Showing posts with label Antitrust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Antitrust. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 August 2017

Google is paying Apple to remain on the iPhone

And the regulators and anti-trust people are asleep on the watch. When do payments become a bribe?
Google is paying Apple billions per year to remain on the iPhone, Bernstein says

Thursday, 10 August 2017

Nobody cares if Bill Gates gets richer because of tax cuts?

Forbes is a card-carrying member of the 1%. His arguments are ludicrous. Of course, Joe Six pack does not care, because he does not know or better - the numbers involved are so absurd and beyond the comprehension of the average citizens that he CANNOT care! But the Billionaires' wealth is not 'created', it is redistributed, like the wealth of feudal lords was not 'created', they took their lands and the majority had to put up with it. In those days it was just brute force, now it is ideology supported by media that is basically controlled by the 1% (remember: free speech means that 200 rich people are allowed to say what they want you to hear, think Murdoch, Barclay Brothers etc).
This ideology perpetuates the 'trickle down' effect, so if Louis XIV builds his Versailles the workers benefit from the expenditure. Now of course the capitalist (better: free market) system needs free interplay to generate a growing and productive economy. But with the wrong signals and rules of the game we get absurd results. People who make billions playing the markets, benefiting from market failure and rigged rules that preserve them (copyright, corporate law, tax subsidies for financial gambling casinos).
All these are the result of a lack of democratic control where the lobbies of the (Super)Rich control the state and prevent full and public discussion. Paying the multitudes off with 'Welfare' and driving them into ever-larger indebtedness (to the Haves, as every debt is the asset of someone else) has led us to the present situation where a public revolt is becoming increasingly likely. Populism will become more and more 'popular'.
Steve Forbes says nobody cares if Bill Gates gets richer because of tax cuts - MarketWatch

Tuesday, 6 June 2017

Corporate Mergers - positive or negative for Economy?

The near-permanent dealmaking has reached frenetic proportions during the past 20 years. Are all these mergers really necessary to sustain a growing economy that benefits employers and workers alike? Is Anti-Trust really up to the challenge of assessing all transactions? Should there be higher tax burdens imposed?
CITI: 'One of the scariest charts to look at' could create major concerns about the market

Saturday, 3 June 2017

Most respected companies or oligopolies?

Google, Amazon, Apple, respected by whom? It is time the trust-busters look at these business 'models' - selling privacy, combining third-party sales with your own sales effort and tied products.

Sunday, 21 May 2017

Apple thwarts Right to Repair - bring in Antitrust!

Time to break up Internet Oligopolies - in Apple's case force separation of hardware and content (App Store etc)
Apple Spends Big to Thwart Right to Repair in New York and Elsewhere

Saturday, 29 April 2017

Alphabet's chairman charged Co. $1.9 million for use of private planes

Gravediggers of Capitalism and Democracy are at work, the true "Deplorables". Anti-trust is asleep while Net Quasi Monopolies are free to harvest our cash.
Alphabet's chairman charged the company $1.9 million for use of private planes last year

Friday, 31 March 2017

Amazon's Bezos on way to richest Man on Earth?

No surprise if AntiTrust regulators are asleep at the wheel. Separation of own-account trading and platform for third parties or you create a Monster Monopoly!
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B5550BF6C-154E-11E7-BCC7-456FC1EDA05D%7D&siteid=rss&rss=1

Thursday, 16 March 2017

The Dystopian Future of Price Discrimination

Time for our Solons to stamp out any incipient abuses. Start with Google - ban collecting search history, ban selling slots on search results, then Amazon - break up the business, own sales and agency sales, Apple - divest from content sales
The Dystopian Future of Price Discrimination - Bloomberg ViewThe Dystopian Future of Price Discrimination - Bloomberg View