole23]

It's an interesting question. The recent appointment of two antitrust profs by Biden might be a signal fire.Lina Khan was confirmed. :tu

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Lina Khan was confirmed. :tu

I will wait until I see who Biden appoints head of antitrust at DoJ. It's a smaller department than it was a 100 years ago and the vehicle that would actually be able to reverse this course.

[Winehole23]

I will wait until I see who Biden appoints head of antitrust at DoJ. It's a smaller department than it was a 100 years ago and the vehicle that would actually be able to reverse this course.yeah, remains to be seen for sure

[Winehole23]

Executive order to promote competition policy to be issued tomorrow.


The White House is scheduled to issue an executive order Friday to promote competition throughout the U.S. economy in the most ambitious effort in generations to reduce the stranglehold of monopolies and concentrated markets in major industries.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/08/biden-assault-monopolies-498876

[Winehole23]

it didn't trickle down

1413559412099276807

[Winehole23]

Heather Bresch is Joe Manchin's daughter.

Emails show how she schemed to cornered the market on EpiPen, raised prices, concocted a bogus rationale to make it a two pack and deliberately hid info from the FDA.



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E-tPm5wXMAAyyK1?format=png&name=900x900

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2021/09/email-1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=651

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/07/joe-manchin-epipen-price-heather-bresch/

[Winehole23]

Pfizer, while denying wrongdoing, (https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2021-07-16/pfizer-agrees-to-pay-345-million-to-resolve-epipen-pricing-lawsuit) has since settled a class-action suit for price fixing and will pay $345 million over the company’s practices related to the EpiPen market. A suit against Mylan, which also denies wrongdoing, is ongoing, and Bresch has faced scrutiny in the past for the company’s pricing of the lifesaving drug. In 2019, Mylan officially merged with Pfizer’s Upjohn unit to form a new company, Viatris, and Bresch began the process of stepping down, taking with her a $37.6 million exit package (https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/following-eventful-8-years-mylan-ceo-heather-bresch-set-to-retire-after-upjohn-deal). She retired from Mylan in December 2020.

[Thread]

Heather Bresch is Joe Manchin's daughter.

Emails show how she schemed to cornered the market on EpiPen, raised prices, concocted a bogus rationale to make it a two pack and deliberately hid info from the FDA.



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E-tPm5wXMAAyyK1?format=png&name=900x900

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2021/09/email-1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=651

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/07/joe-manchin-epipen-price-heather-bresch/

Joe Manchin not good now.

[Winehole23]

meat prices are a big driver of food inflation

1435994046233825288

[Winehole23]

"heads i win, tails u lose"

1436233990780850189

[Winehole23]

1441592815834877953

[Winehole23]

monopoly has crapified healthcare and has made it more expensive

1442527615349235713

1442527618662744064

[boutons_deux]

The Corrupt System Behind Covid Medical Shortages

Why are we still facing shortages of masks and medicine a year and a half after the start of the pandemic?

Because a buying cartel controls medical supplies, and has for 25 years.

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-villains-behind-our-medical-suppl

=====================

2 Powerful Groups Hold Sway Over Buying at Many Hospitals

https://www.masimo.com/company/news/media-room/nyt-series/2-powerful-groups-hold-sway-over-buying-at-many-hospitals/

====================

How GPOs INFLATE Healthcare Costs

https://www.physiciansagainstdrugshortages.com/gpos-inflate-hc-costs.html


Is there any major economic sector that isn't totally corrupt?

[Winehole23]

the seamy underbelly of efficiency and just-in-time inventory -- monopolies create bottlenecks and inflate prices


For forty years, everyone but logistics professionals have had the luxury of ignoring the details of how we make, ship, and distribute things. Stuff just kind of showed up in stores for consumers. Economists who talk about the broad economy, meanwhile, were obsessed with money; they thought about the Fed printing more or less of it, or taxing and spending. They too assumed stuff just kind of shows up in stores.


Yet, using this macro-framework is oddly divorced from what people are experiencing. Much of the handwaving - the assumption that things will return to the way they were and it’s just a matter of waiting, or that everything is driven by money printing or government spending - reflects the intellectual habits borne from not having to think about the flow of stuff.


There is a third explanation for inflation and shortages, and it’s not simply that the Fed has printed too much money or that Covid introduced a supply shock (though both are likely factors.) It’s a political and policy story. The consolidation of power over supply chains in the hands of Wall Street, and the thinning out of how we make and produce things over forty years in the name of efficiency, has made our economy much less resilient to shocks. These shortages are the result.


Uber’s attempt to monopolize the taxi market with cheap prices, and the resulting shortage years later after the market was ruined, is a very simple way to understand the situation, if you imagine that taking place across multiple industry segments beyond taxis. Monopolistic business models often appear to be efficient or good for consumers - for a time - but end up destroying productive capacity on the backend, which then creates or worsens a shortage. In that case, cab drivers, who used to be able to make a reasonable living, haven’t really come back.


Two years ago, I coined the term “Counterfeit Capitalism (https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/wework-and-counterfeit-capitalism)” to describe this phenomenon. I focused on the fraudulent firm WeWork, which was destroying the office share market with an attempted monopoly play turned into a straight Ponzi scheme, enabled by Softbank and JP Morgan. Like counterfeiting, such loss-leading not only harms the firm doing the loss-leading, but destroys legitimate firms in that industry, ultimately ruining the entire market.


In the gig economy, the consequences are becoming clear, as Kevin Roose of the New York Times noted a few months ago in a story titled “Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/technology/farewell-millennial-lifestyle-subsidy.html).” But beyond Uber and the gig economy, or firms like Amazon that pursue loss-leading strategies, such destructive business practices are also routine.


Take lumber, whose pricing increased dramatically earlier this year. As Sandeep Vaheesan pointed out (https://mobile.twitter.com/sandeepvaheesan/status/1387778249816780808), there’s a very clear predatory pricing monopoly story here. In the early 2000s, Ross-Simmons Hardwood sued lumber giant Weyerhaeuser Co. A key cost for lumber mills is the price of logs, and Ross-Simmons accused Weyerhaeuser of artificially paying more for logs to drive competitors out of business. This practice was similar to Uber incurring losses to subsidize the cost of rides to underprice taxis and capture the market, only in this case it was Weyerhaeuser incurring losses to keep the price of logs higher than they should be.


As Vaheesan put it, this behavior changed the market. “Why invest in sawmills,” he asked, “if dominant players will buy up necessary inputs as a means of crushing the margins of competitors?” Though a jury agreed that Weyerhaeuser was engaged in predatory conduct, in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-381.ZO.html) in favor of Weyerhaeuser. And whaddya know, during the pandemic lumber prices spiked (https://www.wsj.com/articles/lumber-prices-are-soaring-tree-growers-miserable-11614177282?mod=hp_lead_pos11), even as tree growers didn’t see the benefit. More broadly, this ruling undermined small producers in capital heavy industries, who had less of a reason to invest in capacity.


This decision, like many others, was part of a forty year trend of facilitating monopolies. It wasn’t necessarily done in bad faith; policymakers followed the lead of economists, who believed dominant firms were dominant because they were efficient. This faith in efficiency over all else meant that the public structuring of markets to force resiliency - aka regulation - was illegitimate. So too were attempts to use public rules like tariffs to retain domestic production of key goods.


