Quote:
Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy
Perfect example of trying to win at capitalism:
The monopoly is the checkmate of capitalism, where greed through no competitive pricing can be exploited.
Anti trust laws (name left over from the 1920's and 30's when trusts became the monopolies) aim to prevent that resulting in oligopolies of today. AT&T is now one of several cell phone and cable companies . . broken up and then disrupted by technology.
Sorry not sorry you got sued and busted.. Technology and disruptors look to exploit these mostly regional monopolies by being more creative or round up a gaggle of lawyers for a class action suit. The buyers agent agreement is the NAR trying to maintain employment for their members. .
end of business/economics 100
not sure how this settlement will all end up at the end. . . my posts have all been from trying to interpret the potential implementation/execution of the current agreement. Beyond that, no idea, though its a mentally fun exercise in long term strategy
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Another potential checkmate against monopolies: have an entire government department dedicated to acquisitions.
Any corporation that starts buying up the competition (or pushing the competition out of business) could risk a government takeover. The Gov't wouldn't be obligated to actually buy them all, but they would have that option.
The Bell System worked great, because the entire country worked on a single system. It cooperated with itself. When they were forced to split off, some companies had trouble getting colocs from the bank. When DSL rolled out, companies would fight over real estate at the central offices, or one company would get the bid and push all the other ones out. If it was all the Bell System, it would've happened much sooner, much more efficiently.
And then there was the Southwestern Bell war, when SWB started buying out other companies, including the ORIGINAL phone company in this country, Southern New England Telephone (where I worked while all this was happening). They influenced our union to sell out to the Teamsters, who then just completely ruined the union and gutted our retirement plans and upward mobility opportunities within the company. Then SWB shut down entire departments, moving them from Connecticut to Texas - and only offering to move the department heads if they wanted to leave Connecticut with no contract and no union protection at all.
Then, once SWB was fully ensconced in the state, they sold to AT&T, which gutted it further, forcing employees who were doing tech work to push for sales on the phone if they wanted to keep their 401Ks intact. And then the final insult - AT&T sold its internet service to Frontier, who came in and created an absolute disaster. It took me the better part of 6 MONTHS to get internet service, when the service I had with SNET was perfectly fine. People all over the state had this problem - because Frontier doesn't "play nice" with other telecommunications companies.
We would've been better off if one company owned the whole shebang. And since it's a utility, the government could've had as much oversight and regulation of prices as they wanted. Or they could've just taken ownership of it themselves.
In short, the idea of the government running a monopoly could actually work, IF it was a threat to the world of commerce - a consequence of having a monopoly in the first place. To prevent monopolies, make it be not in a company's best interest to become one.