Why do Democrats continue to ignore Mergermania and its effects?

[Armstead]

If the Democratic Party really wants an issue that can resonate with average Americans, here's one. How about getting our heads out of the sand, and actually protecting and restoring a more truly competative, diverse free enterprise economy, and standing up for the economic rights of workers and consumers and real grassroots busineses?

Over the last 30 years, the Democrats were largely silent as mergermania basically wiped out real "free enterprise capitalism" and replaced it with a Corporate Oligarchy, in which most industries are now controlled by a handful of Mega-Corporate States.

This is perhaps the central reason I and many progressives are so alienated with the "centrist" tone of the Democratic Party. The effects of this have been dvestating on consumer choice, workers rights and our ability to pursue any social policies such s healthcare reform. It is infected every industry sector. It is also at the root of why the Bush administration is in power, and why democracy is in danger of disappearing to special-interet politics.

AND IT'S STILL GOING ON AND YET THE MAJORITY OF DEMOCRAT LEADERS REMAIN SILENT.

Here's one recent example. Another poster pointed out that a merger between Bank of America and MNBA has furthered the consolidation of the nation's economy and eliminated thousands of jobs in on fell swoop.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x33133

Here's more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/02/business/02bank.html

Bank of America, Absorbing MBNA, Is No. 1 in Credit Cards

By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published: January 2, 2006
The Bank of America Corporation became the nation's No. 1 credit card issuer yesterday as it completed its $34.2 billion acquisition of the MBNA Corporation.

The second-biggest bank in the United States by assets, Bank of America completed the purchase after receiving approval from shareholders and regulators. The purchase vaults Bank of America past American Express and J. P. Morgan Chase, with a combined $140 billion in outstanding credit card balances....(Cut)

The nation's credit card industry is now controlled by five companies: Bank of America, American Express, J. P. Morgan, Citigroup and Capital One Financial. Collectively, they control about three-quarters of the $700 billion in outstanding balances on general-purpose credit cards, based on 2004 figures compiled by The Nilson Report, an industry newsletter.

[European Socialist]

1. For the same reason they let Bush listen to their private phone calls. nt

[wtmusic]

2. Isn't it time to kickstart the Sherman Act?

I can't believe some of these mergers would stand 100 years ago.

[Armstead]

4. They shouldn't stand today

These mega mergers are so ludicrous and so destructive that they should have been challenged 25 years ago during the first wave.

[leftofthedial]

3. because they are owned by the corporate oligarchy of which you speak

lock, stock and barrel

corporatism is replacing "government" as the dominant organizational structure of society

to all our peril

[Armstead]

5. I wish people would recognize it as just as crushingn as "big guvment"

It amazes me that the same people who rail against "Big government" as an abusive bureaucracy are so eager to accept the big abusive bureaucracies of the Corporate State.

Big all-powerful corporations are just as much a threat to individual freedom, rights and opportunities as any government would be. Worse, actually, because they makes themselvs beyond the accountability of democracy.

[Greyhound]

20. It is a much bigger threat. Guvmnt has some oversight (not used

effectively nor often enough) and accountability. Corporations are only accountable to the quarterly bottom line, period, nothing else is even considered.

[Armstead]

25. Exactly -- That's what the boneheads overlook

[rucky]

6. It's a My$$$$$tery to me. n/t

[Karmadillo]

21. $$$$$$$$$hhhhhhhh! You're not $uppo$ed to $ay that.

nt

[MannyGoldstein]

7. We Have Two Political Parties In This Country...

We have two political parties in this country.

On the one hand we have the party that represents the interests of the Rich and the Powerful.

On the other hand, we have the Republicans*.



*Just kidding. The Rethugs are also bought and paid for by the Rich and the Powerful...

[Greyhound]

23. nah, we haven't had two parties since the 80's. n/t

[sweetheart]

8. M & A (mergers and aquisitions) is growing back

It reached a dizzying level in the late 90's and then dropped off to zippo
in early 00's... but the mergers are coming back, and along with it, a gold
rush from one end of wall street to the other. Wall street loves the DLC,
and the DLC is a product of wall street.