Alas, this philosophy has led to a series of bottlenecks in our supply chains, which are now global. After all, what else is a monopoly but a business model designed to secure or create a bottleneck? It is those bottlenecks that are worsening, or in some cases, creating the shortages we see all around us, on a worldwide scale.
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/counterfeit-capitalism-why-a-monopolized

[Winehole23]

I first noticed the problem of concentration and supply in 2011, when I wrote a piece on shortages of specialized video tapes (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-america-could-collapse/), a result of the earthquake in Fukushima and the consolidation of productive capacity in that region. Before digitization, such video tapes were necessary, not to watch shows, but to film them. Because of the shortage, the NBA scrambled to get enough tape (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/industry-scrambling-japan-earthquake-tsunami-169456) to broadcast the NBA finals, with one executive saying, “It’s like a bank run.” Why was this shortage so acute? The earthquake halfway around the world had knocked offline a Sony factory that made them. That was known an industrial supply chain crash, like a bank run, only with actual inputs and outputs of real world stuff.


This wasn’t the first such industrial supply chain crash in the era of globalization. There was one in 1999, when an earthquake in Taiwan hit semiconductor production, causing factories all over the U.S. to shut down and firms like Dell and Hewlett-Packard to stop selling computers. The key to these supply crashes was the consolidation of production in one area, often under the guise of trading off resiliency for efficiency. This was also the logic behind mass outsourcing of production.

[Winehole23]

Similar to the lead-up to the financial crisis, policymakers only saw in these trends the efficiency of large firms and beautiful global supply chains, not the pooling of hidden risk. The intermingling of banks and shadow banks into a complex and unknowable system caused a huge crash in 2008. Who knew AIG, Goldman Sachs, and fly-by-night California mortgage lenders connected to German land banks? Certainly regulators didn’t. The same is happening in slow motion with our supply chains. As one trucker noted (https://www.reddit.com/r/Shortages/comments/pkpp6z/a_supply_chain_catastrophe_is_brewing_in_the_us/), his Freightliner is in the shop due to a broken air line, and he was told that shop had seven other trucks sitting there with a similar issue, and so they can’t truck anything. That specialized part to repair his vehicle is no longer made domestically, but must be… trucked in from Mexico or Canada. See the problem?

[Winehole23]

1) Monopolies manipulate prices and lower supply. Unregulated firms with market power raise prices, cut wages, and reduce supply. That’s just what they do. A very simply example of this problem is in the beef, poultry, and pork industry, the three types of meat that are responsible for roughly half of the inflation in food.


2) The Keurig Interoperability Problem: Then there are the artificial bottlenecks produced on purpose to exploit market power. For instance, why don’t we have enough specialized plastic bags (https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-are-there-shortages-of-plastic) to use in making vaccines?Over the past fifteen years, the producers of biopharmaceutical equipment consolidated the entire industry, such that there are really four producers each of whom sells, in business school speak, an “integrated set of products” to pharmaceutical firms who want to make stuff.

[Winehole23]

3) Right to Repair, or the McDonald’s Ice Cream Problem: Another artificial bottleneck created to facilitate certain corrupt business models is to prevent firms from repairing their own equipment.

For instance, why is McDonald’s often out of ice cream? Their ice cream machines are always broken, leading to unhappy customers and frustrated franchise owners. There’s no shortage of vanilla, cream, sugar, or other inputs, but McDonald’s, and the food equipment conglomerate Middleby, do not allow franchise (https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/what-broken-mcdonalds-ice-cream-machines) owners to repair their own equipment, because allowing that would jeopardize the fat maintenance equipment fees they get from servicing overly complex machines. And so there’s a shortage of ice cream.

[Winehole23]

4) Infrastructure Monopolies: One of the most problematic monopolies is that of Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC), which is the main fabricator of high-end chips used in everything from phones to computers to cars, whose customers include every major tech firm. Semiconductors, like oil, are infrastructure at this point, going into a large swath of products. Infrastructure monopolies are bottlenecks whose effects cascade down supply chains. I mean, PPG, which is a paint conglomerate, is pointing (https://www.axios.com/ppg-industries-supply-chain-earnings-disruption-7263631e-1a34-4745-8fe5-0538fcc1b771.html) to chip shortages as a cause of its supply disruptions.


As Alex Williams and Hassan Khan note (https://employamerica.medium.com/a-brief-history-of-semiconductors-how-the-us-cut-costs-and-lost-the-leading-edge-c21b96707cd2), sustained national investment by Taiwan, combined with disinvestment by the U.S. government, led to the consolidation of manufacturing capacity in TWSC. Additionally, TWSC engaged in dumping of products on the U.S. market in the 1990s, which is a form of predatory pricing. Intel, rather than focusing on competing, organized itself around monopolization, and thus loss the technological lead over semiconductor production in the early 2010s.


The net result is that we are now highly dependent for a key form of infrastructure on a monopoly that cannot expand as quickly as necessary, and that is halfway around the world in a drought-riven geopolitically sensitive area. Disruptions or supply shocks thus mean begging Taiwan for one’s ration of semiconductors.


But there are many other infrastructure monopolies we’ve facilitated over the last forty years. There are, for instance, railroads, an industry where there used to be 30+ competitors, and which now has seven monopolistic rail lines (https://www.wsj.com/articles/railroads-brace-as-regulator-signals-willingness-to-take-on-industry-11630584002?mod=hp_lead_pos11) that are constantly reducing service and destroying freight cars. Railroads, like many network systems, require not only competition, but regulation, or else the incentive to disinvest by owners is too strong. For instance, in 2019, the Union Pacific shut down a Chicago area sorting facility (https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/western-railroads-struggle-with-off-rail-intermodal-supply-chain-problems/) to increase profit margins for its Wall Street owners. As a result, in July of this year, the rail line had so much backed up traffic in Chicago that it suspended traffic (https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/08/09/amtrak-joe-vs-the-modern-robber-barons/) from West Coast ports. Such a suspension of service backed up port unloading, causing a cascading chain reaction, delays piled upon delays.

[Winehole23]

5) Power Buyers and Economic Discrimination: Then there’s price discrimination to remove small players from the market. One BIG reader, an administrative assistant at a small college, noted she’s seeing “shortages in previously plentiful food items.” There are a host of foods they can’t get anymore. “We order from Sysco mainly, and we sometimes can't get basic things like spicy chicken breasts for sandwiches. We get the same spicy chicken that Wendy's serves, so we presume Wendy's is taking priority on this.” Sysco has tremendous market power in food distribution, it is what is known as a power buyer, using a system of rebates to coerce suppliers and buyers into using its services.


Power buying is why large firms like Walmart are out-competing small ones. Walmart, for instance, tells its suppliers they must deliver (https://talkbusiness.net/2020/09/walmart-demands-all-suppliers-comply-with-98-on-time-in-full-shipment-rule/) on time 98% of the time, or it will fine them 3% of the cost of goods. “Known in the industry as "power buyers," large retailers have had an advantage for years when buying goods because they order larger quantities than smaller wholesalers do,” wrote (https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/10/business/small-stores-out-of-stock/index.html) CNN’s Nathan Meyersohn on this problem. “Large retailers' scale and buying clout make them a top priority for manufacturers, he said, and they often get promotions, special packaging or new products early.”


Price discrimination means smaller firms, both producers, distributors, and retailers, can’t get access to what they need to do business, and small firms are often more flexible than big ones, and serve customers in rural or niche areas.

[Winehole23]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCZ0caPWQA4j1b1?format=png&name=900x900

[RandomGuy]

This thread is a flaming indictment of the country.

Boutons gets shit for his cynicism. I am reaching the conclusion that there is no saving the country at this point.

He is more right than many would admit to. Fucked and unfuckable.

[SnakeBoy]

Biden bros getting restless :lol

[pgardn]

Biden bros getting restless :lol

Your team put up the candidate that Biden routed.
The voters got the orange mass out but he still infests the party.
Still begging for his endorsement.
When the incumbent shows you he is an ass... consequences.

