Hard things are worth doing asshats. #Monopolies are the root of almost all economic and political evils in our society. https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/business-day-gmdkn5fhz/-/a-9LUF5sPMQQqvhZrfFGwjxw%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0
"The corollary is that just because Trump has dismantled the agencies that were buoyed up by the movement, it doesn't make the movement itself smaller or less powerful. If anything, the Trump regime's relentless pursuit of an agenda in service to the rich at working people's expense will only add fuel to the anti-corporate, anti-billionaire wildfire. Trump's tariff chaos might be bad for some parts of the ruling class, but as Van Jackson writes for Labor Notes, there's plenty of plutocrats who love the prospect of a deep recession sparked by global trade chaos:
[L]avish tax cuts, deregulation, and an environment friendly to union-busting are just as valuable to most CEOs as a growing economy. What they lose in the stock market, they will more than make up in surplus labor, a fire sale on distressed assets, and Trump’s promise to totally eliminate the capital gains tax.
(...)
American wealth is more concentrated today than it was in France on the eve of the French Revolution. People are pissed. That anger is out there, waiting to be harnessed by smart political movements:
(...)
To grab that anger and mobilize it, we need to show people that their rage over specific issues is actually downstream of excessive corporate power. Furious that one company owns every brand of eggs and has used the excuse of bird flu to make record profits? You're not angry about eggs, you're angry about corporate power:"
https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/10/solidarity-forever-2/#oligarchism
It’s Time to Turn Up the Heat on Monopoly Utilities https://otherwords.org/its-time-to-turn-up-the-heat-on-monopoly-utilities/
So for our vulnerable family, friends, and community members, not having power is more than an inconvenience. If they need dialysis, a respiratory device, or a mobility aid to survive, it’s a matter of life and death.
Spotted on Reddit ...
These 12 companies together own 550+ consumer brands
"I've been researching my grocery list to try and support independent companies/brands but this is madness "
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/1jnuee4/monopolies_everywhere/
I realized something today as I once again chewed over the rank moral cowardice of #Substack both profiting off Nazi content *and* not carrying pornography.
A huge part of the problem of the modern internet is that we have private #monopolies standing in for and being treated like public services.
https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/?ref=thelastbillionaires.com
#CorporateGreed #oligarchy #monopolies #tRUMPSamerica #COMPLICITgQp #CORRUPTscotus THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN WHO CONTROLS WEALTH
Court ruling rattles
"Notably Pirongrong was among e minority #NBTC commissioners who earlier opposed the #TrueDtac #telecom merger to prevent #monopolies. For some #legal experts, e verdict raised more qns than it answered.. Why is a #public official fulfilling her constitutional duty to protect #consumers facing criminal charges when no corruption or personal gain is involved?. a 2yr prison term w/o suspension? Who'll dare enforce #regulations to protect e public now?"
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2981431/court-ruling-rattles-legal-experts
A thread about 'bread'. Imagine this: we all go to the supermarket for bread. There are four kinds of bread available: white, brown and brown or white sliced. I'm a big fan of white sliced! I always buy it. The plastic bag it comes in isn't that great for the environment but it's useful! I find things I can use it for. I eat 6 slices of bread a day, just like the old ad's recommend 
#bread #bigtech #platforms #monopolies #mastodon #bluesky #meta #x #microsoft #apple
[1/8]
@notjustbikes precisely!
Only #OpenSource & #OpenStandards can yield #MultiVendor & #MultiProvider systems necessary to prevent #monopolies and #oligopolies and enshure #ITsec, #InfoSec, #OpSec & #ComSec, thus being able to comply with #NatSec & #IntlSec demands.
Guess why #NORAD runs #BusyBox / #Linux?
Huh.
Right this second is when I learned that the .mobi file format is owned by Amazon !
