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The worst possible antitrust outcome

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Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#21

Post by sieabahlpark »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #18
frogperson wrote: post #2

Americans have allowed the rich to become too wealthy. The kind of power that comes with billions of dollars just doesnt work with justice or democracy.

> Americans have allowed the rich to become too wealthy. This consistently happens in a very specific way. A corporation that dominates a concentrated market becomes excessively large, which makes its early shareholders billionaires. In other words, if you want to change this, you need to enforce antitrust laws and break up large corporations.

[dead]

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#22

Post by aetherson »

bbreier wrote: post #13
thegreatpeter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of billionaires all over Europe. Relative to salaries the spread is quite worse. Democracy there is perfect

As far as I am aware, wealth inequality is significantly better in Europe than it is in the United States ( https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-in... as an example) and I still wouldn't characterize democracy in Europe as "perfect" even if we narrowly define the rubrick to be only concerned with money tipping the scales of power

That site is weird. As far as I can tell, it's measuring income inequality, not wealth inequality, and it doesn't... appear to know the difference? Quoting it:

> The Gini index, or Gini coefficient, is a statistical measure of wealth distribution developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini. The Gini index is used to gauge economic inequality by measuring income distribution, also called wealth distribution.

It's a kinda big red flag if they say that income and wealth are the same thing!

There are a few notable cases of European countries having very high wealth inequality despite lower income inequality (my take which may not be shared by many: having low income inequality makes it hard for people who aren't generationally wealthy to overcome old money). Notably, Sweden has a higher wealth inequality than the United States.

However, I don't think it's true that Europe in general has higher wealth inequality than the United States. Here's the wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#23

Post by pdonis »

idle_zealot wrote: post #17
jmward01 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing against rich. I have everything against a single person having a megaphone for themselves and a gag for everyone else and still calling it a democracy. We need strong laws that reduce the voice of money and increase the voice of individuals. Having said that, the practical implication is that money needs to loose power and there are very few ways to truly do that other than just take it away. So, I agr…

I'm not sure I understand what distinction you're drawing between ideological opposition to rich people existing and opposition to disproportionately powerful people existing. In what hypothetical world are these not the exact same thing? Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action. That's the point of it, and is just another way of saying "power over others". A world where being rich doesn't grant power…

> Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action

Not in a free market. In a free market, people have the option to refuse to accept your money if they don't want to give you what you want to buy from them with it.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#24

Post by lotsofpulp »

saulpw wrote: post #16
jmward01 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing against rich. I have everything against a single person having a megaphone for themselves and a gag for everyone else and still calling it a democracy. We need strong laws that reduce the voice of money and increase the voice of individuals. Having said that, the practical implication is that money needs to loose power and there are very few ways to truly do that other than just take it away. So, I agr…

There's rich, and then there's 10x rich, and 100x rich, and 1000x rich, and 10000x rich, and now even 100000x rich. Millionaires are fine, billionaires are bad, and hectobillionaires are supremely terrible. I think once someone gets to a billion dollars net worth, they should get an AmEx black card, and 99% of their assets moved into a sovereign public wealth fund. They can have anything they want, they lose the powe…

So if your business is extremely successful, your reward is losing control if it?

To who, politicians?

Leaving the large business intact and just changing the leader doesn’t seem like it changes anything.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#25

Post by lotsofpulp »

aetherson wrote: post #22
bbreier wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I am aware, wealth inequality is significantly better in Europe than it is in the United States ( https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-in... as an example) and I still wouldn't characterize democracy in Europe as "perfect" even if we narrowly define the rubrick to be only concerned with money tipping the scales of power

That site is weird. As far as I can tell, it's measuring income inequality, not wealth inequality, and it doesn't... appear to know the difference? Quoting it: > The Gini index, or Gini coefficient, is a statistical measure of wealth distribution developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini. The Gini index is used to gauge economic inequality by measuring income distribution, also called wealth distribution. It…

> It's a kinda big red flag if they say that income and wealth are the same thing!

Wealthy and old people love when income is used as a stand in for wealth. It deflects political action onto the young and hard/smart working, and helps keep their dynasties and rent seeking assets intact.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#26

Post by teachrdan »

pdonis wrote: post #23
idle_zealot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand what distinction you're drawing between ideological opposition to rich people existing and opposition to disproportionately powerful people existing. In what hypothetical world are these not the exact same thing? Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action. That's the point of it, and is just another way of saying "power over others". A world where being rich doesn't grant power…

> Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action Not in a free market. In a free market, people have the option to refuse to accept your money if they don't want to give you what you want to buy from them with it.

