Should America’s Tech Giants Be Broken Up?

originally posted by: MarkOfTheV
Uh... there a millions of places to buy OTHER than Amazon. And they are usually the ones charging too much.

Yes, but the uncompetitive practices is to kill the competition by under-selling, but having the financials to take the loss. Once the competition is dead, the price is yours to choose. Amazon can do this by abusing their market position as a perceived "trusted" operator.

a reply to: paraphi

They've been a trusted operator for some time now... and haven't abused it yet.

Also... once again... how are they underselling? It's independent businesses setting these prices because they don't have to pay for brick and mortar.


Sounds to me like you want to cut the legs off a star track runner before it's been proven that he's doping.

originally posted by: olaru12
Corporations have been given "personhood" status remember.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

And they have rights.

Once you drop regulations against antitrust; the Corporations have taken over government, in fact are the government.

Corporate Oligarchy....capitalism gone all horrorshow! They don't need lobbyist anymore, just a simple phone call is all it takes.

This

That is why its so annoying to watch individual Democrats and Republicans go back in forth blaming each others party.

In reality the DNC and the GOP ore corporation tools that purposely distract the public from the REAL issue , so they keep deflecting and chasing their tail with the symptoms of the real issue. Corporations run our gov't not the other way around and Democrats and Republicans need to join forces take back our govt.

Democrats and Republicans might never agree with political ideology but under the Oligarch we have , neither of the individual republicans and democrats are winning only the corporations win.

Its time that we put our Political ideology to the side and join forces to get corruption and conflict of interest out of Congress. You can't expect a group of people with conflict of interest to work for you and not the lobbyist.

So don't let the gov't, MSM, DNC or the GOP get you to focus on health-care,racism,sexism,sexuality, taxes,insurance,economy,foreign matters,politics, energy and every other symptom of the Real issue in order to keep you from focusing on the real issue which is a group of individuals with conflict of interest that are leading our country.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: MarkOfTheV

What is Amazon's product?

Amazon is in the distribution business. Thus, their service is the product.

I've always said there needs to be a cap on what one company can control in any given market and there needs to be a cap on personal wealth at around 1.5 billion.
If you have 1 pizza and need to feed 100 people you can't give 3 people 90% of the pizza and expect the other 97 not to starve. Even if you made the pizza and brought the ingredients you still aren't entitled to a significantly greater portion if you are part of a civilized society.

a reply to: Slickinfinity

So those that work hard to build an empire have to share it with the moochers?

If that pizza was like... a large... from Pizza Hut... say the Primo Meats. Thin crust... extra cheese...

If I had that pizza and 100 people wanted it... I'd lock my door and call a couple of friends to share it. Or I might just have it all to myself and say F#$@ you guys... I earned this myself... and I'm going to enjoy it myself.


Probably a bad analogy.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

Their product is selling the product. They do not make the product. They are a middle man, sort of. They do have warehouses, but not for all the products. They are also a "bulletin board" for other products.
And with 77 acquisitions they are much much more than a middle man.
www.crunchbase.com...

a reply to: alldaylong

Okay, but that doesn't change me point--at all. Both companies benefitted greatly from the American capitalist system.

a reply to: seasonal

Seasonal. I just scanned the first page of this thread and found no mention of Ronald Reagan. Reagan espoused on a regular basis the glories of trickle down economics, how everyone would benefit from removing regulations and restrictions on corporations. And basically conservatives believed in that process while liberals called up the memories of the constricting hold that the monopolies of the late 1800s had on the wealth of the nation. Those monopolies were broken up and the industrial barons lost some of their clout for a while. So liberals fought against Reagan deregulations tooth and nail but lost to the promise of wealth for everyone as the profits from the top would flow down to everyone. It did not happen.

What did happen is that the corporations and those wealth people who were in charge of them picked up the ground that was lost by the breaking up of the monopolies of the previous century. Small corporations ate up the technological start ups and were in turn eaten up by larger corporations so that in the case of television we went from a fairly diverse ownership to one that was controlled by only a few major players.

It was once held that a wide field of ownership was necessary for a free press. Corporations were not allowed to own and c ontrol more than one or two major news outlets in one area. Now that is all gone. In my area there are three major stations and all three are owned by the same corporation. It is the same now in radio and other media groups.

