Recently, I received a notice from Quicken that I will no longer be able to use the 2008 version I bought to download records from my financial institutions. I bought the 2008 version because they changed formats which stopped the downloading in the earlier format. I don't want to buy another version. I don't want any of the bells and whistles that I will supposedly get by upgrading. All I want is a place to keep track of my transactions and periodically see how I"m doing. However, without downloading, the current software will become worthless to me. I have tried to identify an alternative that would allow me to do the basics but the pickings are slim. They are even slimmer if you try and find an alternative in Mac. I've tried several demos but they just don't work. Reading the comments along the way, it appears that Quicken identifies any real competitors and then just buys them out before they can threaten their monopoly. They are then free to abuse their users by forcing regular upgrades by taking away features that existed when we paid their fees. This is to just keep the fees flowing, apparently, now every three years, even though they offer nothing extra to entice voluntary upgrading.
This experience with Quicken got me thinking about our entire economy and how monopolies are taking over our lives by buying out the competitors. Companies used to grow and expand by inventing and improving their products, but now they just grow through acquisition. If someone offers something new and exciting, just buy them out, don't compete.
This is true with many of our industries:
* Media through Comcast, Viacom, Disney which now own almost all the network and cable stations, and Verizon and ATT which will soon control the content arriving on your computer, despite the pretent net neutrality rules of the FCC.
* Finance where the big 5 financial institutions which brought us financial armageddon now hold 60% of GDP http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/shooting-banks up significantly since the crisis, as the perpetrators were the chief beneficiaries of the financial failures wrought by the crisis.
* Pharmaceuticals, some of which have combined names longer than their chemical formulas, but still spend less on R&D than advertising.
* Health insurers which control the health care industry through Blue Cross, Humana, United Health and Cigna.
*Agriculture where just a very few food conglomerates like Cargill, Arthur Daniels Midland, and Tyson dominate all aspects of food production from farm to market.
*Energy which has significantly consolidated into a small number of huge companies in oil, coal and natural gas.
These are the big groupings but they are hardly alone.
This monopolization is also true with niche industries, like financial software. Once they get a big enough share, they can force their way on their customers and competitors without worrying about their customers abandoning them. If a truly new and improved product is invented or developed, then just use your considerable assets to buy them out. If your assets aren't enough, then just leverage the buyout through the hedge funds and all. Nothing stands in the way of this monopolization.
In Teddy Roosevelt's time, trust busting became the way to really bring back the free market but now it has almost gone the way of extinct animals. Bigger is better appears to be today's philosophy run amok! We only pay lip service to free enterprise, because monopoly capitalism is anything but the market that Adam Smith envisioned. Yet corporate power seems too great, that there does not appear to be solution.
With these monopolies also come great political clout. Anything that threatens their monopoly which cannot be bought out can be crushed through legal maneuvers, regulations, and legislation. These are delivered by the bought and paid for political class which is dedicated primarily to getting or staying in office. These trends may be unstoppable, but that doesn't make them any the less ominous. This realization has left me disturbed and pessimistic. I'm just not sure how to fight.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
Pessimism is well founded
The pessimism of this election is well-deserved because the no-nothings voted for change again, but they didn't have a clue about what that change would be and they have ensured another two years of economic stagnation and failure.
No distinctions were made regarding politicians, it really didn't matter what they stood for or how they had performed in the past, it only mattered that they were part of the status quo so anyone was else was more desirable.
The people want the politicians to "work together" to solve the very real problems of the country, so they voted in people who have avowed that they will not compromise, they will not work together, that its my way or the highway.
The people want civility in Washington so they vote in some of the most uncivil and almost voted in even worse.
The people want jobs so they voted in people who will not provide jobs, who will not stimulate the economy or future industries that could provide jobs, who will continue the ever-widening gap between rich and the rest, who are likely to shut down the government and engage in witch hunts for secret muslims, and global warming hoaxes, and finding a way to impeach the president and roll back health care for 35 million people [which the CBO says will save money for the government over the next 20 years]. They don't want to improve the health care bill, they want to repeal it, because the idea that health care should be a right not a privilege is socialism.
