UGH! Does merger cause monopoly that leads to gouging?

[Plane]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/pfizer-hiked-us-prices-for-more-than-100-drugs-on-jan-1/ar-CCiQd6?li=BBnb7Kz

[Xavier_Onassis]

There should be some way to prevent this merger.  There should be some way to prevent corporations from doing bogus shit like this.

[Plane]

  There are anti-trust laws.

    Sometimes they seem underused, not enforced when they could be.

    There may also be room for improvement in copyright and patent laws.

[Xavier_Onassis]

There simply need to be laws that prevent this. Republicans would never pass them because property and ownership are sacred to them.

[Plane]

[Xavier_Onassis]

Teddy Roosevelt would not be accepted into today's Republican Party. Neither would William Taft.

[Plane]

   TR was not accepted by the establishment of the Republicans at the time either.

[Xavier_Onassis]

TR was good domestically, thought he was a racist. He was terrible with regard to foreign policy.

The Republican Party preferred do-nothings like Coolidge and Harding who thought that doing nothing was constructive.

[Plane]

  I think that anyone that is truly and seriously anti-trust isn't a popular candidate with the establishment of either party.

   Seems like we would have learned something in recent years about the fragility of an economy that depends on corporate entities that are too big to fail.

[Xavier_Onassis]

We have learned that they do not benefit most of our people.
Politicians have learned that too big to fail corporations can benefit tem with campaign donations.

[Plane]

  Yes , they have proven that they can be bi-partisans on something.

   I would not favor a maximum limit on a companies size, but quashing or co-opting the competition ought to be discouraged .

     I am not certain about the exact levels that trigger anti-trust laws to be enforced, but it seems that when a single company or a small number of companies owns enough of an industry to ruin the industry with a few mistakes the point where those laws would have been helpful has been passed.

In Particular the ability to build large and sophisticated aircraft seems far too concentrated in Boeing, the ability to build large aircraft engines too concentrated in  Pratt & Whitney and GE.

     Getting a dimwit in charge of one of these big companies is worse for the country than having six dimwit state governors.

     And apparently getting a dimwit in charge is inevitable , state , corporate or federal, this is another good reason to prevent too much power in too few hands whether state , corporate or federal.