How to Stop Monopolies
What’s at stake? For one thing, your money. The American Economic Liberties Project tells us that, in combination with lower wages, corporate consolidation costs the average US household $5,000/year. Meanwhile, monopoly-fueled product price “markups” have tripled to 61% since 1980. economicliberties.us
How do we battle monopoly lobbyists? With advocates for the rest of us! One of our favorites is Public Citizen (Hightower is on the board). Webinars by the Open Markets Institute and the American Antitrust Institute offer deep dives into monopolies’ dangers."
Since the 1980s, the corporate establishment has aggressively pushed presidents, legislators, governors, and regulators to champion the efficiencies of deregulated markets. But that “efficiency” is a euphemism for raw power, and the de-reg frenzy its promoters unleashed almost immediately detonated an explosion of mergers … then mega-mergers, and now … Hello, Monopoly!"
Just a few health insurance, drug store, grain, beer, chicken, hog, gasoline, beer and breakfast cereal companies control most of the market for their products.
$1.77 trillion was spent on mergers and takeovers in the first 4 months of 2021.