I realized after 2000 that elections do matter and that someone gets elected no matter what. It is unlikely that any politician will actually change the system that made him or her. It's unlikely that they will ever change the system where money is influence and influence sets much of the agenda. Ralph Nader was right, Gore wouldn't be fundamentally different that Bush. He was a representative of the powers that be and he would not significantly change those powers. However, that said, change does occur on the margins. We would not have unnecessarily invaded Iraq and spent almost 3T dollars had Gore been elected. We would not have spent another 8 years denying climate change was real and starting to actually tackle the same energy crisis that Jimmy Carter warned about in 1979. We might have had eight years of research into treatments and cures for diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Would the financial crisis that hit in 2008 have happened. It's likely since the causes were set in motion 30 years ago with the deregulatory fever that gripped the nation with Reagan's ascendance. It's likely because Alan Greenspan would still have failed to see the flaw in his economic theory and popped the housing bubble before it became an F5 tornado. But on the margins, our lives would have been better.
The same is true in 2010. A Democratic Congress would not have ended world hunger, put a chicken in every pot, fundamentally changed the broken election system or the broken financial system. The Democrats are too beholden to special interest to fundamentally challenge the powers that run the world, but they would have continued unemployment benefits, they might have made infrastructure spending a priority, they might have moved us towards a better energy future, they might have made real improvements in education in this country. These are where the margins meet people. Instead, we have rewarded the obstruction and nastiness of the Republican minority, we have told them their efforts at bringing down the President and hurting the economy have worked for them politically, so why should they change. I believe that most politicians aren't really in this job for the good of the country, its for themselves. We just showed the GOP that the best chance they have for 2012 is more of the same no matter how bad it might be for the no-nothings who vote, because a bad economy in 2012 is their best chance of winning politically.
I keep saying, I'm glad I won't live to see the results of these destructive policies, but unfortunately, I will see the slow decline in that direction. Ten years ago, it was widely believed that we had reached the end of history. Boy were we wrong. It appears like we are heading for the BRIC century, where unfettered capitalism wins, and political freedom is just another phrase for nothing else to lose.
No distinctions were made regarding politicians, it really didn't matter what they stood for or how they had performed in the past, it only mattered that they were part of the status quo so anyone was else was more desirable.
The people want the politicians to "work together" to solve the very real problems of the country, so they voted in people who have avowed that they will not compromise, they will not work together, that its my way or the highway.
The people want civility in Washington so they vote in some of the most uncivil and almost voted in even worse.
The people want jobs so they voted in people who will not provide jobs, who will not stimulate the economy or future industries that could provide jobs, who will continue the ever-widening gap between rich and the rest, who are likely to shut down the government and engage in witch hunts for secret muslims, and global warming hoaxes, and finding a way to impeach the president and roll back health care for 35 million people [which the CBO says will save money for the government over the next 20 years]. They don't want to improve the health care bill, they want to repeal it, because the idea that health care should be a right not a privilege is socialism.
I realized after 2000 that elections do matter and that someone gets elected no matter what. It is unlikely that any politician will actually change the system that made him or her. It's unlikely that they will ever change the system where money is influence and influence sets much of the agenda. Ralph Nader was right, Gore wouldn't be fundamentally different that Bush. He was a representative of the powers that be and he would not significantly change those powers. However, that said, change does occur on the margins. We would not have unnecessarily invaded Iraq and spent almost 3T dollars had Gore been elected. We would not have spent another 8 years denying climate change was real and starting to actually tackle the same energy crisis that Jimmy Carter warned about in 1979. We might have had eight years of research into treatments and cures for diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Would the financial crisis that hit in 2008 have happened. It's likely since the causes were set in motion 30 years ago with the deregulatory fever that gripped the nation with Reagan's ascendance. It's likely because Alan Greenspan would still have failed to see the flaw in his economic theory and popped the housing bubble before it became an F5 tornado. But on the margins, our lives would have been better.
The same is true in 2010. A Democratic Congress would not have ended world hunger, put a chicken in every pot, fundamentally changed the broken election system or the broken financial system. The Democrats are too beholden to special interest to fundamentally challenge the powers that run the world, but they would have continued unemployment benefits, they might have made infrastructure spending a priority, they might have moved us towards a better energy future, they might have made real improvements in education in this country. These are where the margins meet people. Instead, we have rewarded the obstruction and nastiness of the Republican minority, we have told them their efforts at bringing down the President and hurting the economy have worked for them politically, so why should they change. I believe that most politicians aren't really in this job for the good of the country, its for themselves. We just showed the GOP that the best chance they have for 2012 is more of the same no matter how bad it might be for the no-nothings who vote, because a bad economy in 2012 is their best chance of winning politically.
I keep saying, I'm glad I won't live to see the results of these destructive policies, but unfortunately, I will see the slow decline in that direction. Ten years ago, it was widely believed that we had reached the end of history. Boy were we wrong. It appears like we are heading for the BRIC century, where unfettered capitalism wins, and political freedom is just another phrase for nothing else to lose.
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