[DMC]

This thread is a flaming indictment of the country.

Boutons gets shit for his cynicism. I am reaching the conclusion that there is no saving the country at this point.

He is more right than many would admit to. Fucked and unfuckable.

Is it as bad as your wife's saggy tits?

[Winehole23]

(copped his shit from ducks)

[DMC]

"heads i win, tails u lose"

1436233990780850189

This image of empty shelves is proof positive that there's no more food or goods in the US.

[DMC]

(copped his shit from ducks)

Put that on my Bingo card. I just commandeered it.

[Winehole23]

This image of empty shelves is proof positive that there's no more food or goods in the US.Not sure who you're addressing. Matthew Stoller didn't say so and neither did I.

[DMC]

Not sure who you're addressing. Matthew Stoller didn't say so and neither did I.

You don't need to. Words can say "see spot run" but images are what people see, and media savvy people know how to send a message without committing to it.

Btw, have you updated my Bingo card today? Get after it. I already told you this.

[Winehole23]

You don't need to. Words can say "see spot run" but images are what people see, and media savvy people know how to send a message without committing to it.An impression that would be dispelled by reading the first few sentences...

[Winehole23]

Market monopolization is anti-competitive. US attorneys should kick companies like this in the balls, like they used to.

1478731109122772994 (https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1478731109122772994?s=20)

[Winehole23]

1478732197343289347

[Winehole23]

link to the report on monopsony power: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/State-of-Labor-Market-Competition-2022.pdf

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[Thread]

link to the report on monopsony power: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/State-of-Labor-Market-Competition-2022.pdf

1500933288214605827

Can you imagine the per Diem for these motherfuckers? Like money from home.

[boutons_deux]

1478732197343289347

Ain't neoliberal capitalism fantastic!?

[boutons_deux]

1478732197343289347


1478732197343289347

Ain't neoliberal capitalism fantastic!?

[boutons_deux]

While Manchin worked in Washington to secure funding for pet projects, his daughter was narrowly avoiding cross-examination. Also on Friday, a Kansas judge granted preliminary approval (https://www.law360.com/competition/articles/1473541/judge-oks-264m-deal-ending-mylan-epipen-price-hike-suit) to a settlement in which

the drug manufacturer Viatris, formerly known as Mylan, agreed (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/business/viatris-epipen-settlement.html) to pay $264 million for antitrust violations pertaining to the marketing and sales of epinephrine,

the lifesaving medication it uses to make EpiPens.

With a final hearing (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/pharma-and-life-sciences/mylan-264-million-epipen-price-gouge-deal-gets-first-court-nod) set for July, the deal puts

Heather Bresch, Manchin’s daughter and Mylan’s former CEO, on track to dodge legal repercussion

from a yearslong saga involving allegations of

racketeering, price fixing, and the anti-competitive sale of EpiPens

— whose price jumped by nearly $550 under Mylan’s watch.

https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/joe-manchin-viatris-mylan-union-heather-bresch (https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/joe-manchin-viatris-mylan-union-heather-bresch/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter)

[Winehole23]

consolidation is killing cattle farmers

1519340106779295744

[boutons_deux]

And the toxic rUral culture repeatedly Votrd repug but they never get any benefit from Repugs

[Winehole23]

Abbott Labs provides ~80% of WIC's supply of baby formula.

Look's like Abbott skimped on safety while buying back billions in their own stock.

Two babies died from drinking their tainted product, but you can't put a price on the creation of shareholder value.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/08/business/baby-formula-shortage-retailers.html




1524391071941369857

[Winehole23]

blame Biden tho

[Winehole23]

Was this it, pgardn?

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/counterfeit-capitalism-why-a-monopolized?s=r

[Winehole23]

1531658122971987969

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[Winehole23]

Great explainer in Freightwaves on how consolidation and the shift to megacontainers has made shipping more unreliable and shafts the public, while leading to windfall profits for shippers

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ocean-shipping-companies-profits

[Winehole23]

Making it way more expensive to be disabled. Profit margins >people.

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[Winehole23]

levelling the playing field: the USPS?


But there’s one program already being implemented that’s helping small businesses compete against behemoth corporations. Most surprisingly, it’s being carried out by a holdover from the Trump administration: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

In his 10-year “Delivering for America” (https://about.usps.com/what/strategic-plans/delivering-for-america/assets/USPS_Delivering-For-America.pdf) plan, DeJoy included the idea for “neighborhood businesses access to local drop points and local services for same day or next day delivery.” Dubbed “USPS Connect Local,” the service launched (https://about.usps.com/newsroom/local-releases/ny/2022/0222-next-day-delivery-usps-connect-nyc.htm) in February, starting in New York City, and has continued to spread across the country.

USPS Connect Local provides businesses with next-day local deliveries, as well as same-day service and Sunday delivery in select locations. Businesses can prepare packages for fast local delivery by paying postage and printing labels with the “Click-N-Ship” app, then bringing them to the post office or, in some locations, arranging for pickup. According to a USPS spokesperson, the service is already available in 2,416 offices across 3,680 zip codes. USPS Connect Local should be in all 50 states (https://www.uspsconnect.com/local/rollout?_gl=1*1ro761q*_ga*ODk4NDc3MjAyLjE2NTM0OTA4 OTY.*_ga_3NXP3C8S9V*MTY1NTk1NDU3MS44LjAuMTY1NTk1ND U3MS4w) by the end of September.

Eric Cortellessa reported in the Washington Monthly (https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/07/13/how-the-postal-service-can-help-local-retailers-beat-amazon/) last year that “dozens of current and former USPS officials and industry analysts” saw “fast, local shipping” for small businesses as a tantalizing opportunity. If consumers “can start ordering from their local mom-and-pop stores and get the products delivered to them as quickly as if they ordered from Amazon,” he wrote, then that will help small businesses withstand the pressures from their bigger rivals, as well as help the USPS withstand the pressures from Amazon.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2022/06/24/whos-going-to-save-local-businesses-from-amazon-and-other-monopolies-the-u-s-postal-service/

[Winehole23]

In Mexico, the price of tortillas is rising while the price of corn is falling.


There is, however, something rather strange about the latest rise in tortilla prices, in that it follows a three-month period of largely falling prices of corn on global commodity markets. Despite rebounding in recent days, corn prices are still down around 20% since mid-May. Yet during that time tortilla prices in Mexico have continued to rise.


Mexico’s federal consumer association Profeco has pointed the finger of blame at Gruma (Maseca), a Mexican multinational corn flour and tortilla manufacturing company headquartered in San Pedro, near Monterrey. It is the largest cornflour and tortilla manufacturer in the world, with 79 plants spread across Mexico, the United States, Europe and South America. In Mexico, the company dominates the industrial tortilla market.


“The recent price behavior of tortillas is directly tied to the price set by Maseca,” said (https://www.gob.mx/profeco/prensa/alza-de-tortilla-relacionada-con-precio-de-maseca-profeco) Ricardo Sheffield, Profeco’s director at one of AMLO’s daily press conferences. “There are some economic issues that Cofece [Mexico’s market regulator] will certainly be interested in looking into.”


Sheffield added that something is clearly not right when the dominant player in the market can push most of the country’s tortilla makers to increase prices, even when the price of corn is falling. While it is true that other input costs, such as transportation and labor, may have played a part in the rising tortilla prices, Gruma (Maseca) plays a pivotal role in setting prices across the industry, since cornflour represents between 50-60% of tortilla factories’ costs of production.