And for that we have Reagan to thank, no I take that back. It was the corporations that supported him for that reason alone, that they could work their work through him, and also the people who bought the crap he pushed because he spoke so sweetly to them and promises to them that were never delivered.

So I don't think that we will ever break up these tech giants. From the 1980s on, all they have done is grow and grow and gather power. Now they have the rights of citizenship, they have the rights of humans and they will not stop until they own everything. The only thing that will stand in the way of a corporation now, is another corporation.

The wars in Europe a couple of centuries ago were not the wars of the people, they were the wars of the ruling families. Likewise from now on every war we see is a corporate war with national governments only being used as proxies.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Agreed.

Reagan was also no friend of the workers and union. He also sent a clear message to the corps that it was OK to start the decline of the unions.

I know many here are anti unions. I always think that if it is good for workers I am for it. Or another way to put it is if a corp is not in support of something, usually it is good for workers.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Agreed.

Reagan was also no friend of the workers and union. He also sent a clear message to the corps that it was OK to start the decline of the unions.

I know many here are anti unions. I always think that if it is good for workers I am for it. Or another way to put it is if a corp is not in support of something, usually it is good for workers.

yes, I agree but for one point. Reagan didn't just send a clear message to the corps, he paved the freeway for them.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: SlapMonkey

There is much much more that goes into an anti trust suit than just brand recognition or popularity.
It has to do with predatory policy to the market place, "unfair" competition and The federal Trade commisoin and Bureau of Competition have many tools in their tool box to gauge when a corp is engaging in unfair practices.

Rather than anti-trust as the means to rein them in, how about slapping them under national security regulations? (Just an 'off the cuff' thought.)

a reply to: nwtrucker

Why national security regs?

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I always cringe a bit when people get into a trance of Reagan worship.

Seems like very few people like to talk about the stagnant wages since 1975. He was a friend of corps.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: nwtrucker

Why national security regs?

Stretching the envelope here, one 'could' say high-end tech is interlocked with our technological advantage militarily and restrict any expansion to a global rather than 'national' corporation.

Restrictions on exporting certain tech? In other words, we seem to be able to keep our MIC 'national', largely better than the rest and happy with their lot(?).

Beyond the cheap labor aspect, Silicon Valley seems to have retained the intellectual properties 'American' while taking advantage of the cheap labor.

Global is not advantageous to us, overall, from what I can see.

Their political moves, especially pushing this national guaranteed income is nothing more than a bribe to ensure no political backlash in the event of massive profits for robotizing our industries and the resultant job losses, crosses the line, in my books and requires a little positive guidance/correction from the Feds......

This is idle speculation on my part...pure dilettantism...

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I always cringe a bit when people get into a trance of Reagan worship.

Seems like very few people like to talk about the stagnant wages since 1975. He was a friend of corps.

Got ya. Me too. And the priests of that worship have been the corporate media. Now, I am not yelling here when I capitalize and say ''CORPORATE MEDIA'' because that is what it is. There has been a very successful con job pulled on US citizens by that media. That is the now well accepted idea that the MSM is the ''liberal media''. I hear people referring all the time around here and in my area that it is all the fault of the ''liberal media'', yet any real liberal, any real progressive, any real socialist knows that the msm is the corporate media and that it will play both sides of the field in order to continue it's drive for profit and power. Who was it that put Limbaugh and Savage and all the other shock jocks on national radio. The corporate media. And Fox,,,,corporate media. Nitch marketing all the time.

originally posted by: Templeton

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: Bluntone22

And free trade isn't the only problem.

The wealth is not be "shared" with the people who help create it.

This is why think right to work states are scary and unions are a must. Remember a CEO has a contract to work for a company, why would they not want a worker to have defined pay and benefits like they do?

I wonder how this chart compares to the work week timeline.

www.theatlantic.com...

I think Jack Ma was being generous with the 30 year prediction.

www.cnbc.com...

Jack Ma is wrong though. Companies are paying less offering less benefits and requiring more hours as they co tinue to increase the bottom line for shareholders

a reply to: toysforadults

Ya but with Amazon I can buy a VHS tape of Matlock in my underwear and it ships the next day.

And all this time people were talking about one world government conspiracies while these corporations were fleecing everyone.

The system now is based on a business being in business just to one day sell out to one of these super companies just to make a killing.

They may be just too big to stop at this point.