Reigning in #Monopoly #Oligopoly through #AntiTrust new merger guidelines.

COMMENT on your experiences, @ 18 July - 60 days to give feedback.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-guidelines-and-overthrowing

Over the past four days, I’ve been watching the business press go crazy about an obscure document that the antitrust agencies put out, known as ‘merger guidelines.’ And like the Catholic Church of the 1500s, or really members of any authoritarian social hierarchy, the antitrust priesthood is very upset.

https://www.regulations.gov/document/FTC-2023-0043-0001

US agency loses bid to halt Microsoft’s $69bn purchase of Activision Blizzard | Microsoft | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/14/microsoft-activision-blizzard-deal-us-court-ruling-ftc

#Capitalism #Oligopoly

Moved from Shaw to Rogers and they are not providing the same plan. #oligopoly #rogers

I had a pay-after By-the-Gig plan with Shaw for 1 GB for $10. Each GB could last for 90 days and would be extended if I bought more.

Rogers offers 300 MB for $15, 1.5 GB for $25, 3 GB for $35, or 5 GB for $45, it only lasts for a month, and it automatically renews unless I cancel it. This is nothing like my Shaw plan.

"Focus: Climate Change and Environmental Health: The #Economics of Scientific #Publishing"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303255/

Keywords: #Antitrust, #competition, government intervention, #oligopoly, public good
h/t (because credit where due) @oatp
@economics

Once more. #Monopoly #Oligopoly

Private Equity firms strip mining society for maximum profits, driving up prices, shittifying services.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/06/29/private-equity-medical-practices-raise-prices/

Private-equity firms are merging doctor groups to create firms that critics say are big enough to wield >excessive< power over prices.

The insurer said it had singled out the USAP contract for termination because the company wanted to charge 70 percent more than competitors in Colorado and twice as much as competitors in Texas.

The Unite Union are doing some great work on un-masking the costs of #oligopoly in the UK (which is the character of so many market sectors):

Their research notes that in countries with three rather than four major #telecoms & #mobilephone operators prices are around 20% higher!

Consolidation of markets (which the Competition & Markets Authority is meant to police) is a key element they argue to #greedflation in the UK!

Its not the whole story but its a big element!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/29/why-uk-must-stop-vodafone-three-merger-and-this-cycle-of-greedflation

How One Drug Could Break America’s Health Care System - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrjAhDQKpS0

American healthcare is so broken, and only really benefits BigPharma. All hey care about is ever-increasing profits, not actual human health. And this won't change thanks to corporate finance of the political system. AKA legalised corruption.

#Healthcare #PriceGouging #Capitalism #PredatoryCapitalism #Corruption #Oligopoly

@ragectl yeah, Oligopoly gonna #Oligopoly

Why every radio station sounds the same - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhapXNTzdQI

Recommended reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly

#Radio #Capitalism #Oligopoly

Send some love to the people in Richibucto, fighting a stinking polluting company that breaks the law daily, ruining their community. The corps in this province do anything they want and no one stops them.

higgs' own party has turned against him two sittings in a row now. He might force an election - we will have a chance!

#nb #newbrunswick #canada #cdnpoli #nbpoli #nobillionaires #oligopoly #resist #fightback

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/richibucto-stink-company-reopened-1.6874886

You wanted to know why drugs are so expensive in the USA?

https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/the-costs-of-pharma-cheating/

An overview of the tricks companies are using to keep their profits sky high.

Full report
http://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/AELP_052023_PharmaCheats_Report_FINAL.pdf

#Monopoly #Oligopoly #Economy

As Helen Thomas (FT) points out, when we're trying to track down the culprits of #greedflation, the #supermarkets are not really in the frame; 'the bigger picture is that the share of UK household budgets going on food has fallen from a third in 1950 to about 10%, low by international standards'.