The democratic party will "NEVER" do anything about that.

[Armstead]

9. That pisses me off so much

IMO, this is a central domestic issue that could actually rally the kind of working clss support the Democrats need.

But the Democrat Establishment is so tamed and cowed that they will not even pick up a winning issue that is being handed to them.

[sweetheart]

10. Most mergers don't even create shareholder value

Its an accounting scam where voodoo is done with "goodwill" and the firing of
staff to achieve empires of scale, but the bottom line, is that business schools
reviewing past mergers show 2/3rds have actually cut the shareholder value.
That is not 1+1=3, but 1 + 1 = 1. Merger math is like republican math.

[Armstead]

14. Yeah, and then they become "Too big to allow to fail"

Another side effect is that the national economy becomes so dependent on these bohemoths that they can get supported by bad policies because they become "Too big to allow to fail."

Thus they even get past the fundamental laws of efficiency and quality as the so-called drivers of a free market economy.

[sweetheart]

18. complexity management

I agree with you in principal, but the economic incentives are given by our
tax code to drive for economies of scale. And that is the problem, yes, that we have
endemic imperialism built in to our mercantile system, that a bunch of "innocent" traders
and consumers are unleashed to take over the world, to not stop until every person on the
planet is using your product. But is this bad with say, excellent grocery shops? Surely
you've travelled to parts of the world, even today, where you wish for a well stocked
whole foods or a giant albertsons. If giant albertsons were in mozambique and zimbabwe,
along with the rule of law that supports it, then nobody starves, everyone eats well.
If nothing else, but supermarkets were global, that would be enough for me. Its all about
food after all, and nations can make their own clothes and weapons.

I can see how keynes evolved as an economist from being very free-trade liberalism to be
much more respecting of nation states in his older years. I think we have a market complexity
problem. The way our population is indexed and sold-to is exploitative of scale, constantly,
but what of regional markets, local markets... and we cheat ourselves out of the richness
of a villiage market. We cheat ourselves out of a world of great-tasting healthy foods and
economic diversity in the countryside, not massive plains farming, but niche farming and
land management for long term social development. But when we push everything to global
econmies of scale, we strip away everyone, erase the sovereign individual from existance,
and worship only corporations that can achieve global notice.

Given realpolitik, financing involved in nuclear arms, nuclear plants and big-electricty,
automotives, shipping, and such massive industry, small and organic gets confronted with
the democratic party conundrum. At present it seems to be to stay silent on economic matters
as soon as they open their mouths, we know they are DLC, libertarian or progressive democrat
and the other 2/3rds are suspicious. So the new democratic econimcis seems to be "don't ask
and we won't tell.". It is, in a phrase, "to clean up another bush fiscal and foreign policy mess".

[Armstead]

19. That's why Liberal/progressive policies are necessary

The natural trend of "free market" capitalism is towards centraliztion and economies of scale. That is -- in terms of pure cold-blooded efficiency -- the optimal condition.

However, no economy exists in a vacuum. It must also co-exist with social conditions, spiritual values and pragmatic paradoxes required to benefit the maximum number of people.

It may be more "economically efficient" for all loans and otehr financial transction to go through One Big Bank. However it is terrible on all otehr levels.

The only way those other values will assert themselves against the inherent cold ruthlessness of market economics is through intrvention by the public sector.

[Greyhound]

22. One note. Corporations are not efficient at all, to the contrary,

guvment is much more efficient in every respect. This is one of the biggest lies we've bought into.

[Armstead]

24. Not overall, but in pure market terms

That's a debatable point. However, I think we would agree that in social terms it is a disaster.

[Greyhound]

27. Yes I would agree regarding social conduct, but I was talking about

operational efficiency. The corporate model is just terrible. Non-contributing expenses range from 20% - 40% of gross income, ridiculous. Government does it on about 3% - 5%.

[Armstead]

30. You may be right

I guess it's a matter of what filter one uses and how to measure "efficiency."

