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It's not a crime if we do it with an app

pluralistic.net

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Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#221

Post by KennyBlanken »

stickfigure wrote: post #152
gmueckl wrote: post #76

This is all a result of a lack of active market regulation. The government needs to step in actively to keep a free market from collapsing into one of the natural end states. But the US has consistently been far too passive and accepts greedy companies far too readily. If a single company can sell almost 100% of an essential good, they need to atomatically lose the power to set their prices and margins independently.…

[flagged]

That's pretty funny coming from someone attempting to manipulate people who have read the comments but not the linked article, or the original reporting that is linked to in said article.

You left out all four companies feeding data to PotatoTrac, all four companies announcing raising their prices by the same amount at exactly the same time, executives shifting which company they work for like it's a merry-go-round, the four companies communicating extensively between each other in a way not even remotely natural for competitors, the companies demanding suppliers not take on other customers, restaurant distributors forcibly bundling fries with other foods so that restaurants have to sell them, and so on.

Oh, and multiple anti-trust lawsuits: https://fortune.com/2024/11/22/potato-cartel-price-fixing-la...

Also left out that other mega-food companies have been caught doing the same thing...

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#222

Post by miohtama »

llamaimperative wrote: post #140
stickfigure wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have some specific examples?

Oh sure: billions of dollars in cash? Hundreds of lawyers? Lobbyists on Capitol Hill? A buddy at USDA or EPA? Lower unit prices on just about every single thing they need to buy? Brand recognition? Strong negotiating positions in 100% of their deals?

Bundle web browser with your operating system.

Bundle operating system with CPU.

But, both lost in the end, despite abusing monopoly and government intervention did not really help.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#223

Post by scarface_74 »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #189
layer8 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I’m sympathetic to the sentiment, I don’t see how “sending shareholders to jail” could possibly work, given how many people own shares. It’s like your dog would be collectively owned by a million people. Maybe you mean the board?

"Shareholder" are not people who own a stock in robin hood. It's large players with board positions who reap the benefits and turn a blind eye to blatant corruption.

The people on the board are rarely the largest shareholder. In the case of both Google and Facebook, the board doesn’t really have too much control at all since the founders hold the majority of voting power.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#224

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

miohtama wrote: post #62
maiar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The entire point of corporations is to shield individuals from penalties, but they don’t work. Business failure in good faith, where the shielding makes sense, is not really protected because bank loans require personal liability and because it’s impossible these days to recover from a damaged reputation unless you come from a family rich enough to hire its own PR firm. On the other hand, when it comes to letti…

Corporations are owned by people. Profit is distributed back to the society thru dividends. The largest shareholder category is pension funds, not billionaires. So effectively boomers are robbing younger generations.

What kind of evidence would you need to see to no longer view corporations in this light?

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#225

Post by zettler »

What is and isnt a crime is defined by who owns the press and power of the land

In any modern Democracy, it would be illegal to kick families out of their home and then rent the home out to wealthy westerners, yet that is literally what AirBNB allows, see Amnesty International take:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2020/12/airb...

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#226

Post by danny_codes »

Aurornis wrote: post #194
gmueckl wrote: post #76

This is all a result of a lack of active market regulation. The government needs to step in actively to keep a free market from collapsing into one of the natural end states. But the US has consistently been far too passive and accepts greedy companies far too readily. If a single company can sell almost 100% of an essential good, they need to atomatically lose the power to set their prices and margins independently.…

> If a single company can sell almost 100% of an essential good, they need to atomatically lose the power to set their prices and margins independently. The fallacy is assuming that the government will make everything cheap for consumers. In practice, government regulation of prices just changes the game. Look at any market with rent control: There are numerous meta-games around building or not building new supply, l…

What. Are you advocating for monopolies? Obviously there is a point where people stop buying essentials. The point of capitalism is to deliver goods as cheaply as possible. If toothpaste costs $60 I would still buy it because I need toothpaste. But that extra money now goes to someone who isn’t producing, they are mooching. It’s a welfare check to a billionaire. In a monopoly pricing is fixed at maximum profit, which could make goods 10x or 100x for things with relatively inelastic demand.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#227

Post by bdangubic »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

More like "It's not a crime if a corporation does it." The US treats corporations with kid gloves. They get away with so much, and in those rare cases where a regulatory body does anything , it's often just a strongly worded letter, a warning, a threat to one day send a strongly worded letter, or, in really rare, extreme cases, a company official gets called in to say a few words in front of Congress. Nobody goes to…

Contrast that to how individuals get the hammer put down on them by the justice system if they so much as fart in the wrong room.

The thing is though - in America people are corporations except of course no one will teach you that. Open an single-person LLC and boom - you are now corporation. Have a rental, move it under LLC, own a car, LLC… now you are corporation (with limited to no liability) :)

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#228

Post by llamaimperative »

miohtama wrote: post #222
llamaimperative wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh sure: billions of dollars in cash? Hundreds of lawyers? Lobbyists on Capitol Hill? A buddy at USDA or EPA? Lower unit prices on just about every single thing they need to buy? Brand recognition? Strong negotiating positions in 100% of their deals?

Bundle web browser with your operating system. Bundle operating system with CPU. But, both lost in the end, despite abusing monopoly and government intervention did not really help.

No, abusing monopoly and government intervention didn't allow them to keep their monopoly forever. That is not the same as "did not help."

And in any case, no one is arguing conglomerated companies have no vulnerabilities or never lose.

I'm saying they have advantages, which is obviously true by the fact that conglomerated companies tend to dominate their sectors.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#229

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #149
Ekaros wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest hear. If you go to store and steal sack of potato. I doubt either the store or police will even attempt to track you anymore... Retail theft is just left to happen.

Nope. Theft and shrink (from employees) accounts for 5% of losses and it has not gone up - at all - from historical trends. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/myth... https://www.vera.org/news/the-truth-about-retail-theft https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities... https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/business/shoplifting-retail-c...

As multiple of these articles acknowledge, any attempt to debunk shoplifting information from official crime data is on shaky ground, because most thefts are not reported to law enforcement. The guy who strolls out of Target with a bag full of shampoo isn’t in the crime data unless some store employee sees it happen and decides it’s worth calling the police to make a report about. I don’t think this is something where the cops would know better than retailers.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#230

Post by gruez »

bdangubic wrote: post #227
ryandrake wrote: post #17

More like "It's not a crime if a corporation does it." The US treats corporations with kid gloves. They get away with so much, and in those rare cases where a regulatory body does anything , it's often just a strongly worded letter, a warning, a threat to one day send a strongly worded letter, or, in really rare, extreme cases, a company official gets called in to say a few words in front of Congress. Nobody goes to…

Contrast that to how individuals get the hammer put down on them by the justice system if they so much as fart in the wrong room. The thing is though - in America people are corporations except of course no one will teach you that. Open an single-person LLC and boom - you are now corporation. Have a rental, move it under LLC, own a car, LLC… now you are corporation (with limited to no liability) :)

You have to be very careful with this, especially as a single person corporation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

Moreover most of the difficulty in prosecuting corporate crimes comes from the fact that responsibility is spread across multiple people, that it's hard to prove anyone did anything wrong. Obviously that won't work with a single person corporation.

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