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Barely. A lot of them just slipped right by, Microsoft, most sports leagues. They haven't done anything at all because they are getting money from them. These companies have the politicians in their back-pockets.
Only government approved monopolies are allowed. The government does more to create monopolies now than anything, and it does it through 'regulation.'
Generally monopolies are created and protected by the government and its regulations (like andrew said). So "yes".
What do you mean by "regulation"?
Almost all regulation is framed to protect market shares rather than to break down barriers to entry (the ideal of anti-monopolistic regulations). It takes many forms. We have laws which "protect" American shipbuilding by requiring ships traveling on our waterways be of American manufacture (I say "protect" because nobody outside of America uses American shipbuilders as a consequence, Germany and Japan pretty much rule that industry). We have laws which restricted the use of the carbon-tax-credit for fuel efficient car purchases to avoid Toyota. Minimum wage laws are almost always pushed for by companies (and unions) which do not pay anything approaching the minimum wage, intending to push smaller scale competitors out of business by raising their marginal costs. High sugar tariffs and our corn subsidies protect American agricultural monopolies over sugar and corn, giving us substantially more expensive sugar and a virtual ban on importing sugar based ethanol in favor of corn ethanol. And so on.
Can you explain this further?
That's good though. You have to whip these corporations otherwise they will do whatever they want.
I don't think you are following. "These corporations" are still doing what they want.
They are the ones holding the whip in your analogy. Not us. And certainly not the government.
Sure, you have to give corporations some freedom. If you kept Apple and Microsoft on a tight leash, would they have come up with the technology they are rapidly coming out with today? You need to give corporations freedom, but have a referee on the sidelines who will stop them when they are doing something wrong.
There are bad politicians, I know that. However, I know there are very good ones out there who will point the finger at some CEO's for doing wrong, and punishing them.
No. You are not getting the point. Corporations control the regulations, not the politicians.
There are indeed meaningful and well-intended consumer protections or competitive balances that can and should be addressed by regulation. But the typical use of regulation at present is not to point the finger at some bad CEO. It is to protect the bad CEO against other competing CEOs (including sometimes, other those in other countries), against consumers, or against labor. This is known in economics as regulatory capture.
Yea Jared, quit while you are behind.
Hey, I agree with Sun Tzu for once.
I shall try better next time then.
Since Microsoft is a monopoly, and it is not regulated, I suppose not.
Just my not-so-humble opinion.
I think monopolies have gotten bigger than just one company or corporation. There are industry monopolies. For example, gas/oil is so critical to this country when, in all reality, if anyone put any effort into developing them we could have many more technologies that leave oil in the wake of progress.
Microsoft was never any where near a monopoly. The only incidents that drew the ire of antitrust lobbies were ones that involved Microsoft prepackaging software with Windows, such as Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. Competitors were afraid that if Microsoft was allowed the package IE and Office in with Windows, people would be unable to use competing software since Windows had such an overwhelming market share over other platforms.
This is a fallacy when arguing for a monopoly, however, since Microsoft packages Internet Explorer with Windows today and what is this? I am not using Internet Explorer. I am not using Microsoft Office. There were *always* other options besides Microsoft products. *Always*. There were always alternative platforms, always alternative web browsers, always alternative office suites. Microsoft never had a monopoly.