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"Market failures" only exist because of government caused imbalances. Sort of like monopolies.
We don't live in anything resembling a true free market but I'll be looking forward to see you blame free markets for our current economic stagnation.
The rise of the corporate colossus threatens both compe ion and the legitimacy of business
DISRUPTION may be the buzzword in boardrooms, but the most striking feature of business today is not the overturning of the established order. It is the entrenchment of a group of superstar companies at the heart of the global economy. Some of these are old firms, like GE, that have reinvented themselves. Some are emerging-market champions, like Samsung, which have seized the opportunities provided by globalisation. The elite of the elite are high-tech wizards—Google, Apple, Facebook and the rest—that have conjured up corporate empires from bits and bytes.
As our special report this week makes clear, the superstars are admirable in many ways. They churn out products that improve consumers’ lives, from smarter smartphones to sharper televisions. They provide Americans and Europeans with an estimated $280 billion-worth of “free” services—such as search or directions—a year. But they have two big faults. They are squashing compe ion, and they are using the darker arts of management to stay ahead. Neither is easy to solve. But failing to do so risks a backlash which will be bad for everyone.
...
or many laissez-faire types this is only a temporary problem. Modern technology is lowering barriers to entry; flaccid in bents will be destroyed by smaller, leaner ones. But the idea that market concentration is self-correcting is more questionable than it once was. Slower growth encourages companies to buy their rivals and squeeze out costs. High-tech companies grow more useful to customers when they attract more users and when they gather ever more data about those users.
The heft of the superstars also reflects their excellence at less productive activities. About 30% of global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows through tax havens; big companies routinely use “transfer pricing” to pretend that profits generated in one part of the world are in fact made in another. The giants also deploy huge armies of lobbyists, bringing the same techniques to Brussels, where 30,000 lobbyists now walk the corridors, that they perfected in Washington, DC. Laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank, to say nothing of America’s tax code, penalise small firms more than large ones.
None of this helps the image of big business. Paying tax seems to be unavoidable for individuals but optional for firms. Rules are unbending for citizens, and up for negotiation when it comes to companies. Nor do profits translate into jobs as once they did. In 1990 the top three carmakers in Detroit had a market capitalisation of $36 billion and 1.2m employees. In 2014 the top three firms in Silicon Valley, with a market capitalisation of over $1 trillion, had only 137,000 employees.
(more at link)
http://www.economist.com/news/leader...imacy-business
Free markets are awesome, and generally are preferable to any other way of organizing an economy.
They are also very fallible, and prone to failures that make us all worse off.
I present this only to counter the "we don't need any government" meme that man libertarians seem to favor.
Government should get out of the way of the private sector, as much as possible. But, by the same token, government has a role in setting rules and establishing a playing field that is fair.
"Market failures" only exist because of government caused imbalances. Sort of like monopolies.
We don't live in anything resembling a true free market but I'll be looking forward to see you blame free markets for our current economic stagnation.
Too big gives them too much control over the very government we need to regulate them to the point that we (the govt) end up stacking the deck in the monolithic company's favor. Not capitalism, corporatism. Smaller government can mean less government to buy, also.
Government isn't the problem when large companies use their leverage to muscle out their compe ors (for example, out bidding for retail shelf-space against smaller compe ors).
Monopolies do not get to where they are by relying on regulatory levers alone.
Tragedy of the commons.
Anyone having passed macro/micro economics can easily point out market-based mechanisms for imbalances that aren't caused by governments.
To say that imbalances are only caused by governments is Libertarian propaganda fail.
Would you like that fleshed out?
Honestly my time today is rather short, you can easily find the information you need to correct this mistaken belief in many basic economics courses.
Respectfully:
Please don't take my word for it, take some personal responsibility to educate yourself. We could all use reading and re-reading, as it makes us better at making decisions, and this is important.
I agree with pretty much everything you've stated. However, I do believe we need less government.
I believe this fat albino needs less moobs
fliphone
Goddam! That is one hot mofo!I believe this fat albino needs less moobs
check out the wallpaper. you at grannys house?
that 2nd pic......you look like the cop that was killing girls in "the dead zone"
Who is this person supposed to be?I believe this fat albino needs less moobs
tlong
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