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Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

mattstoller.substack.com

41–50 of 595 posts

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#41
Sort of good, but we'll see how it plays out without other policies supporting it. Frankly, many consolidations are not malicious but necessary for survival. Economies of scale and verticle integration are required to complete with foreign companies with lower costs. Look at domestic steel production. No way the market can support numerous domestic options that can compete with the low cost of foreign imports.

Then there's vertical integration. I don't know if this will effect vertical integration. If it does, I wonder how domestic companies will compete without it.

As a beekeeper, it's vastly cheaper foreign imports (some of it fake) that are more damaging than large domestic producers (although there's a healthy variety). The low prices have been forcing consolidation, or for some people to switch from producing domestically to packing imported honey. It's tough to market local honey for even $12/lb when walmart sells honey for less than $5/lb.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#42
post #37

"Hearing aids cost thousands of dollars apiece, for no other reason than there is a cartel established by government that prevents firms from selling hearing aids without a prescription." An example of how many (most?) monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection. Regulatory capture. There are dozens of companies who would no doubt start making inexpensive hearing aids tomorr…

Queue "overpowered OTC aids destroyed my hearing" pushback...

Queue private agency testing, evaluating and rating products on the market

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#43

"Hearing aids cost thousands of dollars apiece, for no other reason than there is a cartel established by government that prevents firms from selling hearing aids without a prescription." An example of how many (most?) monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection. Regulatory capture. There are dozens of companies who would no doubt start making inexpensive hearing aids tomorr…

> There are dozens of companies who would no doubt start making inexpensive hearing aids tomorrow. Absent government regulation, they already would be.

And with the lack of certification requirement, someone will start cutting corners to make an extra chunk of profit. Just imagine a faulty hearing aid that fails while a person is driving, and the person causing an accident as a result. Good luck suing anyone over that one. Or people mis-tuning hearing aids leading to more damage than before.

Another thing I can easily imagine is unscrupulous manufacturers using banned chemicals to manufacture the hearing aids. We have enough of this sort of shenanigans with nickel allergies in jewelry.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#44

"Hearing aids cost thousands of dollars apiece, for no other reason than there is a cartel established by government that prevents firms from selling hearing aids without a prescription." An example of how many (most?) monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection. Regulatory capture. There are dozens of companies who would no doubt start making inexpensive hearing aids tomorr…

"monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection"

The entire point of patents...

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#45
post #37

"Hearing aids cost thousands of dollars apiece, for no other reason than there is a cartel established by government that prevents firms from selling hearing aids without a prescription." An example of how many (most?) monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection. Regulatory capture. There are dozens of companies who would no doubt start making inexpensive hearing aids tomorr…

Queue "overpowered OTC aids destroyed my hearing" pushback...

Is that really going to be a thing? Earbuds have been out for a long time and are easily capable of destroying hearing.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#46
post #5

Finally, they've started attacking big tech on the privacy front. The whole "monopoly" and "anti-trust" thing was going nowhere. But privacy orders like this are a step in the right direction. And to put the nail in big tech's coffin, congress should pass a law forbidding the sharing of any personal information on any resident of the US for any commercial reason whatsoever. With draconian penalties assessed per user…

> And to put the nail in big tech's coffin, congress should pass a law forbidding the sharing of any personal information on any resident of the US for any commercial reason whatsoever. At this point, a huge number (majority?) of Facebook et al users know what Facebook are doing. They value their own data less than Facebook do and are happy to trade it in return for free social media service. You may not like it, but…

Facebook shares lots of data about people who have never signed up for a Facebook account. Everyone is a Facebook "user" whether they want to be or not.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#47
post #44

"Hearing aids cost thousands of dollars apiece, for no other reason than there is a cartel established by government that prevents firms from selling hearing aids without a prescription." An example of how many (most?) monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection. Regulatory capture. There are dozens of companies who would no doubt start making inexpensive hearing aids tomorr…

"monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection" The entire point of patents...

It was not great before patents when a big company could steal your work and put you out of business after you put in the R&D effort.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#48
post #3

I can understand them going after Ag and Pharma in a big way, but I'm skeptical about the Tech part. There is just too much to lose in political support from that industry for any politician to attack them too aggressively.

Both health and agriculture have huge lobbying budgets, I'm skeptical that tech offers much more political support than the other two.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#49
post #44

"Hearing aids cost thousands of dollars apiece, for no other reason than there is a cartel established by government that prevents firms from selling hearing aids without a prescription." An example of how many (most?) monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection. Regulatory capture. There are dozens of companies who would no doubt start making inexpensive hearing aids tomorr…

"monopolies are able to exist because of some sort of legal authorization or protection" The entire point of patents...

There are good arguments for abolishing or limiting patents. The cost of monopoly may exceed any benefit.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#50
post #3

I can understand them going after Ag and Pharma in a big way, but I'm skeptical about the Tech part. There is just too much to lose in political support from that industry for any politician to attack them too aggressively.

What does Ag do? "Efficiency Is Everything" eats for $500/year. Compare that to medical which is a minimum of a few thousand dollars a year if you are perfectly healthy and $20000 if you have a 1 day stay at a hospital.
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