> people have the option to refuse to accept your money...

This is the contradiction, isn't it? A free market that you or I might define requires safeguards like a social welfare net to make sure individuals are truly free to decline an offer that is harmful to them. Without such a welfare net one is compelled to accept an offer that is harmful (to one's health, morality, etc.) because the alternative is to lose your dignity and all of your belongings, or worse.

But then the owning class has every incentive to reduce or remove the safety net. Not least because they will be paying a lot for it! But even more so because that safety net is what gives people some small amount of power to say no to them.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#27

Post by like_any_other »

idle_zealot wrote: post #17
jmward01 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing against rich. I have everything against a single person having a megaphone for themselves and a gag for everyone else and still calling it a democracy. We need strong laws that reduce the voice of money and increase the voice of individuals. Having said that, the practical implication is that money needs to loose power and there are very few ways to truly do that other than just take it away. So, I agr…

I'm not sure I understand what distinction you're drawing between ideological opposition to rich people existing and opposition to disproportionately powerful people existing. In what hypothetical world are these not the exact same thing? Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action. That's the point of it, and is just another way of saying "power over others". A world where being rich doesn't grant power…

> In what hypothetical world are these not the exact same thing?

A world with laws against monopolies, anti-competitive practices, and media ownership concentration. Not all uses of power are equivalent.

Standard Oil wasn't tamed by taking money from its owner. In fact, even if ownership over the company was dispersed among 10x as many shareholders as before, so long as the company can continue to act as a single entity, the abuse of its monopoly would continue.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#28

Post by ratherbefuddled »

davmre wrote: post #15

> The government doesn't have to win an antitrust trial in order to create competition. As the saying goes, "the process is the punishment." Regardless of what you think of Google or this case specifically, this is an argument for authoritarianism: that it is legitimate for the government to "punish" any company at will, based only on them falling into political disfavor. > ... the only punishment Google would have t…

There's very little reason that Google should have been protected from the evidence of its wrongdoing being made public. That's not extrajudicial punishment, that is public record. Justice should be seen to be done as well as done.

Who can know how appropriate or not the remedy was when the evidence is hidden?

For full disclosure: I'm neither a google employee nor a US citizen.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#29

Post by protocolture »

davmre wrote: post #15

> The government doesn't have to win an antitrust trial in order to create competition. As the saying goes, "the process is the punishment." Regardless of what you think of Google or this case specifically, this is an argument for authoritarianism: that it is legitimate for the government to "punish" any company at will, based only on them falling into political disfavor. > ... the only punishment Google would have t…

>This is an argument for authoritarianism, that the government should be able to "punish" any company at will based only on them falling into political disfavor.

No its more like, the process of transparency harms the company enough that they will shift their own mentality to ensure they never have to participate in a transparent process.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#30

Post by bigbadfeline »

idle_zealot wrote: post #17
jmward01 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing against rich. I have everything against a single person having a megaphone for themselves and a gag for everyone else and still calling it a democracy. We need strong laws that reduce the voice of money and increase the voice of individuals. Having said that, the practical implication is that money needs to loose power and there are very few ways to truly do that other than just take it away. So, I agr…

I'm not sure I understand what distinction you're drawing between ideological opposition to rich people existing and opposition to disproportionately powerful people existing. In what hypothetical world are these not the exact same thing? Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action. That's the point of it, and is just another way of saying "power over others". A world where being rich doesn't grant power…

> A world where being rich doesn't grant power over others is one where money isn't money.

First off, my money doesn't grant me power over anybody and it's still money. That leaves only one logically possible version of your statement and the correction looks like this: "A world where being rich doesn't grant power over others is one where big money isn't big money"

In that form, your statement is perfectly logical, if somewhat tautological, but there is another problem with it and it's a real huge one: No textbook has anything like that and no school teaches it either, even the media is vary shy of talking about it.

At a first glance, that's not your problem but it definitely has to be, meaning, you and the people who gold similar views, should become loud public proponents of Speaking Truth to the Powerless (tm).

We can no longer have this cognitive dissonance economics that teaches that money is means of exchange, unit of account, etc, but skips the most important truth: that big money is, first and foremost, a tool of power over small money.

Only after this educational task is complete, your explanation will have the right to exist and be heard.

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