Re:Four companies dominate our daily lives unlike any other ...
by yladiz on Sunday February 11, 2018 @09:08AM
(#16352731)
Nitpick: don't conflate conglomerates and other corporations, like BH and Apple. BH owns a lot of smaller companies but themselves don't do much as a holding company, whereas Apple is one big company that does a lot directly.
Re:Four companies dominate our daily lives unlike any other ...
by adventured on Sunday February 11, 2018 @09:22AM
(#16352777)
I'm intentionally including Berkshire, with full awareness of the difference between a conglomerate and eg Apple.
This is about economic power, reach, influence over daily life. Berkshire reaches into daily American life every bit as much as Amazon does. The difference is you don't see a lot of what Berkshire does.
Berkshire's energy position is massive. They operate one of the largest railroads. They operate one of the world's largest insurance businesses (or several of them if you view them seperately). They have huge influential stakes in everything from the largest banks to Coca Cola to Kraft Heinz. They're one of the largest owners of Apple.
I'd argue their influence on daily American life exceeds that of Amazon.
Re:Four companies dominate our daily lives unlike any other ...
by LamaOfRuin on Sunday February 11, 2018 @10:38AM
(#16353091)
Does a single BH board have direct control over all of that influence on a daily basis, or is it broken up? However wrong many of its arguments are, the piece is arguing from a point of actual exercise of influence, in addition to theoretical holding of influence.
If you want to break up Apple due to its economic power, then you have dozens of other corporations to slice into pieces. How? Who knows, some bureacrat with likely zero relevant qualifications will get to decide.
If you take apart Apple, then you have to rip apart:
Berkshire Hathaway, 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Caterpillar, Intel, Oracle, Cisco, nVidia, Netflix, Adobe, Activision Blizzard, Priceline, Exxon, Chevron, Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, AbbVie, Abbott Labs, Gilead, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Lockheed Martin, Visa, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Heinz, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, McDonald's, Starbucks, Nike, DowDupont, Disney, Boeing, CVS, Walgreens. I'd add GE to that list, but they've decided to take care of it themselves.
You also reasonably have to start dealing harshly with similarly massive corporations HQ'd outside your jurisdiction, when they attempt to operate within your borders. Whether that's SAP, Toyota, Alibaba, AmBev, etc.
Now, on some of those, without question, a large audience is shaking their head yes. For example, the big banks. There is a large segment that overwhelmingly thinks they need broken up. How do you forcibly break up 3M, Boeing and Home Depot? That's just begging for disaster.
Then after you're done screwing with the economy, you have to pass a law that prevents nearly any acquisitions, so the giants outside your borders don't just scoop up the now weaker smaller entities and so that new giants never get constructed again.
Good luck.