…a.k.a. Fascism is upon us. Joel Kotkin explains how and why.
Local banks have disappeared and been replaced by online and large national financial institutions. Between 1983 and 2018, the number of banks fell from 11,000 to barely 4,000. This is not an anomaly, but a trend.
…
Today, a handful of giant corporations account for nearly 40 percent of the value of the Standard and Poor Index, a level of concentration unprecedented in modern history.
…
Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft now make up 20 percent of the stock market’s total worth.
And Kotkin goes on to explain, in revolting detail, just what that means to us ordinary people.
It’s not enough to obey Big Brother and it’s not enough to love Big Brother; now you have to do business with Big Brother, if you want to have any kind of life.
I knew things were bad… I just didn’t know how bad. Read the whole thing; why should I be the only one depressed?
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range. I only get to move back into the apartment after lunch, so I might as well do something productive till then.
Yet Kotkin votes for Democrats.
There’s a reason we have antitrust laws. Nuke them until the rubble bounces if they get over 20% of a market.
But these are NATURAL monopolies, you see?
They should ask their forebears in Electricity, Gas and telephone about how that “Public Utility Regulated by the State” thing has been going for them. Do they ever miss an application for a rate increase? So long as they avoid the state burning up due to their lack of maintenance, that is.
There haven’t been local banks here since at least the 1970s.
Then in the 1990s the big financial mergers started, leading to the loss of even most of the national banks and 90% of the insurance companies as well.
And now the few that are remaining are being bought up by foreign financial companies from larger countries, and EU regulations make it impossible to stop that, all in the name of “European integration and identity”.
Of course the moment they take over something here they shut down almost all services and branch offices, the only thing you’ve left is a call center and a website.