What about Microsoft?
There's plenty of oligopolies, monopolies, it's coming. Take a look at the handful of companies that control the mainstream media, or the big international oil firms, or the "new" AT&T whose goal apparently is to look a lot like the old AT&T, or take a look at the superbanks. Hard to believe but even 10 years ago there used to be a lot more independent financial institutions. The fact is almost every industry is having massive consolidation.
The government intervenes to breakup monopolities? Show us some examples of that.
Also take a look at this article from the brains at Mises institute, it's about the tulip mania.
http://www.mises.org/story/2564#0
They're arguing that it wasn't a mania at all! That the high prices reflected demand. These people are so deep in the bullshit they confuse even themselves about the most basic concepts or definitions. Now I hear that natural monopolies can exist but not normal monopolies?
If you have Coca Cola and Pepsi with 95% of the market share for sodas, is that a natural monopoly? After all, the barrier to entry is very high as you need billions in advertising to compete against these brands. Isn't that a fixed sunken cost? You also need to fight retailers and offer them a lot of money because they can extract high profits from popular brands. Another fixed cost. Or is it a normal monopoly? The 2 companies control the whole market after all.
I don't think there's a clear line between natural and normal monopoly, any number of conditions about the business environment could fall in either definition.
The thread was resolved on page 5 or so, scriabinop did an admirable job. But the austrian economists could win any argument from the safety of their ivory tower. Like someone in this thread said, austrian economics is a philosophy, try to disprove a philosophy, it's pretty damn hard. Leave them writing their silly stories and sell their DVDs, they will only become more and more irrelevant and wither away, there's no other way.
There's plenty of oligopolies, monopolies, it's coming. Take a look at the handful of companies that control the mainstream media, or the big international oil firms, or the "new" AT&T whose goal apparently is to look a lot like the old AT&T, or take a look at the superbanks. Hard to believe but even 10 years ago there used to be a lot more independent financial institutions. The fact is almost every industry is having massive consolidation.
The government intervenes to breakup monopolities? Show us some examples of that.
Also take a look at this article from the brains at Mises institute, it's about the tulip mania.
http://www.mises.org/story/2564#0
They're arguing that it wasn't a mania at all! That the high prices reflected demand. These people are so deep in the bullshit they confuse even themselves about the most basic concepts or definitions. Now I hear that natural monopolies can exist but not normal monopolies?
If you have Coca Cola and Pepsi with 95% of the market share for sodas, is that a natural monopoly? After all, the barrier to entry is very high as you need billions in advertising to compete against these brands. Isn't that a fixed sunken cost? You also need to fight retailers and offer them a lot of money because they can extract high profits from popular brands. Another fixed cost. Or is it a normal monopoly? The 2 companies control the whole market after all.
I don't think there's a clear line between natural and normal monopoly, any number of conditions about the business environment could fall in either definition.
The thread was resolved on page 5 or so, scriabinop did an admirable job. But the austrian economists could win any argument from the safety of their ivory tower. Like someone in this thread said, austrian economics is a philosophy, try to disprove a philosophy, it's pretty damn hard. Leave them writing their silly stories and sell their DVDs, they will only become more and more irrelevant and wither away, there's no other way.