At a global level there are huge corn traders, including Cargill, but in Mexico far and away the biggest player is Gruma, says (https://www.jornada.com.mx/notas/2022/08/18/economia/harina-de-maiz-representa-hasta-60-del-costo-de-las-tortillas/) Gustavo Vargas Sánchez, an economist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), in an interview with La Jornada: “t produces most of the corn flour used by tortilla factories, partly because it offers better quality than its competitor Minsa and it mixes… its cornflour with nixtamal (cooked corn dough).”


The rampant privatization schemes of Carlos Salinas Goteri’s presidency dealt a brutal blow to the nutritional value of Mexican tortillas. And the biggest beneficiary was Gruma’s founder, Roberto González Barrera, reports a 2007 article (https://grist.org/article/tortillas/) by the U.S. online non-profit magazine [I]Grist:




Buoyed along by his good friend, the now-disgraced former president Carlos Salinas (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/family/carlossalinas.html), a magnate named Roberto González Barrera used government power to rig a market for his new industrial tortilla-making process, which relies on refined corn flour rather than whole corn kernels. Its products less flavorful and nutritious than traditional tortillas, González’s method was decisively rejected by the market — and then, in the mid-1990s, it got a boost from his political cronies. Today, it accounts for about half of Mexican tortilla production — and González’s company, Gruma, controls 70 percent of the industrial tortilla market. (In the same bout of privatization that won him his tortilla powerhouse, González also pocketed a bank (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banorte).)

[Winehole23]

Gruma’s untrammelled control of the industrial tortilla market allows it to book big profits during periods of high inflation, says Vargas Sánchez: “When there are general price increases, Gruma takes advantage of its pricing power to increase its own prices, which are then passed on to the tortilla maker.” In the first half of 2022, as inflation in Mexico hovered above 7%, Gruma’s profits surged by more than 20%.

This is not the first time Gruma has faced accusations of price gouging during times of inflation, notes the Grist article:



According to Oxfam [PDF], the government watched idly while the retail price of tortillas tripled between 1994 and 1999 — even as the price of Gruma’s raw material, corn, fell steadily.

When prices soared recently [in 2006], accusations swirled that Gruma was taking advantage of the global corn rally to gouge Mexican consumers on tortillas. The company claimed it was merely passing on its higher corn costs, but that claim rang hollow. U.S. ethanol makers use yellow corn, and their heightened demand for it indeed caused its global price to double. But Mexican tortilla makers use white corn, the price of which has not risen nearly as steeply.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/08/mexican-drug-cartel-imposes-price-controls-on-corn-tortillas-as-inflation-surges-to-21-year-high.html

[Winehole23]

tl;dr

Monopolies are anticompetitive.

1575108946657873921

[boutons_deux]

Monopolies are anticompetitive.



Duh, that's the whole point

Businesses hate competition and the free open market

Every businessman's wet dream is to be an extractive, predatory Monopoly with no restraints on his pricing and profits

[Winehole23]

Eyewatering consent decree.

Chicken processors screwed farmers and suppressed wages and benefits sectorwide, for decades.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/09/16/2022-20014/united-states-v-cargill-meat-solutions-corp-et-al-proposed-final-judgments-and-competitive-impact

[Winehole23]

supply chain problems and corporate greed are goosing inflation WAY more than wages

1582475617723113472

[Winehole23]

1582036391101276160

1582036393542373376

[Winehole23]

1582036395983441921

[Winehole23]

[url]1600146951751639040

[Winehole23]

1617918576945672192

[Winehole23]

Metro Atlanta home values have risen across the board from 2012 to 2022. But the AJC’s analysis found they climbed more sharply in places where investors bought more houses. In the 30 ZIP codes with the most investor-owned properties, home values appreciated at nearly twice the annual rate as the 30 ZIP codes where investors own the least.

Experts say the effect on homeownership has been dramatic.

A landmark study from Georgia Tech found that the rise in investor activity caused a 1.4 percentage point drop in homeownership rates in metro Atlanta from 2007 to 2016. That translates to 16,500 fewer households owning homes than would be expected, were it not for the influx of Wall Street cash.
African Americans like Lowman have been hit the hardest. Investor purchases explain a 4.2 percentage point drop in Black homeownership during that period, the research found.

Large investor purchases have accelerated since then. During one 12-month stretch beginning in July 2021, investors bought one out of every three homes for sale in metro Atlanta.



Research suggests that the largest owners behave like monopolies that set the price of rent, rather than responding to the market. In otherwise similar neighborhoods, large landlords raise rents faster where they own a larger share of houses, a 2022 study by University of Texas at Dallas researchers found.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” said Raymond, the Georgia Tech professor. “And given how concentrated they are in Atlanta specifically, that’s scary.”
https://www.ajc.com/american-dream/investor-owned-houses-atlanta/

[Winehole23]

Prices rise like a rocket and fall like a feather.

1625912447809859603

[boutons_deux]

For-profit health care is a FUCKING RACKET by the Capitalist oligarchy

Health care cronyism is fueling

hospital consolidation and rising medical costs

Ninety percent of metropolitan statistical areas are considered highly concentrated by antitrust standards.

With this kind of monopoly power (https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2023%2 F01%2Flet-competition-cure-hospital-monopolies%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cdallott%40thehill.com%7C1146d8243fa 747fc157408db0eba5385%7C9e5488e2e83844f6886cc76082 42767e%7C0%7C0%7C638119966187885041%7CUnknown%7CTW FpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJB TiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=da0PEH4PYOKIAvN0DG74kJEIphhJKITfhzSZz2Fh9k4% 3D&reserved=0), hospital systems gain bargaining leverage over payors.

They can raise prices (https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kff.org%2Fhealth-costs%2Fissue-brief%2Fwhat-we-know-about-provider-consolidation%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cdallott%40thehill.com%7C1146d8243fa 747fc157408db0eba5385%7C9e5488e2e83844f6886cc76082 42767e%7C0%7C0%7C638119966187885041%7CUnknown%7CTW FpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJB TiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=9An5mS214OgdVr0zSEqURlcmnJHdYcuHlcmXvfjFfzM% 3D&reserved=0) without increases in quality.

The increased cost to private insurers (https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.medpac.gov%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fimport_data%2Fscrape_files%2Fd ocs%2Fdefault-source%2Freports%2Fjun17_ch10.pdf&data=05%7C01%7Cdallott%40thehill.com%7C1146d8243fa 747fc157408db0eba5385%7C9e5488e2e83844f6886cc76082 42767e%7C0%7C0%7C638119966187885041%7CUnknown%7CTW FpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJB TiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qWa8A9yk8QukjOBNe%2FCp6Q%2Frx%2FA5bOTuw3gCMF lWQv0%3D&reserved=0) is passed on to patients via higher premiums.

Half of U.S. health care expenditures go toward hospitals and clinics, and those numbers are rising.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/3857923-health-care-cronyism-is-fueling-hospital-consolidation-and-rising-medical-costs/

The Capitalist health care racket is unstoppable, because the political/judicial class is corrupted, compromised by $Bs from the Capitalists.

There is no solution, no countervailing power to resist Capitalist domination, driving USA into inevitable one-party fascism.

[Winehole23]

1626226260774100998

1626292466230956034

[Winehole23]

1617918576945672192

1636212739730296832

[Winehole23]

Amazon and Google both face FTC antitrust lawsuits.


Any day now, the FTC is expected to drop "The Big One" on Amazon (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-prepares-the-big-one-a-major-lawsuit-targeting-amazons-core-business/), an antitrust lawsuit that appears inevitable after the company's so-called "last rites" meeting with FTC officials (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/amazons-final-talks-with-ftc-unlikely-to-thwart-antitrust-lawsuit/) last week. Through its inquiry, the FTC has taken notice of how Amazon treats sellers on its platform, specifically scrutinizing how Amazon punishes sellers that don't use Amazon's logistics services.