But, as I have pointed out before, a focus on price(s), misses the distorting effects of the #supermarkets #oligopoly which has had a detrimental impact on our #foodsystem

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/politics/economy/oligopolies-market-power-and-the-exploitation-of-the-consumer/

That complexity means that most of us can't figure out how to file our own taxes, at least not without committing scarce hours out of the only life we will ever have to poring over the ramified and obscure maze of tax-law.

Why doesn't the #IRS just send you a tax-return? Well, because the tax-prep industry - an #oligopoly dominated by a handful of massive, ultra-profitable firms - bribes Congress (that is, "lobbies") to prohibit this.

5/

Even good systems of government or economics aren’t good forever. Our world changes and if we don’t respond we’re in trouble.

We’re now undergoing probably the biggest change since the industrial revolution. (And it’s about the planet.)

Even if you don’t normally like economics, I commend Ross Garnault’s historically important thoughts on the problems our current capitalist system is creating. #oligopoly

“RBA rate hikes creating inflation, top economist says, calling for radical policy overhaul”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-05/ross-garnaut-rate-hikes-feed-inflation-urges-policy-overhaul/102302152

I'm defending #supermarkets as their ability to maintain an #oligopoly over much of the #food market has had a clear detrimental impact on the UK social-economy, but, quoting profits in £ & then complaining they're profiteering misunderstands the size of these firms

They may be be manipulating the market to their ends, but their profit margins (remaining below 5%) are not out-of-line with 'normal profits

The #LibDems should focus on the manipulation, not the profits!

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/politics/economy/oligopolies-market-power-and-the-exploitation-of-the-consumer/

Rogers takeover of shaw approved

Laura Tribe of OpenMedia sums up my thoughts on this perfectly: "Today's decision is the largest blow to telecommunications competition and affordability we've ever seen."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-shaw-approval-1.6797175

Our government is absolutely not looking out for our best interests. Adding another large corporation to our telecommunications oligopily will not solve our oligopoly problem! Things will be much worse for consumers! Good luck enforcing these rules (which are already very light handed), they'll have plenty of money made by ripping off Canadian's to fight it all in court. These conditions are about as useful as a pinky promise.

Monopolies and oligopilies have shown us over and over again that they will never act in the favor of the consumer (that directly violates their one goal: profit). Why do we keep approving them? Instead of allowing them to operate and wasting millions of taxpayers money trying to enforce rules why don't we just prevent them from forming in the first place?

#antitrust #poli #CanadaPolitics #shaw #rogers #merger #oligopoly #monopoly

In my 1st month of writing for @NWBylines I've had 4 articles published:

Something on the economic aspects of #LongCovid;

A discussion of how we might understand the way #supplychains are managed;

A piece on what seafarer abandonment tells us about the way our current form of #capitalism treats #workers; and...

my most recent piece on market power & #oligopoly, using the #supermarket sector as a key case study.

These all expand on posts here, so you be interested

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/author/chrismay/

Here's my latest for @NWBylines where I explore the problem of #oligopoly, using #supermarkets as a case, and suggest that merely focussing on excess profits misses the socio-economic issues around sectors dominated by a small number of firms...

oligopoly not only patterns much of the UK economy, its a key aspect of the current crises we are living through.

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/business/oligopolies-market-power-and-the-exploitation-of-the-consumer/

The tendency to oligopoly lies behind many of the UK’s contemporary economic problems, as the supermarket sector shows. By @ChrisMayLA6
#Bylines #Economy #Oligopoly
https://northwestbylines.co.uk/business/oligopolies-market-power-and-the-exploitation-of-the-consumer/

From Elaine Westbrooks, University Librarian at @cornell:
https://cornellsun.com/2023/03/17/future-of-scholarly-communications-committee-promotes-equitable-sustainable-academic-publications-at-faculty-senate-meeting/

"I want to be clear that I do not believe that #publishers are inherently evil, or bad. What I really want to bring home is the fact that this is not good for science, it’s not good for scholarship and it’s not good for innovation to have a small set of multinational companies, that we call an #oligopoly, control all the academic #publishing in the world."

@academicchatter