
Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy - howard941
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/united-states-economy-rising-market-power-by-joseph-e-stiglitz-2019-03
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lotsofpulp
This is the inevitable result of efficiencies of scale. With computers,
databases, instant communications, why would a business be restricted in
anyway to expand as far as it can once it has perfected whatever it is
selling.

In the long run, it would be beneficial for all consumers to be able to select
from multiple sellers, but in the short term, it's beneficial for each
consumer to purchase from the whomever is giving them the best value. That
means everyone uses one of the top few banks, one of the top few retailers,
one of the top few electronic device manufacturers, etc.

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Spartan-S63
I think what it comes down to is the appropriate amount and type of regulation
that suits the market. As market concentration happens, those corporations
must necessarily become more regulated to ensure consumer choice and employee
rights.

The less concentrated the market, the less regulation required because natural
market forces will have larger impacts. Once a corporation reaches a
significant size, they largely outgrow the market being able to influence them
in a large way, hence the need for more (and stricter) regulation.

Monopolies, if well-regulated, aren't as evil as they seem.

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fiter
Do you think monopolies like PG&E in California are well-regulated? If not,
could you tell me why this isn't due to systemic difficulties in setting up a
well-regulated monopoly?

EDIT: I should put my thesis in here: It is easy for regulatory capture to
happen in the case of monopoly and regulator. I would also expect the monopoly
plus regulator to perform more poorly than either a competitive company or a
public entity.

~~~
digitaltrees
Regulation generally is not the same as regulation specifically related to
antitrust. You can create a well regulated monopoly where none of the
regulations are designed to prevent negative effects of being a monopoly.

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gumby
The irony of monopoly is that when broken upmitntypically benefits the former
monopoly parts. Rockefeller Made more money after being broken up than he had
as a monopolist. AT&T has underperformed since being reassembled from its
post-breakup pieces, which had flourished with competition.

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chrisseaton
Is that's the case then why don't companies voluntarily break up?

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bluGill
Companies break up all the time. Sometimes as a "spin off" where a part is let
go on its own. Sometimes a division is sold to someone else who wants it.
Companies are in a constant process of changing size based on what they guess
is the best place to be next year.

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sykic
_Making matters worse, America’s low tax-to-GDP ratio – just 27.1% even before
the Trump tax cut – means a dearth of money for investment in the
infrastructure, education, health care, and basic research needed to ensure
future growth._

In comparison to our peers the U.S. is under taxed. The OECD average is 34.2%.
What makes the average person feel overtaxed is the combination of federal
income tax, state income tax (where it occurs), along with stagnant wages and
high medical care costs. The U.S. spends far more per capita on healthcare
than any other OECD nation.

It is easy to convince a significant portion of average Americans that taxes
are too high. So they vote for politicians that promise to lower taxes. Except
they don’t lower taxes for average people. In a properly functioning political
system this disconnect between promise and actuality would be taken care of at
election time. In my lifetime I’ve not seen this happen and my political
memory starts with the Reagan administration.

Due to globalization and the ability of the top 0.1% to easily move money from
country to country and to easily move citizenship from country to country one
can no longer reasonably make the case that what is good for the top 0.1% is
necessarily good for the country. The intersts of the nation as a whole and
the interests of the top 0.1% are badly misaligned.

The U.S. is politically unhealthy and until this changes I see no hope for
improvement. I think only a shock to the system will really change things.

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WillPostForFood
_It is easy to convince a significant portion of average Americans that taxes
are too high. So they vote for politicians that promise to lower taxes. Except
they don’t lower taxes for average people._

Let’s be honest, tax cuts may be bad policy, but it is not true that they
haven’t been lowered for the average person. Rates are down, standard
deduction is up.

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SeanAppleby
SALT caps really screw a lot of people though. My effective federal tax rate
is higher after the tax "cut" than it would have been under the previous tax
laws.

It really depends on where you live. Some blue areas have had effective tax
increases for a sizable chunk of the population.

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sleepysysadmin
The fundamental title and premise of the article is quite inaccurate.

[https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/hh.mkt?country=BR...](https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/hh.mkt?country=BRA&indicator=2370&countries=USA&viz=line_chart&years=1988,2015)

Clearly market concentration has been going DOWN worldwide since 1988. It's
important to get your basics correct.

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dv_dt
The linked index is described as "Hirschman Herfindahl index is a measure of
the dispersion of trade value across an exporter's partners." Can you expand
on how this index relates to market concentration in general, or within a
single nation like the US?

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sleepysysadmin
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index)

Named after economists Orris C. Herfindahl and Albert O. Hirschman, it is an
economic concept widely applied in competition law, antitrust[1] and also
technology management.

The article thoroughly discussed competition and antitrust.

I have not missed the mark on the subject.