With so much heat coming from the FTC, it seems like bad timing for Amazon to decide to start charging an extra fee to sellers who bypass Amazon's logistics services and instead ship products themselves. But that’s precisely the step that Amazon has taken, Bloomberg reported. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-16/amazon-is-imposing-fee-on-sellers-who-ship-products-themselves)
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/amazon-adds-extra-seller-fee-despite-intensifying-ftc-scrutiny/

[Winehole23]

Only sellers who [don't] use Amazon's Seller Fulfilled Prime service will have to pay the fee. So most of Amazon's two million sellers won't be affected. But for thousands of sellers who prefer to ship their own products, starting in October, they will have to pay Amazon "a two percent fee on each sale," according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg.

It may seem like a small fee, but it’s likely enough to pressure some sellers into using Amazon's logistics services who previously had avoided the high costs associated with those services. One furniture seller told Bloomberg that the new fee would cost $1 million over a year of sales.

In February, Search Engine Land reported (https://searchengineland.com/amazons-share-of-seller-revenue-is-now-50-393383) that higher fulfillment fees and mandatory advertising expenses had increased Amazon's share of sellers' revenue to 50 percent. Using Amazon's fulfillment at that point costs sellers 20 to 35 percent of their revenue.

This new fee seems like the latest way Amazon has put the squeeze on sellers who were avoiding paying that larger percent of revenue by doing their own fulfillment. Bloomberg spoke to several sellers who, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, confirmed that they were interpreting the latest fee as "an attempt to pressure them into using Amazon’s logistics services rather than fulfilling orders themselves."

[Thread]

(They) were not going to allow "us" to gain that windfall that came with upheaval & rearrangement of the deck chairs during "Minnesota Floyd," followed by COVID.
No-fuckin'-way. (They) waited a bit so we'd marvel at said windfall then lowered the fuckin' boom. Now we're basically where we were, just a bit to more than a bit light.

[Winehole23]

1692236295031120258

[Winehole23]

somewhat beside the point, but Google's search engine is well nigh unusable, largely because of the ads.


In merger control, it is assumed from the outset that mergers result in cost savings. As many economists have recognized, most recently Nancy Rose & Jonathan Sallat (https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=9717&context=penn_law_review), the merging parties are already credited for “efficiencies” (cost savings) in the “standard efficiency credit” which undergirds the merger safe harbor in low and moderate concentrated markets. After all, absent any cost savings, why allow any merger that even weakly increases concentration? A concentration screen that allows some mergers and not others must be assuming that all mergers come with some socially beneficial cost savings. But do they? As we show in the working paper, there is no empirical research to suggest that mergers that increase concentration actually lower costs and pass on the benefits to consumers. As one district court commented (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/missouri/moedce/4:2020cv00317/178907/449/), “The Court is not aware of any case, and Defendants have cited none, where the merging parties have successfully rebutted the government’s prima facie case on the strength of the efficiencies.” We have been unable to locate any study of merger efficiencies showing cost savings that are passed on as lower prices to consumers. Indeed, most studies show that mergers result in higher prices, lower economic performance, and less research and development.https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/the-mythology-of-horizontal-merger-efficiencies

[Winehole23]

private equity for the most part extracts rather than creates value, with predictable results (https://twitter.com/samjsutton/status/1701220985381196051?s=20)

1701220985381196051

[Winehole23]

ghoulish (https://twitter.com/CalebMelby/status/1701250578989404489?s=20)

1701250578989404489

[Winehole23]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F6jDdwrW0AAbyvA?format=jpg&name=small



1704843331333742986

[Winehole23]

"dead to rights" is probably hyperbole, antitrust cases aren't easy to win.

1705237838189768708

[Winehole23]

get 'em, Lina

1707417205942415653

1707418529723531593

[Winehole23]

FTC antitrust lawsuit against Amazon just dropped.


Most people think of Amazon as a retailer who sells to retail customers. But retail end users — you and me — aren’t really the customer. We are the product. And Amazon doesn’t really sell to us; it’s a middleman who sells access to us. The actual customers of Amazon are third-party businesses that rely on Amazon’s infrastructure to get their wares to the public.

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:s teep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faabe8d8 5-2874-4406-957e-0459ba14de68_1228x492.png
(https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faabe8d8 5-2874-4406-957e-0459ba14de68_1228x492.png)
(https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faabe8d8 5-2874-4406-957e-0459ba14de68_1228x492.png)
In 2022, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said this explicitly, “small and medium sized” sellers use Amazon not because of the “eCommerce software” Amazon provides but “because they get access to a few hundred million customers.” There are extremely high switching costs to move from one online superstore to another, so this is a business with significant barriers to entry.

Indeed, this barrier to entry is baked into the very structure of Amazon Prime and its free shipping, which was created, Jeff Bezos said, “to draw a moat around our best customers.” Here’s how the FTC complaint describes the allure of Prime, which is a bundle of services customers would prefer to order separately.



“This current restrictive structure of Prime reflects a deliberate strategy by Amazon to artificially increase barriers to entry and competition. As one former Amazon executive explained in recalling Amazon's motivation for adding non-shipping services to Prime, ‘[a]ny competitor might launch a Prime shipping clone, or they could potentially build a new Netflix-type service, but it was unlikely that any one of them would be able to do both.’”


Amazon’s strategy is to use Prime to build, extend, and fortify barriers to entry. One result of Prime is that Amazon now has an overwhelming monopoly share of online shoppers. And online shoppers aren’t the customer, but the product that Amazon brokers to third-party sellers, who must either pay Amazon what it demands or lose access to the market. As one seller put it, "We have nowhere else to go and Amazon knows it."
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-ftc-sues-to-break-up-amazon-over

[Winehole23]

Once it achieved monopoly power, Amazon squeezed on price through fees to third-party sellers. As a third-party seller, you pay fees for listing on Amazon; for using Amazon’s warehouse services, known as Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA); and for advertising services. If you don’t pay, you don’t get put in a place on the site where consumers click. "Advertised products on Amazon,” reads the complaint, “are 46 times more likely to be clicked on when compared with products that are not advertised." And these fees have all increased steadily over the years.

At this point, the price Amazon charges these third party sellers has grown to nearly 50% of its revenue. It is this money, estimated at $123 billion (https://cdn.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/AmazonMonopolyTollbooth-2023.pdf) in total last year, that pays for “free” shipping, as well as its video service, its music service, Twitch, and everything else that comes bundled with Prime. These third-party sellers in turn raise their prices to consumers, aka you and me, and then send that money back to Amazon in the form of fees. It’s basically money laundering.

This dynamic increasingly ruins the consumer experience. Amazon is now so full of pay-to-play ads that consumers are complaining they can’t find organic results, but are instead directed to higher priced items.

[Thread]

FTC antitrust lawsuit against Amazon just dropped.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-ftc-sues-to-break-up-amazon-over

You ain't had many, if any, but this, this is your finest hour, Winester.

Winester

[Winehole23]

*twirls dastardly moustache*

1707437964026868192

[Winehole23]

"information about how we screwed farmers and shoppers (https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1712146351662723410?s=20) is a proprietary trade secret!"

1712146351662723410

[Winehole23]

Ballad Health agreed to heightened regulation as a condition of its regional monopoly, then threatened to take away ambulance service when Carter County locals complained about them closing the County's only ICU.

https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/10/11/east-tennessee-official-says-ballad-health-issued-threats-to-care-after-community-protest/







An East Tennessee county commission will vote later this month on a resolution asking Tennessee lawmakers to break up or better regulate Ballad Health, a hospital chain that operates in the region as a state-sanctioned hospital monopoly.

