What companies are too big in your estimation? All responses, informed or goofy, welcome!
To get real esoteric:
Thermo Fisher is by far the biggest vendor of scientific equipment and supplies, formed by subsequent mergers of Thermo Electron, Fisher Scientific, and Life Technologies. They don’t quite have a complete monopoly on anything, since regulators made them sell off a few smaller divisions to prevent that. But they are hugely dominant, with a market cap 17x larger than their next biggest competitor. I suspect that they gradually get monopolies in more and more niche sectors, as small competitors inevitably go under.
The oil companies (ExxonMobil, BP-Amoco, etc.).
The cable companies. Hell, I’m not even sure who there is anymore besides Comcast.
The airlines. Used to be real competition; now you’re lucky if there’s more than one airline flying the route you want to fly.
Luxxotica. They control 80% of the worldwide market for eyeglasses, using multiple different brand names, like Prada, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Tiffany,
Bulgari, Vogue, Persol, Coach, DKNY, Rayban, Oakley, Sunglasses Hut, LensCrafters, Oliver Peoples, Pearle Vision, Target Optical, and Sears Optical.
They use their power to keep the prices of eyeglasses as high as possible.
Elsever, which publishes many academic journals. They charge ridiculously high prices for their magazines, knowing that, in many fields, college libraries are pretty much required to subscribe. Academics also need to pay outrageous prices to keep up in their field.
These assholes have gotten too powerful.
(Sorry to pollute the thread, but the OP did say all responses are welcome)
Outside of the two major American political parties? I would probably look to entertainment (both production and examples such as cable) and airlines.
Disney and most media companies in general. We would be better served if more media companies were smaller and more independent.
I’ve never been a big fan of antitrust laws - I don’t see mere size as a problem.
On the other hand, I have come to the conclusion that any company which has achieved sufficient market share to become “too big to fail” (more accurately, “too bit to allow to fail”) is too big. Failure must always be an option.
I also look askance at companies which leverage market share in one segment to influence another segment. Specifically, Microsoft’s acknowledged use of undocumented Windows calls in its application software gives their application division a big boost over competitors.
Jared, Zales and Kay Jewelers are all owned by the same parent company (in Bermuda, I think). No idea what share of the retail market they command. But they seem to account for 99% of the gift-holiday TV advertising time.
Nearly all beers in North America (US, Canada,Mexico) are owned by either SAB-Miller or InBev. I thibk there is even talk of those two merging.
That would be Signet Jewelers.
My first thought. In case people don’t look deeper into the link, I wanted to point out just how much power they have. They dominate both the design/manufacturing of frames and the retail sales chains. A company trying to compete in one piece of the chain practically has to do business with them (either selling Luxxotica frames or having their frames sold in Luxxotica stores) to be anything other than a niche player. That gives them huge power to choke off competition.
I would say the NFL. Look at how they bully cities into giving them whatever they want.
In the 1950s, the cost of a letter stamp was 3 cents, and a three-minute phone call across the couintry cost three bucks. By the 1970s, the stamp and the phone call had met each other at about a quarter. (Now 49c for a stamp, and phone calls too cheap to meter.) Both the post office and the telephone company were virtual monopolies. Guess which one was broken up by the Justice Department.
The only time a monopoly really becomes an issue is when the government enforces the monopoly.
Sigh. I suspect my argument will fall on deaf ears. But this is trivially untrue. To TLDR my argument : in many cases, economics or reality mean that a single company in a particular market niche is far more efficient than 2 or more companies in that niche.
Even when the company raises it’s prices to extra high profits - called monopoly rents - from it’s niche, it is very difficult for a competitor to come along. One simple reason is that the company will lower it’s prices to force the competitor out of business, then raise them back again.
Monopolies are especially a problem when the company is provide a critical service. This includes the production of medicine, internet service, all utilities, and so on. In these cases, individuals have little choice but to purchase the service at whatever price it is offered at.
Whereas private sector delivery services like FedEx cost far less. :rolleyes:
It’s actually illegal for them to compete with the post office on price when delivering letters. (I’m not saying it would be cheaper. A market that’s shrinking by the year is not going to get new entrants racing in.)
It doesn’t seem like it is shrinking, in my mailbox. I get more mail bulk than I ever did in past years, first-class mail representing only a tiny portion of it, probably less than 10%. . The government protects a not-for-profit enabler of junk mail to benefit the private sector.
10 years ago, I would have agreed with you. Today, just about everyone in the US can get 1 or 2 dish services, and if you have decent internet service, you can go the Amazon/Netflix/Hulu route.
My vote is for razor manufacturers. Those things are stupid expensive, compared to what the material and manufacturing costs are.
Speaking of “Too Big to Fail” yeah the bank industry needs a busting.