Deregulation = monopolization
The facts speak for themselves. Corporate ownership of the airwaves, financial institutions, aviation, high tech, big oil, big pharma… have led us to the most corrupt government and companies that support it ever It has destroyed competition, let alone fair competition. Accounting is little more than a bad joke. Companies sell product to each other to drive up the appearance of demand. The rules that these corporations come up with become law (down to individual companies), allowing the creation of equity out of thin air, discouraging small business and when small business does succeed, they get swallowed up unless they are useful to turn into another predatory monopoly to fill a niche.
Trust are what got these anti-monopoly laws on the books in the first place. The US has taken a giant step back to the late 1800s to the golden time of big trusts and monopoly powers. Local business have been slaughtered and a homogenous group think set of companies have taken their place. Local news, entertainment and information is worthless as they too are owned by conglomerates that have no interest in the city or township, but just the money they can earn. Corporations by nature as sociopaths.
On energy alone the US is far behind China and Brazil in using technology to reduce dependence on oil. I’ve talked with sales execs from Kyocera and BP and both are stunned at the pure stupidity of the US consumer, government and corporations that don’t include renewables in the creation of new and upgrading of old infrastructure. Ethanol from corn is so energy intensive to make that it doesn’t solve anything but make more jobs (Brazil uses sugar cane).
Waiting for Adam Smith’s invisible hand will be as long a wait as the second coming of Jesus by christian zionists. There is no competition as the SEC made sure of that. Deregulation has created monopolies and oligopolies, precisely the opposite effect of what the SEC was created for. The FCC is another division of our government that hasn’t been worth a tinkers damn.
Technology is available, but even the Apollo Alliance is a dead cow that sucks in cash and has done nothing but generate doctored numbers from the states to meet what is supposed to be energy savings. Today’s technology and energy efficient amplification, low power/high torque motors, wide spread light weight composites and metal alloys…should have cut the cost of the average home appliance and HVAC system by up to 85% from what was available just 10 years ago. I see nothing on the horizon from any major manufacturer at the trade shows that suggest that we can expect the application of new energy saving technologies in the future. Once again, without real competition, the consumer can expect planned obsolescence and technology moving at a snail’s pace for products in the home.
Finally, the Americans persist in thinking that oil is endless and will not buy efficient cars and trucks in quantity. None of the American car makers create diesel or hybrid engines. They have to purchase them from other companies in Japan or Europe. The likelihood of hydrogen fuel cell cars is almost nil as there are no companies that are willing to put money into a distribution system. If it wasn’t for our representative government (when it was a representative government), there would be no internet, world wide web, interstate transportation system, satellite telecommunications system, landline communication system, clean tap water available to all, clean air, safe foods & medications, electricity and safe and equitable distribution, … Corporations have never been able to create and implement anything on the scale of what is necessary to cover the entire country and it would be nuts to think that they could or even should.
Comment by Just plain mad — May 23, 2006 @ 12:42 pm
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