But amid discussions of the resolution, Carter County Commissioner Nick Holder warned that if the resolution is approved at the commission’s Oct. 23 meeting, Ballad could punish the county by pulling private funding for an ambulance it said it would pay for after the company closed the county’s only Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Holder said Ballad made the ambulance funding threat after a previous meeting in the summer in which community members and some commissioners expressed frustrations over the hospital’s transparency and process for closing the ICU at the Sycamore Shoals Hospital in Elizabethton, a town of 14,000 located at the heart of Carter County in the northeastern corner of Tennessee.

“They were almost willing to take an ambulance from this county because of one meeting that made them mad,” Holder said during the commission’s health and welfare committee meeting held on Oct. 3.

[Winehole23]

Instead of having a face to face cartel, landlords have outsourced pricing to an algorithm that functionally does the same thing.

The guy who designed it also designed software that ripped off airplane passengers for a cool billion dollars from 1988-1992.




Camden’s turnover rates increased about 15 percentage points in 2006 after it implemented YieldStar, Campo, the company’s CEO, told a trade publication a few years later. But that wasn’t a problem for the firm: Despite having to replace more renters, its revenue grew by 7.4%.


“The net effect of driving revenue and pushing people out was $10 million in income,” Campo said. “I think that shows keeping the heads in the beds above all else is not always the best strategy.”https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent

[Winehole23]

jury slaps the egg cartel.

turns out egg producers.colluded (http://https://x.com/musharbash_b/status/1727096051235275086?s=20) to artificially restrict supply

high egg prices are greedflation.

1727091860961739042

1727096051235275086

[Thread]

jury slaps the egg cartel.

turns out egg producers.colluded (http://https://x.com/musharbash_b/status/1727096051235275086?s=20) to artificially restrict supply

high egg prices are greedflation.

1727091860961739042

1727096051235275086

That's American Democracy.

[Winehole23]

The U.S. Department of Justice late Wednesday stepped into a massive antitrust lawsuit filed by dozens of tenants who are accusing a tech company’s apartment software of helping landlords collude to inflate rents.

The DOJ action comes after a ProPublica investigation (https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent) last year found that Texas-based software provider RealPage used algorithms to recommend rents to landlords across the country to maximize profits — a practice that experts said may violate antitrust laws.
https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-fixing-case-big-landlords-real-estate-tech

[Winehole23]

“Put simply, RealPage allegedly replaces independent competitive decisionmaking on prices, which often leads to lower prices for tenants, with a price-fixing combination that violates” federal antitrust law, prosecutors wrote.

Not every use of an algorithm to set price violates federal law, they noted, but it is “unlawful when, as alleged here, competitors knowingly combine their sensitive, nonpublic pricing and supply information in an algorithm that they rely upon in making pricing decisions, with the knowledge and expectation that other competitors will do the same.”

[Winehole23]

GlaxoSmithKline bends the knee on asthma inhalers. When the FTC deigns to get out of its chair to enforce the law, monopolies shiver, markets get more competitive and people benefit.


GlaxoSmithKline’s line of inhalers is the most prescribed in the United States, and this corporation’s cut to patient costs follows two other giant corporations - AstraZeneca and Boehringer Ingelheim - who recently did the same thing.

Despite being a very old type of product that is sold inexpensively abroad, inhalers are a big business in America, generating (https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senators-baldwin-colleagues-launch-investigation-into-pharmaceutical-companies-high-price-of-asthma-inhalers) $178 billion in revenue between 2000 and 2021. Three firms - AstraZeneca, GSK, and Teva - had revenue of $25 billion in the past five years from this line of business. The high revenue is a result of high cost, with the list price of inhalers as somewhere between $200 to $600. A cut, therefore, is a big deal, especially for people with high deductible health care plans.

Why are inhalers so profitable? And why have three giant firms decided to forego this money? The short story is that pharmaceutical companies have been committing an extremely boring form of fraud that enabled them to maintain illegal monopoly protection for their products, and no one in government bothered to stop it. Last year, Chair Lina Khan at the Federal Trade Commission stepped up with some clever lawyering and removed their monopoly protection. And so these firms are preemptively choosing to cut what patients have to pay.
Monopoly Round-Up: How FTC Chair Lina Khan Cut Inhaler Costs to $35 (thebignewsletter.com) (https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-how-ftc-chair-lina)

[Thread]

GlaxoSmithKline bends the knee on asthma inhalers. When the FTC deigns to get out of its chair to enforce the law, monopolies shiver, markets get more competitive and people benefit.

Monopoly Round-Up: How FTC Chair Lina Khan Cut Inhaler Costs to $35 (thebignewsletter.com) (https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-how-ftc-chair-lina)

& you know what she'll do now, Winester? Go after some unfortunate schmuck and drive that fucker right into the shitter.

Let us proceed...

[Winehole23]

1636212739730296832Live Nation uses kickbacks and creative accounting to hide its profits, and also to screw artists, promoters, venues and customers.



https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:s teep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37017a0 d-7f3b-40d7-9362-ded39d98491c_566x216.png


Earlier this month, antitrust attorney Dan Wall wrote (https://www.livenationentertainment.com/2024/03/the-truth-about-ticket-prices/#:~:text=What%20we%20can%20say%20is,billions%20of% 20dollars%20in%20tickets.) a blog post on behalf of his client, Live Nation/Ticketmaster, trying to rebut the scrutiny on his firm (https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/dont-make-taylor-swift-fans-angry). And the tack he took was a bit surprising. “Concert promotion,” he wrote, “is not a highly profitable business, even for Live Nation.” Sure, Live Nation charges charges consumers a lot of money, and doesn’t pay much to artists. But they don’t, he wrote, set the ticket price. And even worse, for Live Nation shareholders at least, it’s just not a very good business, with the middleman giant affecting at most 2% of the price of a ticket for its trouble. “The narrative that Ticketmaster fees are responsible for high ticket prices makes no sense,” he added. “There is no way that’s true.”

It was a weird statement, considering Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino made $139 million in 2022. And according to new documents (https://pascrell.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ful.pdf) released by Congressman Bill Pascrell today from litigation in 2019, it’s flatly untrue. The allegations in the documents are “based upon Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s own financial data, documentation, and correspondence provided by Live Nation/Ticketmaster as part of discovery in a lawsuit that has been ongoing for well over a decade.” Live Nation, according to a lawyer facing the firm, “instituted a scheme which essentially defrauds everyone involved, from the artists to the ticket purchasers.”
Explosive New Documents Unearthed On Live Nation/Ticketmaster (thebignewsletter.com) (https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/explosive-new-documents-unearthed)

[Thread]

Live Nation uses kickbacks and creative accounting to hide its profits, and also to screw artists, promoters, venues and customers.



https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:s teep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37017a0 d-7f3b-40d7-9362-ded39d98491c_566x216.png

Explosive New Documents Unearthed On Live Nation/Ticketmaster (thebignewsletter.com) (https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/explosive-new-documents-unearthed)

It's a fuckin' cartoon, for Christ-sakes.

[Ef-man]

Well, well...

American oil tycoon accused of trying to conspire with OPEC to inflate prices

Scott Sheffield, the founder and longtime CEO of a leading American oil producer, attempted to collude with OPEC and its allies to inflate prices, federal regulators alleged on Thursday.

The Federal Trade Commission said Sheffield exchanged hundreds of text messages discussing pricing, production and oil market dynamics with officials at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, the cartel led by Saudi Arabia.

Regulators say Sheffield, then the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, used WhatsApp conversations, in-person meetings and public statements to try to “align oil production” in the Permian Basin in Texas with that of OPEC and OPEC+, the wider group that includes Russia.

