AN OLIGARCHIC MARKET BINGE Successive Federal Governments since a long time have overlooked the key problem that generates considerable Income Disparity. It is the aggregation of companies that reduces competition, establishes fixed and only slightly variable price-levels and installs a Market Oligarchy that refuses price-competition by mutual non-contractual agreement. People working for oligarchies that have a privileged market offer salaries that correspond to that privilege. Oligarchy = An oligopoly is a market structure in which a few firms dominate. When a market is shared between a few firms, it is said to be highly concentrated. Although only a few firms dominate, it is possible that many small firms may also operate in the market. The American economy has been twisted and turned. Oligopoly has been the process by which markets aggregate themselves employing corporate buyouts. It is a very dangerous market evolution because it effectively installs a "means of non-competition" to market participants. That is, the market is supposed to be "competitive", but a closer investigation shows that there is very little competition amongst the major players; so the competitive effect on prices is limited. The major companies - without negotiating directly since that would be patently illegal - find a "comfortable price-range" around which to all place themselves. There is thus no real price-competition, and - if any - it centers around means other than pricing. For instance, publicity. How bad is market oligopolization in America? That question is best answered by giving examples (as from here): Are such oligopolies "dangerous"? Hardly, if they want to keep their privileged-price positioning. Are they competitive? Only to the extent that the "price range" of competition is limited but remains high. Should any one entity leave the grouping by an attempt at "gouging the market" by reducing drastically market-prices, then the others are likely to follow. Meaning total revenues diminish until the "betrayer" finally decides to go back to the oligopolistic price-structure previously in place. (Typically this happens by means of buy-outs whereby the oligopoly is strengthened since the buyer is one of the pre-existing companies.) MY POINT Some call that described above "market-competition", but I don't. Market competition is best when BUYERS are paying sensible prices but not oligopolistic prices decided by companies. Which typically happens when either the nature of product or service is reproducible competitively with great difficulty. (Google and Facebook are two such examples.) And in some industries that has not happened since a great long time - particularly those that have supplanted non-Internet market-based products/services with Internet-based products/services ...
