PG: “Any industry that still has unions has potential energy”

Re:PG: “Any industry that still has unions has potential ene... by obrero on Sunday November 08, 2015 @07:35PM (#10530772)

Are you joking? The United States is dominated by the modern trusts. In 1911 Standard Oil was broken up. In 1999 the two major Standard Oil subsidiaries - Standard Oil of New York and Standard Oil of New Jersey merged once again, into ExxonMobil. In 1984 Bell was broken up. Now the Baby Bells have merged back together with the countries local loops dominated by Verizon and AT&T (and Qwest) and the wireless spectrum also dominated by AT&T and Verizon (and Sprint...and T-Mobile, which AT&T tried to merge with, then Sprint - and which will be merged or carried off to the graveyard in the coming years).

Monopoly is the name of the game, or duopoly any how - and everyone from Peter Thiel to Warren Buffett is pretty open about it. The "Big Eight" accounting firms have been halved, they are now the Big Four. The media is owned by the Big Six, which is really the Big Five as Redstone controls Viacom and CBS.

The US is full of trusts and monopolies and the trend has been for more of the same. Even breakfast cereals have a Big Four. Less than 7% of workers in private industry are in unions, and that number has been falling.

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Re:PG: “Any industry that still has unions has potential ene... by jnwrd on Sunday November 08, 2015 @08:19PM (#10530902)

Well put, I would further add that much of the equity in these few firms is owned by massive firms such as Blackstone, and and Blackrock. Concentrating the ownership into the hands of fewer owners further promotes anticompetitive action.

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