Re:Is Amazon's cloud service too big to fail?
by adventured on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @01:14PM
(#14912518)
Corporate entities were radically more powerful in Teddy Roosevelt's day, far beyond what they are today. They were almost entirely unchained in regards to economic power, whereas today there is hyper regulation (tens of thousands of pages of it, including direct Fed control over the banking system).
Standard Oil was as powerful as the US Government in that era, as were the railroads. JP Morgan was far more powerful than the US Treasury. Cornelius Vanderbilt - pre Roosevelt - all by himself had greater financial capability at his peak than the US Government at the time.
The difference, is back then there was wide-spread and growing fear of the combinations and would-be monopolies. Today, Americans are relatively unconcerned by Microsoft (desktop), Google (search, android), Walmart & Amazon (retail), Intel (microprocessors), Facebook (social), Cisco, Boeing, etc.
Re:Is Amazon's cloud service too big to fail?
by pyroinferno on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @01:49PM
(#14912915)
Why leave it at American companies? The Dutch East India Company was far more powerful and bigger than any company seen today.
Re:Is Amazon's cloud service too big to fail?
by bb611 on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @03:08PM
(#14913641)
Beyond that, it was more powerful than many (maybe most) modern governments. It was an international power unto itself.
Re:Is Amazon's cloud service too big to fail?
by tdb7893 on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @01:34PM
(#14912765)
Here is an smbc comic making fun of this phenomenon. http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3794
That seems like the most reasonable response. And yet, since the great recession, our policy has been "make 'too big to fail' even bigger".
The problem is that the banks have become too powerful for anyone to challenge. A Teddy Roosevelt type of political leader can't exist today.