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Are we allowing companies to get too big allowing them to control a market?

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independentusa

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The idea of capitalism is that you have a free market where competition determines price. The one thing that makes capitalism NOT work is monopolies. Monopolies aren't just one company owning a entire market, although that is happening. They can be a group of companies who together control a market. It seem right now the government is doing little to control markets from coming under the control of a single or multiple company monopolies. A good example of the single company monopolies could be Microsoft, Google or Facebook. All three own such a huge part of their market that there is no competition. All three will go after any company that threatens. their market position, A market where there is a group of companies that control a market and do not compete is the energy companies that control the gas and diesel stations. When I was young there were over 20 oil companies and competition was fierce. There were always "gas wars" going on between the different stations controlled by the many companies. Since that time the big fish ate the little fish, being allowed to do so by the government, and now it is difficult to find two stations near one another that vary in price at all or by more than a penny. These aren't the only mergers that the government has allowed that has killed competition, there are many more including the financial industry. So, should the government continue to allow such mergers, or should they do as they have done in the past and required some of these companies to break up to provide more competition and make our capitalistic system work as it should?
 
Yes. We are.
 
independentusa said:
The idea of capitalism is that you have a free market where competition determines price. The one thing that makes capitalism NOT work is monopolies. Monopolies aren't just one company owning a entire market, although that is happening. They can be a group of companies who together control a market. It seem right now the government is doing little to control markets from coming under the control of a single or multiple company monopolies. A good example of the single company monopolies could be Microsoft, Google or Facebook. All three own such a huge part of their market that there is no competition. All three will go after any company that threatens. their market position, A market where there is a group of companies that control a market and do not compete is the energy companies that control the gas and diesel stations. When I was young there were over 20 oil companies and competition was fierce. There were always "gas wars" going on between the different stations controlled by the many companies. Since that time the big fish ate the little fish, being allowed to do so by the government, and now it is difficult to find two stations near one another that vary in price at all or by more than a penny. These aren't the only mergers that the government has allowed that has killed competition, there are many more including the financial industry. So, should the government continue to allow such mergers, or should they do as they have done in the past and required some of these companies to break up to provide more competition and make our capitalistic system work as it should?
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Of course, and then they use Washington to impose regulation that is expensive to conform with in order to freeze out anyone trying to challenge them because upstart or small firms cant afford the costs but the giant can.....then they also use Washington to shoot them kickbacks in the form of specially tailored tax breaks so that the profits stay healthy. For this and other reasons America has not been free market capitalist for a long time.
 
Are we allowing companies to get too big allowing them to control a market?
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i'd say yes. the problem with capitalism is that if not properly regulated, it eats itself. you wind up with fewer winners, and they are so big that they can exert a massive negative force on the competition that makes capitalism work well.
 
One of the more realistic scenarios we sometimes see in dystopian sci-fi is a world in which a handful of super large multi national corporations accumulate more power and resources than governments wield, to the point that the corporations run the world and make the rules. We should be as distrustful of corporate power as we are of government power.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Of course, and then they use Washington to impose regulation that is expensive to conform with in order to freeze out anyone trying to challenge them because upstart or small firms cant afford the costs but the giant can.....then they also use Washington to shoot them kickbacks in the form of specially tailored tax breaks so that the profits stay healthy. For this and other reasons America has not been free market capitalist for a long time.
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It is not just the size of corporations. When a little fish comes up with a new idea that could move the market share toward the little fish, the big fish will just make a product too close to the one just developed by the little fish. When it ends up in court the big fish can afford to fight the fight for years while the little fish can't. So the little fish will just sell out rather than lose it all. I have seen this happen time after time through the years. Microsoft was especially good at this.
 
independentusa said:
It is not just the size of corporations. When a little fish comes up with a new idea that could move the market share toward the little fish, the big fish will just make a product too close to the one just developed by the little fish. When it ends up in court the big fish can afford to fight the fight for years while the little fish can't. So the little fish will just sell out rather than lose it all. I have seen this happen time after time through the years. Microsoft was especially good at this.
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Or when they see anything promising come up they buy it, consume it...I was reading though I am not expert here that the big firms generally dont grow their business, they grow by consuming new business .....which after they are done with them no longer exist.

Big Business is good for milking businesses and markets, not creating them, which if true is not good for us, it simply is another example of the haves exploiting the have nots, some of the more immoral behavior that humans can conduct, but we do so much of it us moderns , because boy we suck now....
 
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Here is an example of a startup that will stay competitive and beat out the big guys. Rock rose energy Plc. You whiners have no one to blame but yourselves for your lack of motivation.
 
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