[lbo-talk] Kerry's Tax Cut Makes Me Wanna Ralph

[Christian Gregory]

> Elementary economic theory.  CIT, like ground rent, is paid out
> of realized  profit.  Almost all CIT comes from big corporations
> who hold a monopoly or oligopoly (shared monopoly)
> market dominance.  Again, by elementary theory, these monopolists
> have set their prices, wages, and supply costs at the level they
> calculated to produce maximum  profit.  Therefore they
> have very little (at best) ability to pass through a tax on
> profit  to their workers or consumers.
>

How is the monopolist's profit maximizing behavior different from a
competitive firm's, so descirbed? I thought the point of being a monopolist
was that, in theory, although there is a quantity that maximizes profit, you
have _more_ leeway, not less, to mess with prices.

And since when has most CIT come from monopolies? I think shareholders in
McDonald's, Ford, and Dell would be surprised to hear this.

Christian