And now the US government is encouraging mergers between institutions that have been deemed “too large to fail”.\u00a0 Once upon a time we relied on things known as antitrust laws to prevent this.\u00a0 These were not only meant to make companies spur competition and diversity, keep them from growing so large that their failure would be detrimental to the economy as a whole but also keep them from gaining too much political power and influence. Just listen to the Republicans rant about the “average Joes”, who are nowhere near average with incomes above $250K per year, and you can understand where the current complacency regarding the aggregation and concentration of wealth comes from.<\/p>\n
This excessive greed and sense of entitlement on the part of the wealthy in America is specifically what got us into our current economic crisis.\u00a0 The argument from the wealthy is that anything less is “socialism”.\u00a0 This is far from the truth.\u00a0 For every law that has been passed in the name of consumer protection or to stop the aggregation of companies beyond a level considered tolerable to maintain a functional economy there has been an army of lawyers ready to find the loopholes in these laws so that powerhouse mergers can continue.\u00a0 Large corporations like the idea of being able to buy the competition instead of actually competing against them with superior products and services.\u00a0 It’s become the Corporate American standard.<\/p>\n
And now the government has entered the business of negotiating and mandating these mergers through the Federal Reserve.\u00a0 They are also funding non-financial companies deemed “too large to fail”, which did anyway.\u00a0\u00a0 This is not just a slippery slope.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a triple diamond run covered in Crisco.\u00a0 There’s a real problem on the horizon here.\u00a0 In the case of a fine, fee or public protection issue from these institutions who do we think is going to protect the consumer?\u00a0 Regardless of how damaging one of these institutions actions may be for many Americans the government will let them press ahead if it means a “return for the tax payer”, which sounds a lot like “return for the share holder”.\u00a0 And we all know share holder returns trump everything when it comes to corporate policy.<\/p>\n
I’d like to know exactly how spending the tax dollars of future generations to bail out companies, that may or may not result in a return, benefits the tax payer at all.\u00a0 In the future it will help build more military equipment?\u00a0 Will it help build more highways?\u00a0 I got news:\u00a0 Those things would be done anyway using the same pretend money that was used to bail out the institutions that were “too big to fail” in the first place.\u00a0 Sucker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
And now the US government is encouraging mergers between institutions that have been deemed “too large to fail”.\u00a0 Once upon a time we relied on things known as antitrust laws to prevent this.\u00a0 These were not only meant to make companies spur competition and diversity, keep them from growing so large that their failure would … Continue reading It’s Time to Stop Conglomorates<\/span>