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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

#81

Post by zekevermillion »

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…

That kind of arrangement already clearly illegal if the hospital takes government healthcare funds.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#82

Post by whopa »

rndmize wrote: post #31
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?

Not the GP, but these are social issues largely, and while I care about them, I consider them less important than economic issues (for a multitude of reasons). And on economic/business issues, the two parties seems to have minimal differences.

Health care is squarely an economic/business issue that affects nearly everybody, and there are clear, meaningful differences between the two parties here.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#83

Post by dreamdu5t »

The article never establishes what is wrong with rural America in the first place. Why does it need rescuing? Why are businesses with large market share a problem for rural America? The premise that monopolies are bad is never explained.

The author never establishes any of this. How did this make it to the front page?

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#84

Post by goatlover »

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.

There were powerful monopolies in the late 19th and early 20th century like U.S. Steel and Standard Oil that the government broke up.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#85

Post by iddan »

No! Rural America is responsible for the death of millions, Rural America is the responsible for holding the progression of human race and most important: rural America is who created the monopolies. Free market can only exist where states aren't.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#86

Post by mrgreenfur »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #63
mrgreenfur wrote: post #44

Does anyone else think that nearly all huge companies exist due to monopolies or near-monopolies? MS has monopoly on desktops. Apple on cell phones and tablets. Facebook on social networking. Google on search. I think any market without at least 3-4 strong competitors will devolve into one dominant player who can milk more from the customer base.

Android has a higher market share than iOS. How does that make Apple a monopoly?

Fair point.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#87

Post by mjevans »

ams6110 wrote: post #66
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…

Doesn't pass the smell test to me. So a big company had 80% of the market? What about the other 20%?

Think Intel, AMD, and um, who else makes desktop grade chips? (No, netbooks/tops don't count)

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#89

Post by [deleted] »

zekevermillion wrote: post #81
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…

That kind of arrangement already clearly illegal if the hospital takes government healthcare funds.

[deleted]

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#90

Post by Aloisius »

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…

My memory is a bit fuzzy and news archives aren't showing me anything from Bush's first four years about civil unions.

The only article I can find discussing them are from after Bush was re-elected in 2004 when he proposed a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but allowing states to have civil unions.

If that's what you're talking about, then I hardly think it is surprising that Democrats balked.

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