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Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#71

Post by ams6110 »

socialist_coder wrote: post #62
cs702 wrote: post #4

"I started a manufacturing company in Little Elm, about 35 miles north of Dallas, to produce the first-ever automatically retracting syringe to eliminate the risk of nurses contracting HIV through accidental needle sticks. The syringe received rave reviews from nurses, hospital executives and public health officials, a major grant from the National Institutes of Health and robust private investment. But when my partn…

I'm not sure what your point is. This isn't a free market because of monopolies or because of regulations? To me, it seems like we have a completely free market here... and that is the problem. Companies are free to create and exploit monopolies. It's the final state of a completely free market.

80% of the market is not an unassailable monopoly. Such things rarely if ever exist unless they are created by regulation.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#72

Post by douche »

ghouse wrote: post #15
douche wrote: post #6

Or make it profitable to build shit in this country again. If you taxed the hell out of manufactured imports, and loosened up the regulations that are choking US businesses to death, you'd have less meth-and-fentanyl scourged abandoned mill towns.

Which specific regulations do you think are choking US businesses to death? I see a lot of handwaving about oppressive regulation, but I don't see anything careful cost-benefit discussion of which regulations are oppressive.

You've never worked in a blue-collar industry, then. It's a death by 1000 cuts. When your workers are frustrated by the amount of red tape and regulation surrounding their day to day work tasks, something is wrong.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#73

Post by socialist_coder »

wyager wrote: post #45
skummetmaelk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing though, that is exactly what a late stage "free market" looks like. What you need is a heavily regulated market that prevents exactly this behaviour. People need to stop wishing for the "free" market. The term is abused by orators and manipulators who prey on peoples desire for a market which is free in the spirit of the word, and deliver to them a market which is technically "free" and horrible.

> That's the thing though, that is exactly what a late stage "free market" looks like. How would you know? We haven't had anything approaching a free market since the early 20th century, even if we ignore government-granted monopolies via restricted land grants and patents.

How would you know? Just because it's never been truly tested in reality doesn't mean we can't stop and think about the situation. We know what corporations do when they are given a choice (they choose profits over anything else) and we know that consumers will choose low prices over everything else as well. So, it's not hard to draw the conclusion that this will result in consolidation, economies of scale, and eventually monopolies. Exactly what is already happening.

In a "free market", what is going to prevent this? Every actor here is acting in their best interest. What could possibly change their behavior other than the government telling them to?

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#74

Post by arca_vorago »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #50
wyager wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the thing though, that is exactly what a late stage "free market" looks like. How would you know? We haven't had anything approaching a free market since the early 20th century, even if we ignore government-granted monopolies via restricted land grants and patents.

At least to me it looks like making the market more "free" by means of deregulation would only exacerbate the problems mentioned above.

Free market != deregulation

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#75

Post by jinfiesto »

jessaustin wrote: post #37
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you call LGBT rights, women's rights, police consent decrees, environmental issues, and health care, just off the top of my head, meaningless?

Ds talk a better game, but they rarely walk that talk. Take just your first example. W's first year in office, he wanted to standardize "civil unions" that would have entailed all the same rights as "traditional marriages". Of course, lots of "conservatives" were against that, so W reached across the aisle. Crickets. Ds decided they wanted to preserve that issue's political value, so it was more than a decade before…

Separate but equal always turns out well...

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#76

Post by padseeker »

douche wrote: post #6

Or make it profitable to build shit in this country again. If you taxed the hell out of manufactured imports, and loosened up the regulations that are choking US businesses to death, you'd have less meth-and-fentanyl scourged abandoned mill towns.

name some laws that have been implemented in the last 40 years that have drastically changed manufacturing companies to be profitable.

There are a slew of reasons why its more expensive to manufacture things here in the US - globalization, cheap labor overseas. Taxes on corporations have no increased though in that period of time.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#77

Post by beemanners »

mozumder wrote: post #60
jessaustin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ds talk a better game, but they rarely walk that talk. Take just your first example. W's first year in office, he wanted to standardize "civil unions" that would have entailed all the same rights as "traditional marriages". Of course, lots of "conservatives" were against that, so W reached across the aisle. Crickets. Ds decided they wanted to preserve that issue's political value, so it was more than a decade before…

What's your point in your false equivalency? Are you implying that the 20 million people that now have medical coverage because of Democrats pushing for Obamacare isn't worth it? Was that all "talk"? I'm seriously trying to understand your "equivalency" position. Let me know what the Republicans would have done for health care? Right now it seems that the only thing they've done is to actually limit universal health…

20M on Obamacare != 20M who have health insurance because of Obamacare. Stop parroting CNN talking points and do your own research.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#78

Post by pjc50 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #23
jessaustin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really opened my eye: a long time ago, there was actually a meaningful difference between voting D and voting R. I can't really imagine voting in such a context, but it sounds nice...

How can you call LGBT rights, women's rights, police consent decrees, environmental issues, and health care, just off the top of my head, meaningless?

Am I right in thinking that the first three were achieved through litigation rather than legislation?

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#79

Post by Rapzid »

jessaustin wrote: post #37
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you call LGBT rights, women's rights, police consent decrees, environmental issues, and health care, just off the top of my head, meaningless?

Ds talk a better game, but they rarely walk that talk. Take just your first example. W's first year in office, he wanted to standardize "civil unions" that would have entailed all the same rights as "traditional marriages". Of course, lots of "conservatives" were against that, so W reached across the aisle. Crickets. Ds decided they wanted to preserve that issue's political value, so it was more than a decade before…

IIRC that would have entailed striking the word "marriage" from the legal books entirely. Conservatives are not down with that; the logistics with support would be insane, without support impossible.

Given the outcome, I find this an odd talking point of failure to compromise. We dodged a separate but equal bullet..

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#80

Post by costcopizza »

Drive through many American small towns and it looks the exact same.

A strip mall with a Subway, a couple national fast food joints, and if you're big enough, Wal-Mart.

There are literally 1000s of towns with this copy and paste setup-- how could this not be detrimental when money is going to a huge corporation every time?

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