The other side of it is that there is starting to be support for actually using the anti-trust laws that are on the books. Right now it’s mostly focused on Google and other tech companies, but there’s a huge problem in US markets with corporate consolidation.
Could antitrust laws be used here? I thought those were only for monopolies. I don’t think Unilever has monopolies, at least not in the U.S., hence the ridiculous amount of diversification instead.
Under current legal interpretation absolutely not. Which is the problem that’s being looked at. It’s not legislation, it’s based on supreme court rulings, that could easily be overruled by congress. It’s going to be a very long debate before that happens sadly. Which is good on the side that setting a new anti-trust standard will absolutely rock the economy, so a snap decision isn’t in anyone’s interest. But at the same time, as we’ve seen from the pandemic inflation, without competition in the market, price gouging is getting out of hand. Market steering and manipulation by individual corporations is also getting out of hand, it just doesn’t generate the same level of public outrage.
“The economy” is going to wait to the last second to make any mandated changes anyway, then complain about not having enough time. I have no sympathy towards corporations. They can get their shit up to snuff inside of a year, or they can get fined into oblivion for noncompliance.
Edit: and to add, periods of time longer than one year incentivizes stalling for a different government.
The other side of it is that there is starting to be support for actually using the anti-trust laws that are on the books. Right now it’s mostly focused on Google and other tech companies, but there’s a huge problem in US markets with corporate consolidation.
Could antitrust laws be used here? I thought those were only for monopolies. I don’t think Unilever has monopolies, at least not in the U.S., hence the ridiculous amount of diversification instead.
But I would love to be wrong about that.
Under current legal interpretation absolutely not. Which is the problem that’s being looked at. It’s not legislation, it’s based on supreme court rulings, that could easily be overruled by congress. It’s going to be a very long debate before that happens sadly. Which is good on the side that setting a new anti-trust standard will absolutely rock the economy, so a snap decision isn’t in anyone’s interest. But at the same time, as we’ve seen from the pandemic inflation, without competition in the market, price gouging is getting out of hand. Market steering and manipulation by individual corporations is also getting out of hand, it just doesn’t generate the same level of public outrage.
“The economy” is going to wait to the last second to make any mandated changes anyway, then complain about not having enough time. I have no sympathy towards corporations. They can get their shit up to snuff inside of a year, or they can get fined into oblivion for noncompliance.
Edit: and to add, periods of time longer than one year incentivizes stalling for a different government.