ANTI-TRUST LAW Functionally, all that people care about in a market-economy is this (from here): What is the role of the consumer in market and mixed economies? What has happened in our Market Economy over the past 30/40 years? A lot of BAD in the making of billionaires by means of market-consolidation. For reasons inexplicable, and across the presidencies of both major parties, as a nation our leaders decided to forget our history regarding the question of Market Monopolies that we learned at the end of the 19th century. Which at the time we called Trusts. Here is a history-lesson about Trusts in the US: United States antitrust law - excerpt: Those laws are still on the books, but nobody is enforcing them. And what we have had recently is a Colossal Manipulation of Markets by means of consolidation. Meaning "buy-outs" the sole intent of which was to reduce competition to a very comfortable limited number of market-competitors that could manipulate pricing amongst them ... MY POINT? A truly "free market" has unlimited competition. It is the purpose of Anti-trust Laws to assure that such is maintained in order for market-economy consumers to make ideal purchasing decisions. The first-lesson regarding anti-trust laws for this New Generation is going to be how the government handles both Facebook and Google!
yabberefugee said: ↑ But a community is much more than a market economy. Many desirable services are best provided, not in the competitive private sector market, but in the public sector (eg education).
Depends on whether the curriculum is based on the search for truth; education controlled by agents of particular ideologies/religions is certainly the most dangerous of all.
In most of the developed world, yes they do. Maybe not yours because they are so damn expensive? In years to come, you will read a great deal about the Change of Ages (which is upon us presently since the end of the last century). The Industrial Age started moving to southeast Asia with the opening of China. The things we make nowadays are far less industrial in nature. They are more services orientated. Only 12% of the American workforce is found in the Manufacturing Industry. Where's the other larger part? In the Services Industries. (Government is NOT a Services Industry as most think - not for purposes of economic-analysis. Government is an "industry" of its own - and not to be neglected.) So, what are the fast growing "industries" in the US? Here they are (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics): There are only two above that have salaries above $100K. Whyzzat? Because healthcare is NOT a public-service in the US - as many care to think. It is a private-service that happens to have some very expensive Contracted Medical Services (bought by companies and proposed as benefits to employees and nonetheless Very Serious Overhead Charges!*). But, if you are not working - and you get sick - then there's always the "ER". Which, 9-times out of 10, is far too late for most serious illnesses. Of course, I am obliged to mention that the two Healthcare Services with Income Levels above $100K annually (in the above infographic) are far less significantly well paid in Europe. Why? Because those "industries" are controlled for the most part by National Health Insurance. Which means what? It means that more people actually have access to Preventive Care in Europe than the US. And what does THAT mean? This: And so, where is the largest expansion of unemployment. People who earn a pittance to take care of the elderly. I have no cause with the elderly. Being one, I need not have cause. But, the younger generation in the US better awaken to the fact that if they do not have a Post-secondary Level degree they are consigning themselves to the lower-end salary levels. Need more be said. (Well, yes, this: The US needs absolutely to offer free Post-secondary Level education - just as it started to do in the 20th century with high-schooling where most Americans at the time then learned to read&write. But that's not sufficient anymore ... 'Nuff said ... ? *Meaning that we-the-sheeple pay for those services the costs of which are imputed to their pricing - which increases very-significantly the price we pay for all that we purchase!
The first antitrust laws in the U.S. focused on monopolies. Armed with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the federal government went after railroads, sugar producers, and most famously, Standard Oil. Over the years, antitrust laws were expanded to ban price fixing, price discrimination, and interlocking boards of directors. Even though the laws themselves were written during the industrial age, they've proven flexible enough to allow the government to influence the direction of a wide variety of current industries, from sports to the movies to healthcare, where the unprecedented restructuring expected as a result of the Affordable Care Act may collide with antitrust law. For instance, one can see antitrust enforcement as a key factor in the development of the communications revolution. In 1982, the federal government used the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up AT&T, a move that launched the modern telecom industry. Nearly 20 years later, the Department of Justice sued Microsoft over monopolistic practices. When a judge finally ended court oversight of the company in 2011, the DOJ declared that the action had helped the personal computer industry become more competitive. Whether that was true or not, Microsoft no longer held the commanding position it did in 1998. Just days ago, the government won an antitrust case against Apple for conspiring with book publishers to raise the price of e-books. Some analysts believe the ruling could discourage Apple, which has been a pioneer in electronic media, from entering future markets. continued https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/is-antitrust-law-keeping-up
Show me instead of just stating it in a debate-forum. Besides, your remark is irrelevant. Given the sorry state of Healthcare in America HCA-monopolies in some cities is better than NO HCA WHATSOEVER! Frankly, I don't think you know the-first-thing about what you print here. If there are HCA monopolies it's because free-markets make them that way. Nobody in their right mind is going to open-up a healthcare-center in a city or town where one already exists and meets the Demand of local citizens. Healthcare is NEED NOT BE A PUBLIC-SERVICE THAT BENDS TO MONOPOLY RULES! Healthcare has no reason whatsoever to be a "free market". Because it is is CENTRAL to a decent existence it is therefore within the public-domain. Like firefighting and police-work. And in that manner, it is far more essential than the DoD, which presently swallows-whole 57% of the entire Discretionary Budget. (See here.) Healthcare and Post-secondary Education MUST BECOME FEDERAL FREEBEES! The medical and economic well-being of the nation depend upon those two guarantees ...