#JaredWesley: "That earlier [populism] united religious folks, farmers, workers, and #smallbusiness owners against churches, #corporate #monopolies, banks, and distant #governments that controlled their lives. Through protests, #cooperative movements, and #unions, Westerners sought to democratize power and opportunity for themselves. Today’s #populism defines “the people” by who doesn’t belong; the earlier wave [challenged] concentrated power to benefit all who labored."
PBMs (a pharma middleman) are not only killing your local pharmacist, they’re killing Walgreens as well. #Monopolies are bad for everyone.
"The trends for Walgreens aren’t good - it has closed a thousand stores since 2018, and plans to shut 1,200 more this year. And if you look at the gross operating income of the U.S. retail segment, it is collapsing.
I put these charts together based on data in Walgreen’s annual reports.
What’s going on? Well that’s simple. Margins are falling apart.
Galloway and Elson went back and forth on why Walgreens is flailing. The company hasn’t modernized in the age of Amazon. It has too many stores. Bad management. A dumb acquisition of VillageMD in 2021. Etc. And these would seem like reasonable causes, since lots of other retailers are dying in the face of low price competition.
But the real reason Walgreens, and the pharmacy business in general, is dying, is because of a failure to enforce antitrust laws against unfair business methods and illegal mergers. Elson touched on it when he mentioned lower reimbursement rates, but I don’t think people appreciate the full scope of what happened to Walgreens, and to the full pharmacy business in general. This is not a case of bad management, it’s a case of desperate management."
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-real-reason-walgreens-collapsed
https://youtube.com/shorts/RaSAI9puE_Y
Why do a handful of rich men get to control how the world communicates?
Trump DOJ reaffirms Biden-era proposal to break up Google - The Washington Post
https://archive.ph/AiwFG
"The government is asking a court to force Google to sell its Chrome web browser after the company was found to have an illegal monopoly in search."
Probably the only acceptable choice made by Trump until now...:
"Among the loyalists selected by Donald Trump to staff his second administration, Gail Slater stands out for a different reason: she unites right and left with a sceptical view of big business.
While the US president’s other nominees tend to be traditional conservative free market advocates, Slater, his pick to lead the Justice Department’s antitrust division, is expected to maintain the Biden administration’s vigorous approach to enforcement — much to Wall Street’s chagrin.
In public remarks and written submissions to lawmakers, the 53-year-old Oxford graduate has expressed concern about market concentration and said enforcement should be focused on technology and sectors with a direct impact on Americans’ pocketbooks.
Slater embodies the unlikely alignment of progressives who support tough antitrust enforcement and a new generation of populist conservatives helmed by vice-president JD Vance, who has called for the break-up of Google."
https://www.ft.com/content/769709d5-f897-497d-a8f2-ce15a3c977ed
@lukakopajtic.com put together this amazing list of alternatives to #American #tech #monopolies that people should take a look at.
#DigitalIndependence #Mastodon @bsky.app #PixelFed #Lemmy #Linux
#Fediverse #FOSS
From the BuyFromEU community o...
Privatization is a stupid idea (and destroys economies)
"I believe that enshittification is caused by changes not to technology, but to the policy environment. These are changes to the rules of the game, undertaken in living memory, by named parties, who were warned at the time about the likely outcomes of their actions, who are today very rich and respected, and face no consequences or accountability for their role in ushering in the enshittocene. They venture out into polite society without ever once wondering if someone is sizing them up for a pitchfork.
In other words: I think we created a crimogenic environment, a perfect breeding pool for the most pathogenic practices in our society, that have therefore multiplied, dominating decision-making in our firms and states, leading to a vast enshittening of everything.
And I think there's good news there, because if enshittification isn't the result a new kind of evil person, or the great forces of history bearing down on the moment to turn everything to shit, but rather the result of specific policy choices, then we can reverse those policies, make better ones and emerge from the enshittocene, consigning the enshitternet to the scrapheap of history, a mere transitional state between the old, good internet, and a new, good internet."