But if you are right, it just reinforces why -- on a purely practical level -- there has to be a political/social movement to challenge this model. If the Democratic party leadership had any brains or conviction, they're realize that this would be a golden issue to run on, because very few average people are happy with the results of the Corporatization of Society anymore.

[Greyhound]

32. Absolutely! It's still early but it's starting to look like they're going

run on the "we're not them" campaign platform again, so unless the re:puke:s nominate a convicted murderer or rapist, they will lose again (or rather, it'll be close enough to steal again).

[sweetheart]

34. And all of us are like plato's navigator

By our life experience we are wiser politicians than the politicians,
but the mob rules by tabloid politics, and the navigator is ignored.
If we accidentally our hand on the tiller, then great, but if not,
then archeologists will discover our disembodied voices on old DU archives
unearthed 500 years from now, and they will realize that the wiser navigators
were there all along, but were not in power.

[Armstead]

35. That's depressing thought

I hope common sense isn't that far ahead of the curve.

[Karmadillo]

11. Because the Democratic Party no longer represents average Americans?

nt

[radio4progressives]

12. Taboo Subject - It's the Clinton Legacy and Neo Liberalism

Which is at the core of what all these DLC fucks are all about, and who are in close alliance with the Neo Conservatives.

they are effectively ONE and the SAME.

[Armstead]

13. Sad but true

It is really sad to think of how much Clinton might have accomplished if he had actually been an econmomic liberal, instead of a centrist "neo-liberal."

[Armstead]

15. Another example

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/13527212.htm

Consolidation name of game for utilities
Utilities aren't boring any more.


Analysts are predicting a wave of utility mergers this year, as companies take advantage of new legal freedoms to merge and find investors.
The trend has already begun, with Charlotte's Duke Energy Corp. expecting to close its merger with Ohio-based Cinergy Corp. in the first half of this year. Duke Chief Executive Paul Anderson has said he wants his company to be akin to the Bank of America of the energy industry.
FPL Group Inc. and Constellation Energy Group announced a merger Dec. 19, the talks sparked by the Duke-Cinergy deal.
Constellation's chief has said he expects the number of U.S. utilities -- about 100 -- to get closer to the number in Japan -- seven -- in the next few years.
Critics fear the mergers mean more chances for energy execs to use the healthy -- and predictable -- cash flow generated by local utilities to prop up risky investments.
But the companies say the mergers will mean lower rates for consumers than possible for standalone utilities: With their larger size, they can cut redundant jobs and negotiate better prices for the fuels they burn for power....more

[NashVegas]

16. That's the Way (Uh-Huh Uh-Huh) They Like It

Remember those old stated dreams of a one-world government?

We've been heading that way for a long time.

If there is such a thing, one faction will dominate.

Oh yeah, and in a one-world government, civilised countries don't war on each other. So the only way you get to dominate is by controlling the economy.

[Armstead]

17. I don;t think it will be a One World Government but a...

world in which Corporations supercede governments.

But that isn't inevitable if we and the parties that supposedly stand for democracy get off our asses and fight to retain civil government.

[sweetheart]

26. "johnathan johnathan johnathan"

Its really like rollerball... the movie has become prophetic.
It REALLY IS about the destruction of the individual.

[Armstead]

31. Or Network

"Howard Beale -- You are interfering with the forces of Nature!"

[NashVegas]

28. Yeah, That's Why

Corporations just aren't subjected to the regulations of governments. We have the WTO/GATT for the best examples.

Right now it looks like indigenous Latin Americans are leading the way to fight it - the so-called parties (governments, NGOs) are useless, since nationalism does come into it. It'll take a whole lotta desperation for Democrats (note the big 'd') to follow their example.

[Lorien]

29. Because our Democratic leaders are part of that Corporate Oligarchy

they and the repugs are the agents of the monster that helped put them in office. Until we have true campaign finance reform there's no chance of changing this fact.

[Zhade]

33. Easy - $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Them campaigns ain't cheap, ya know!

[Armstead]

36. Any centrist defendrs of this lack of concern?