Facebook and Google should be left alone by both regulators and users. Technology is itself a trade - standard of living for freedom.
Hospital Monopoly Law Faces Supreme Scrutiny WASHINGTON (CN) – A Georgia law that bars application of federal antitrust laws against local monopolies created by hospitals mergers will face review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Phoebe Putney Health System announced plans to merge with its largest local rival, HCA Inc.’s Palmyra Park Hospital ... https://www.courthousenews.com/hospital-monopoly-law-faces-supreme-scrutiny/
And, pray tell, what was the reason? Find me the reason as published in the press, dammit! JUSTIFY the allegations that you print here ... !
Hospital Monopoly Law Faces Supreme Scrutiny WASHINGTON (CN) – A Georgia law that bars application of federal antitrust laws against local monopolies created by hospitals mergers will face review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Phoebe Putney Health System announced plans to merge with its largest local rival, HCA Inc.’s Palmyra Park Hospital ... https://www.courthousenews.com/hospital-monopoly-law-faces-supreme-scrutiny/ Hospital Monopoly Lawsuit – Ipcarolina A hospital was SUED and LOST, in claims that they violated anti-trust to create a monopoly. That is really what our medical area healthcare structure is like. Once a patient goes to a hospital-based primary care, they are funneled through that system with forced-like health services within that network.
About amalgamation of entire industry sectors in the US - from here: It's the last two lines in the above caption that the most important. We have never ever gone after the continued indulgence of BigBusiness to mix, mingle, commingle, blend, merge, coalesce, amalgamate, fuse, or mean to combine into a more or less uniform whole buyout of some entire-markets in the US. (How many companies make commercial aircraft in the US. One!) The DOJ has gone after single-entities that control a market - as they did with Microsoft. But not entire market amalgamations! In fact, Mergers are BigBusiness especially for legal-firms that are self-indulging in markets that are in fact a matter of illegal concentration of prime-actors! And no administration - either Dem or Replicant - has had the you-know-whats to bring market-concentration before the Supreme Court. Which, given the Replicant majority nowadays, would like throw out any such effort ... !
Complete irrelevance ... Georgia bars application of Federal antitrust law? Yeah right, and the cow jumped over the moon ...
Georgia and South Carolina are different states...so is Florida. HCA challenges Lee Health's 'monopolistic dominance' with ... https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/facilities-management/hca-challenges-lee-health... HCA's bid to build the hospital conflicts with Fort Myers, Fla.-based Lee Health's application to build an 82-bed hospital in Estero. In its application to the Florida Agency for Health Care...
Not in terms of new-hires, which heavily influences the statistics ... especially after the massive layoffs of 2008/2014. In fact, those jobs never "came back". That is, massive deindustrialization happened. When Demand picked up finally in 2014, American companies did not rehire mostly manufacturing personnel. (They did hire construction personnel, however, when Demand returned.) They simply looked elsewhere for manufacturing. Mostly, I gather, Mexico and China. Those manufacturing jobs are not coming back - not at the American labor-costs that Americans are willing to pay today when they can have lower-cost manufactured products pouring in from China ... We have full-employment (or damn close) but if you look at the numbers, those jobs are decidedly not in industry. (Industrial workers number barely 12% of the entire workforce population.) Welcome to a Services-Industry national economy ... !
Well, it's not down-and-out. For as long as there is population growth, there is always housing construction. The hurt comes in markets that Americans don't really need coming out of the worst Recession since the Great Depression. Those markets are the lower-end not very technological like banging out pots-'n-pans. Those markets are likely lost forever. Even China is pushing them out and putting-up production in Vietnam. After what we did to Vietnam it is amazing how the people have forgot almost everything that happened. American companies that provide jobs are more than welcome. Of course, there is now an entirely new generation there of young-people looking for a future ...