Asked about reports that the FTC was considering recommending Sheffield face criminal charges, FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar told CNN: “The FTC has a responsibility to refer potentially criminal behavior and takes that obligation very seriously.”

Regulators acknowledged that Sheffield did not hide his efforts to “align” US production with that of OPEC, pointing to public comments he made urging US rivals to be “disciplined” about production.

“But Mr. Sheffield did not limit himself to public signaling to US counterparts — he has also held repeated, private conversations with high-ranking OPEC representatives assuring them that Pioneer and its Permian Basin rivals were working hard to keep oil output artificially low,” the FTC said.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/02/energy/oil-ceo-opec-scott-sheffield/index.html

[Thread]

Well, well...

American oil tycoon accused of trying to conspire with OPEC to inflate prices

Scott Sheffield, the founder and longtime CEO of a leading American oil producer, attempted to collude with OPEC and its allies to inflate prices, federal regulators alleged on Thursday.

The Federal Trade Commission said Sheffield exchanged hundreds of text messages discussing pricing, production and oil market dynamics with officials at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, the cartel led by Saudi Arabia.

Regulators say Sheffield, then the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, used WhatsApp conversations, in-person meetings and public statements to try to “align oil production” in the Permian Basin in Texas with that of OPEC and OPEC+, the wider group that includes Russia.

Asked about reports that the FTC was considering recommending Sheffield face criminal charges, FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar told CNN: “The FTC has a responsibility to refer potentially criminal behavior and takes that obligation very seriously.”

Regulators acknowledged that Sheffield did not hide his efforts to “align” US production with that of OPEC, pointing to public comments he made urging US rivals to be “disciplined” about production.

“But Mr. Sheffield did not limit himself to public signaling to US counterparts — he has also held repeated, private conversations with high-ranking OPEC representatives assuring them that Pioneer and its Permian Basin rivals were working hard to keep oil output artificially low,” the FTC said.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/02/energy/oil-ceo-opec-scott-sheffield/index.html

Old $5 a gallon Joe is comin. Comin' soon.
:lmao:lmao:lmao

[Winehole23]

Stuff like this normally goes by the boards, for a judicial opinion to be attached to the fact pattern isn't nothing, but damn close.


Eyewatering consent decree.

Chicken processors screwed farmers and suppressed wages and benefits sectorwide, for decades.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/09/16/2022-20014/united-states-v-cargill-meat-solutions-corp-et-al-proposed-final-judgments-and-competitive-impact

[Thread]

Stuff like this normally goes by the boards, for a judicial opinion to be attached to the fact pattern isn't nothing, but damn close.

Like shaved pussy.

[Winehole23]

Looks like the oil patch colluded with OPEC to goose gas prices, and inflation, in 2021.

Biden wanted a price gouging bill, but Republicans wouldn't allow it.


Last Sunday, I wrote a piece (https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-inflation-re-accelerating) alleging that U.S. shale oil producers colluded with the Saudi government from 2021-2023 to drive up gas prices. That essay was based on some reporting I had done, as well as a complaint (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6kg5nqpr3uxakc41bmywz/pm-53123561_complaint.pdf?rlkey=lvmfvw5cjz67kwu2hc1rb k8q8&dl=0) from a savvy Kansas City class action law firm, Sharp Law (https://sharplawllp.com/), with special expertise in oil. The theory was that American producers, after a bitter price war from 2014-2016, got tired of competing on price with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or the OPEC oil cartel, and at some point from 2017-2021, decided to join the cartel and cut supply to the market. This action had the affect of raising oil prices, costing oil consumers something on the order of $200 billion a year.

Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission released evidence (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/05/ftc-order-bans-former-pioneer-ceo-exxon-board-seat-exxon-pioneer-deal) confirming that collusion played a serious role in hiking oil prices at that time. Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield, a leader in the fracking field, “exchanged hundreds of text messages with OPEC representatives and officials discussing crude oil market dynamics, pricing and output.” Sheffield was explicit about his goal, saying that “if Texas leads the way, maybe we can get OPEC to cut production. Maybe Saudi and Russia will follow. That was our plan,” he said, adding: “I was using the tactics of OPEC+ to get a bigger OPEC+ done.” He talked to shareholders, publicly threatened rivals, and ultimately achieved output cuts across the industry regardless of price. “Even if oil gets to $200/barrel,” he said, “the independent producers are going to be disciplined.”
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/an-oil-price-fixing-conspiracy-caused

[Ef-man]

Well, well...

American oil tycoon accused of trying to conspire with OPEC to inflate prices

Scott Sheffield, the founder and longtime CEO of a leading American oil producer, attempted to collude with OPEC and its allies to inflate prices, federal regulators alleged on Thursday.

The Federal Trade Commission said Sheffield exchanged hundreds of text messages discussing pricing, production and oil market dynamics with officials at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, the cartel led by Saudi Arabia.

Regulators say Sheffield, then the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, used WhatsApp conversations, in-person meetings and public statements to try to “align oil production” in the Permian Basin in Texas with that of OPEC and OPEC+, the wider group that includes Russia.

Asked about reports that the FTC was considering recommending Sheffield face criminal charges, FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar told CNN: “The FTC has a responsibility to refer potentially criminal behavior and takes that obligation very seriously.”

Regulators acknowledged that Sheffield did not hide his efforts to “align” US production with that of OPEC, pointing to public comments he made urging US rivals to be “disciplined” about production.

“But Mr. Sheffield did not limit himself to public signaling to US counterparts — he has also held repeated, private conversations with high-ranking OPEC representatives assuring them that Pioneer and its Permian Basin rivals were working hard to keep oil output artificially low,” the FTC said.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/02/energy/oil-ceo-opec-scott-sheffield/index.html

Big question is if FTC will charge Sheffield criminally sooner rather than later!

[Winehole23]

Big question is if FTC will charge Sheffield criminally sooner rather than later!all they can to is refer it to LE, the FTC can't charge anyone criminally

[Ef-man]

all they can to is refer it to LE, the FTC can't charge anyone criminally

You mean refer the case to the DOJ but it seems that FTC opposed the proposed acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources Company by ExxonMobile and convinced them not to let Sheffield join the executive board.

[Winehole23]

You mean refer the case to the DOJ but it seems that FTC opposed the proposed acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources Company by ExxonMobile and convinced them not to let Sheffield join the executive board.DOJ is law enforcement, profe

[Ef-man]

DOJ is law enforcement, profe

DOJ as in AUSA not LE as in FBI.

[Thread]

Looks like the oil patch colluded with OPEC to goose gas prices, and inflation, in 2021.

Biden wanted a price gouging bill, but Republicans wouldn't allow it.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/an-oil-price-fixing-conspiracy-caused

Is that what it was, Winester? I just thought it was North of $5 a gallon gas.

It's comin' again, daddy.

Let us proceed...

[Thread]

DOJ as in AUSA not LE as in FBI.

...who, did your fucked around at Waco & found out scenario there at OKC. I'd do the picture of that there ground zero, but, they'd run me off again, eh?
:lmao:lmao:lmao

[Winehole23]

DOJ as in AUSA not LE as in FBI.ok

[Thread]

ok

l[your]controllinao!!!

[Winehole23]

ISPs would rather strand captive communities with crap connections and outmoded infrastructure than invest in their own operations and make more money in the long run. This is the way monopolies behave.

1791146463923507476

1791146466934923720

[Winehole23]

On the neo-feudal farm, somewhat like in the old one, the rudiments of life are rented to us for the benefit of the owners. Apps, software, music, images, emails, browsing history, personal GPS coordinates, original text, none of this is owned by the "users". Teslas are bricked if the software fails, or if the owner attempts an unauthorized repair. There are myriad examples...



it's like the early 20th century, competition-wise, but the global scale of the economies makes it worse.

the dragons of finance and industry are buying up the world and renting it back to us.

