America Is Not The Land Of The Free But One Of Monopolies So Predatory They Imperil The Nation

[skews13]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

 

[JGalt]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

Ever wonder why those things you mentions are cheaper in Europe?

Because the government subsidizes them with unusually-high taxes.

 

[ThunderKiss1965]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

Ever wonder why those things you mentions are cheaper in Europe?

Because the government subsidizes them with unusually-high taxes.

I believe the US consumer is also subsidizing those lower costs.

 

[harmonica]

it is the Lord's will

 

[ThunderKiss1965]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

Will Hutton is just another keynesian loon.
Will Hutton - Wikipedia

 

[JGalt]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

Ever wonder why those things you mentions are cheaper in Europe?

Because the government subsidizes them with unusually-high taxes.

I believe the US consumer is also subsidizing those lower costs.

We are. Like those charges that can show up on the phone bill: Universal Service Fund Fee, State Telecommunications Excise Surcharge in some states, 911/Emergency Response Fees, Regulatory Charge, Administrative Charge, and Gross Receipts Surcharge.

Makes you wonder just who ended up paying for all those Obamaphones.

 

[Mac1958]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

 

[Mac-7]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

Ever wonder why those things you mentions are cheaper in Europe?

Because the government subsidizes them with unusually-high taxes.

I believe the US consumer is also subsidizing those lower costs.

We are. Like those charges that can show up on the phone bill: Universal Service Fund Fee, State Telecommunications Excise Surcharge in some states, 911/Emergency Response Fees, Regulatory Charge, Administrative Charge, and Gross Receipts Surcharge.

Makes you wonder just who ended up paying for all those Obamaphones.

American consumers pay for the “free” obamaphones

 

[skews13]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

Apparently the capitalists here have never actually read Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith. The father of capitalism they claim to worship.

And if they did, didn't understand what they read. Here's a hint. Capitalism is based upon 100 businesses competing for market share on a level playing field. Not 3 megacorps dividing up the market share among themselve's, giving the consumer mediocre product at inflated prices, and giving bribes to politicians to make sure it stays that way.

That would be called communism.

 

[Mac1958]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

Apparently the capitalists here have never actually read Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith. The father of capitalism they claim to worship.

And if they did, didn't understand what they read. Here's a hint. Capitalism is based upon 100 businesses competing for market share on a level playing field. Not 3 megacorps dividing up the market share among themselve's, giving the consumer mediocre product at inflated prices, and giving bribes to politicians to make sure it stays that way.

That would be called communism.

I think the core of the problem here is the fact that economics and economic systems, like virtually everything else, have become hyper-politicized.

That ultimately means that the whole issue has become dumbed down, over-simplified, and polluted with shallow talking points and corrosive platitudes.

That leads directly to inane, worthless conclusions like "corporations and profits are evil", "controls and regulations are communism", and the like.

This is part of a bigger picture: We simply no longer have the capacity to communicate in an intelligent, productive way. I guess the skill is like a muscle: Use it or lose it.
.

 

[MarathonMike]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

Is Dodd-Frank proper control and regulation?

 

[Mac1958]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

Is Dodd-Frank proper control and regulation?

I think it was a proper attempt, but weak overall.

I like the fact that it addressed a few issues that needed to be addressed, especially bank leverage, but there's much more that is needed. It feels more like a band aid, and I'm not a big fan of those.

It added to my paperwork a bit, and it slowed down a couple of my processes, but I guess it's a start. What we need is the return of a more flexible Glass Steagall.
.

 

[DustyInfinity]

I think we can all agree the increasing monopolies are a bad thing. Too bad they bought the people who could have fixed it.

 

[CWayne]

We can start by breaking up the monopolies of Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter.

 

[skews13]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

Is Dodd-Frank proper control and regulation?

No. Glass-Steagall is, and it needs to be reinstalled.

 

[Oddball]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

Yet you are an enthusiastic pissboi for the greatest monopoly of them all: The State.

Rube.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

Is Dodd-Frank proper control and regulation?

No. Glass-Steagall is, and it needs to be reinstalled.

Glass-Steagall wouldn't have stopped crappy mortgages.

 

[BrokeLoser]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

Be bold...
When translated does that mean “Father Government should ‘control’ all commodities”?

 

[Dragonlady]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

Ever wonder why those things you mentions are cheaper in Europe?

Because the government subsidizes them with unusually-high taxes.

Kindly explain how high taxes subsidize airline travel or phone bills, or WIFI. As someone who has worked my entire career in banking, finance and law, I haven't the vaguest idea of what you're talking about, and I'm willing to bet real money that you don't either.

 

[Mac1958]

The US economy is becoming increasingly harmed by ever less competition, with fewer and fewer companies dominating sector after sector – from airlines to mobile phones. Market power is the most important concept in economics, he says. When firms dominate a sector, they invest and innovate less, they peg or raise prices, and they make super-normal profits by just existing (what economists call “economic rent”). So it is that mobile phone bills in the US are on average $100 a month, twice that of France and Germany, with the same story in broadband. Profits per passenger airline mile in the US are twice those in Europe. US healthcare is impossibly expensive, with drug companies fixing prices twice as high or even higher than those in Europe; health spending is 18% of GDP. Google, Amazon and Facebook have been allowed to become supermonopolies, buying up smaller challengers with no obstruction.

This monopolising process gums up everything. Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years. Because prices stay high, wages buy less, so workers’ lifestyles, unless they borrow, get squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid ever more with impunity. Inequality escalates to unsupportable levels. Even life expectancy is now falling across the US.

America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation | Will Hutton

We have allowed capitalism to become distorted by refusing to place and maintain its needed controls.

Proper controls and regulations are not a bane to capitalism, as some think; they're a critical component of it.

We learned nothing from the Meltdown.
.

Be bold...
When translated does that mean “Father Government should ‘control’ all commodities”?

No, of course not.

At least you asked this time. Usually you just lie about my positions.

Progress, I guess.
.