--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote:
>
>
> By the way, even though Wal-Mart has very
> substantial market power,
Market power is defined in the antitrust biz as a market share of at least 1/3 (that's the cut-off for stating a claim), and realistically more like 70-80%% of the market (to win a claim), or the power to unilaterally set prices.
> it's been using that power to drive down wages &
> prices.
Retail sales ain't a monopoly, WalMart's size and weight not withstanding.
About the
> only major "monopoly" I can think of right now
> that's overcharging
> consumers is Microsoft - and a lot of its consumers
> are businesses,
> not individuals.
Well, there is enough monopolizing and ogiopolizing going on to keep me in business. ADM, e.g., has almost all the ethanol in the US.
And you don't think consumers pay for it when monopolists who sell to businesses hike prices and cut producrtion?
>
> Doug
>
> ^^^^^^
> CB: Isn't driving down prices ( and wages !)
> something a "monopoly" is known
> to do ? Cutthroat competition is driving prices
> down. Rockefeller destroyed
> competitors through cutthroat pricing at a certain
> points, according to one
> urban legend.
Yeah, predatory pricing, it's called in the biz. It's a theory of liability. However, it almost never wins because you have to prove that the predator actually recovered or poses a dangerous probability of recovering his losses in attempting to drive the other guy out of biz. Fact is, driving down prices is good for consumers.
Btw, monopolies like the old IBM, MA Bell, and so forth were known for high wages and ghood job security. Lacking the pressure of competition they did not have a lot of urgency to drive down labor costs. ANyway, reducing labor ciosts is not something taht mainstream economic theory preducts that monopolies are particularly prone to do.
>
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