1405879134295896065

[Winehole23]

more greedflation

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO7WfWXXwAEm2Y2?format=jpg&name=medium

[Thread]

more greedflation

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO7WfWXXwAEm2Y2?format=jpg&name=medium

Nobody to blame but Biden and that fuck Hussein Obama who is in that White House as well, the piece a shit.

[Winehole23]

1796639131772076402

[Winehole23]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVZanlPXEAAQQff?format=jpg&name=small

1798092845733031982

[Winehole23]

It's still price fixing if an algo does it for you.


It’s uncanny how most of the modern ills plaguing our economy today can be traced back to airlines. The industry is a petri dish of contaminants, from deregulation to market consolidation to financialization, that metastasized into other sectors in the 20th century.


We can add to that list the rise of algorithmic pricing, an emerging economic configuration where all competitors in a market outsource their price-setting functions to the same third-party software, in a not-that-innocent plot to fix prices.


These new pricing intermediaries are similar to ATPCO, but don’t just act as information exchanges between competitors. They actually set the prices for an entire industry by using machine-learning algorithms and artificial intelligence, which are programmed to maximize profits. To arrive at optimal prices, these software applications aggregate vast amounts of relevant market data, some of which is public and much of which is competitively sensitive information given to them by their clients.

Each algorithmic scheme has its own distinct features, but they all share the same underlying philosophy: Competing on price in an open market is a race to the bottom, so why not instead coordinate together to grow industry’s profits? In other words, it’s another version of the notorious Peter Thiel adage (https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-losers-1410535536) that “competition is for losers.”

These business arrangements are coming under fire from a new crop of antitrust regulators who are far more aggressive than their predecessors. Both the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are intervening to help in numerous lawsuits making their way through courts that target algorithmic price-fixing. The DOJ has even returned to the arena with its own collusion case against an agricultural information hub called Agri Stats. The outcomes could have major ramifications for this field, and rectify the lax enforcement of ATPCO in the 1990s.
Three Algorithms in a Room - The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-05-three-algorithms-in-a-room/)

[Winehole23]

dynamic pricing (https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-07-urge-to-surge/) surely wasn't developed to give out more discounts than upcharges


The internet nearly exploded this February when Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner announced that the fast-food chain intended (https://gizmodo.com/wendys-wants-uber-surge-pricing-in-2025-1851288108) to embrace “surge pricing,” raising the prices of a burger and a Frosty in line with customer demand.

The company had included a mention of “dynamic pricing” in its fourth-quarter earnings presentation, but c (https://www.wendys.com/blog/wendys-digital-news-update)larified (https://www.wendys.com/blog/wendys-digital-news-update) after the kerfuffle that the announcement of its new digital menu displays had been “misconstrued in some media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is highest,” and said that it had “no plans to do that.” Instead, the new system would merely allow Wendy’s to “offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily.”

[Winehole23]

1805089179786727779

https://x.com/katewillett/status/1805089179786727779

[Thread]

1805089179786727779

https://x.com/katewillett/status/1805089179786727779

It's called AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, honey.

[Winehole23]

the GOP takes the side of the oligopoly and greedy exploitation

1805601609516274160link (https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1805601609516274160)

[Winehole23]

another banger Cory Doctorow thread

1806733317779423397

1806733327111749977

https://x.com/doctorow/status/1806733317779423397

[Winehole23]

payment processing for public school lunches

18169106765748019

1816910693599445450

1816910683180794193

https://x.com/doctorow/status/1816910676574801930

[Thread]

payment processing for public school lunches

18169106765748019

1816910693599445450

1816910683180794193

https://x.com/doctorow/status/1816910676574801930





Eh. We then turn around and giveFREE FULL RIDE health-care to millions of Nazi's in Ukraine. You know who did that, Winester?...

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41xetrwU5KL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

Let us proceed...

[Winehole23]

How did CrowdStrike get the clout to screw up IT globally and get away with it?

1819771847766110494

https://x.com/doctorow/status/1819771847766110494

[Thread]

How did CrowdStrike get the clout to screw up IT globally and get away with it?

1819771847766110494

https://x.com/doctorow/status/1819771847766110494


Eh. We then turn around and giveFREE FULL RIDE health-care to millions of Nazi's in Ukraine. You know who did that, Winester?...

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41xetrwU5KL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

Let us proceed...

[Winehole23]

Lina Khan going after greedflation

1820242936556052612https://x.com/AnnaForFlorida/status/1820242936556052612

[Thread]

Lina Khan going after greedflation

1820242936556052612https://x.com/AnnaForFlorida/status/1820242936556052612

Lord-a-mighty, does she have a honker on her.

[Winehole23]

not likely, but fun to think about

1821337802748936201https://x.com/mattdpearce/status/1821337802748936201

[Winehole23]

1823704788556771422 (https://x.com/doctorow/status/1823704788556771422)

https://x.com/doctorow/status/1823705975511245125

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/price-discrimination-robinson-patman-violations

[Winehole23]

1823705975511245125 (https://x.com/doctorow/status/1823705975511245125)

[Winehole23]

The Robinson-Patman Act is still on the books

1824097882678632647https://x.com/ernietedeschi/status/1824097882678632647

[Winehole23]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GWB0VjTWIAAho3K?format=jpg&name=medium

[Winehole23]

Admins wonder if the cloud was such a good idea after all • The Register (https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/04/cloud_buyers_regret)

According to a report (https://www.civo.com/cost-of-cloud-report-2024) published by UK cloud outfit Civo, more than a third of organizations surveyed reckoned that their move to the cloud had failed to live up to promises of cost-effectiveness. Over half reported a rise in their cloud bill.


Although the survey, unsurprisingly, paints Civo in a flattering light, some of its figures may make uncomfortable reading for customers sold on the promises from hyperscalers. Like-for-like comparisons for a simple three-node cluster with 200 GB of persistent storage and a 5 TB data transfer showed prices going from $1,278.58 in 2022 to $1,458.68 in 2024 on Microsoft Azure.


For Google, the price went from $1,107.61 to $1,250.35. According to Civo's figures, the cost at AWS increased from $1,142.46 to $1,234.59.

"The Kubernetes prices were taken from the hyperscalers' very own pricing calculators," a Civo spokesperson told The Register.


In the IT world, there is an expectation that bang for buck increases as time goes by, but in this example, prices are rising faster than the rate of inflation (https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/), and what customers receive for their money remains unchanged.


John David-Lovelock, VP analyst at Gartner, said CIOs had been conditioned not to expect price increases since the cloud emerged.


"Cost control, based on operating datacenters at massive scale, was part of the early sales pitch and in the intervening 15 years, it had proven out – cloud product costs were stable, and either went down in price or more features were added at the same price," he told us.


"However, the rapid rise in the cost of electricity post-pandemic, coupled with the rising cost of skilled IT staff, put cloud delivery under new cost pressures that had to be passed on, from hyperscalers to platform provider, from platform provider to software provider, and finally from software providers to clients.


"While there are cost pressures behind these increases being felt across the cloud spectrum, opportunistic price increases cannot be ruled out."

[Winehole23]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXj-nabXwAAPVc5?format=jpg&name=900x900

[Winehole23]

Up to a Quarter of Rental Inflation Is Due to Price-Fixing (thebignewsletter.com) (https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/up-to-a-quarter-of-rental-inflation)

[Winehole23]

FTC going after Pharmacy Benefit Managers

Another great explainer thread from Cory Doctorow

1838240320653291841

https://x.com/doctorow/status/1838240320653291841