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Eastern NE KS | I feel like my whole life has been a macro economic experiment with the government allowing industry after industry melt to 3-4 majors. And commonly it melted to just 3. I always thought the feds thinking was driven by efficiency. The 'rules' could be delivered to the 3 and corporate edicts would manifest the rule through a very significant portion of the industry.
My thinking was this was a trade off that minimizes government regulators and leverage internal corporate controls. Fed government accepted the risk of the corporations becoming quasi-monopolies.
It is a my perspective that this was folly, while Ma Bell was easy to break apart. After all it was a Monopoly! Fundamentally changing a 3-4 industry quasi-monopoly where they do not collude at the expense of their suppliers and customers, is unfeasible. Their first line of defense is we were allowed to grow this big. Their second is we are not like Ma Bell, there are 3-4 of us. By definition we are not a monopoly. And their 3rd is hiring government officials to exploit learned weaknesses in the rules. The 4th is vertical integration. Although this one may be the more powerful than #3.
We will see where this iteration of investigation leads, but I'm afraid it will be to no significant change. I think to really change an industry where corporations compete with each other would require 10-20 majors and that is a dream beyond my lifetime.
Edited by Doug61 10/31/2025 01:01
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Senator asks DOJ to continue investigating Big 4 Packers
