Global Industrial Economy Has Been Taken Over By A Handful Of Corporate Giants

[Saving For a Space Ship]

The Global industrial economy had been taken over by a handful of corporate giants

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21707048-small-group-giant-companiessome-old-some-neware-once-again-dominating-global

ON AUGUST 31ST 1910 Theodore Roosevelt delivered a fiery speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. The former president celebrated America’s extraordinary new commercial power but also gave warning that America’s industrial economy had been taken over by a handful of corporate giants that were generating unparalleled wealth for a small number of people and exercising growing control over American politics. Roosevelt cautioned that a country founded on the principle of equality of opportunity was in danger of becoming a land of corporate privilege, and pledged to do whatever he could to bring the new giants under control.

Roosevelt’s speech sounds as fresh today as on the day he made it. A small number of giant companies are once again on the march, tightening their grip on global markets, merging with each other to get even bigger, and enjoying vast profits. As a proportion of GDP, American corporate profits are higher than they have been at any time since 1929. Apple, Google, Amazon and their peers dominate today’s economy just as surely as US Steel, Standard Oil and Sears, Roebuck and Company dominated the economy of Roosevelt’s day. ....

[frederico]

Good to see it stated like this, it is the inevitable result of the take over and merger culture.

This is all done in the name of efficiency and cutting overheads but eventually gives power to fewer and fewer bodies.

[ChewingGrass]

In turn their valuations are also distorted as investment money has fewer avenues to channel down.

Pension schemes are a good example where a steady flow of investment money is chasing blue chip investments that may or may not be backed up by anything tangible or indeed fungible with facebook being a prime example.

Note how inparticular google has spawned alphabet and the revaluation of large industrial/petrochem concerns.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

Free markets tend towards monopoly.

The bigger you make markets, the bigger those monopolies (the single market, globalisation, internet etc.).

Bigger monopolies try and warp the political process, putting their backing behind ever bigger 'free' markets and political entities that can help them meet their ends.

Yes, some of these firms need breaking up.

[MarkG]

Free markets tend towards monopoly.

Uh, no, they don't.

Regulated markets tend towards monopoly, because companies can use the government to keep competitors out of the market. Apple and it's patent fights, for example, and Microsoft and copyright (Bill Gates was one of the earliest proponents of software copyright).

And calling this the 'industrial economy' is pretty bizarre, when the top three are a maker of electronic gadgets, an advertising company, and a software company. All three could vanish tomorrow and we'd barely remember them in a couple of years.

[Assume The Opposite]

Free markets tend towards monopoly.

The bigger you make markets, the bigger those monopolies (the single market, globalisation, internet etc.).

Bigger monopolies try and warp the political process, putting their backing behind ever bigger 'free' markets and political entities that can help them meet their ends.

Just take bus and rail companies. In my area there is one train company and one bus company.

Works out cheaper to drive. Hardly 'competitive'.

Energy companies? Hardly a free market with the big 6 dominating us.

Regulation is a gimmick and given the chance, any company will consolidate power as greed is human nature.

Edited September 19, 2016 by Assume The Opposite

[spyguy]

I read the report.

Its interesting. This gist is that largest companies (by stock valuation) are now dominated by software-based companies with a lot less employess than the previous top companies of 20 years ago.

There's a couple of bobos. They mention profits and Amazon in the same sentence.

They are still doing an Enron-eque fckup with GE. TE *loves* GE still!!! Fcknows why.

In short, GE is a fcking monsters, filled with loads of management BS from the biggest conman not in prison Welsh.

Welsh turned GE into a massive, leveraged monster whilst doing his 'Look at us! Arnt we great and doing stuff'

Jeffers, Welsh successor, was sat down when it all went t1tsup.

Now Jeffers is doing his 'We're a software company routine - Yeah we've got kids doing software, we have a crazzzzee slide down the to cafetiere'

Total nuts + BS.

[EUBanana]

Just take bus and rail companies. In my area there is one train company and one bus company.

Works out cheaper to drive. Hardly 'competitive'.

Neither are a free market. Not like you can build new rail lines easily, and buses are heavily regulated by local government.