Fighting Monopoly Power

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Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Iamwhomiam » Sun Feb 28, 2021 6:25 pm

I've referred folks to the Institute For Local Self Reliance in the past and have urged community minded folk to seek out their resources available online to aid them to build a stronger community. I think Grizzly posted a video not too long ago that featured their work with an interview with the researcher who wrote the report being discussed. The ILSR offers their expertise freely and has great resources, so I hope some will take advantage of this great resource, or at least refer it to a friend you might know who's wanting to become more engaged in their community. Visit the link for the Table of Contents (8 subjects, Banking; Broadband; Electricity; Food and Farming; Pharmacy; Small Business; State Attorneys General; and Waste. Each topic listed there is a link.

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https://ilsr.org/fighting-monopoly-power/

Fighting Monopoly Power
How States and Cities Can Beat Back Corporate Control and Build Thriving Communities


Editors: Stacy Mitchell and Susan R. Holmberg
Lead Researcher: Zach Freed

July 2020

(Here I'm interjecting the report's last paragraph first ~ Iam)

Finally, a note before you jump in: There’s no need to read this guide in order. Each chapter stands alone, so feel free to move around. If you’re looking for broader background on America’s monopoly problem, start with the Introduction.


Across the country, local and state officials and citizens are struggling to overcome a set of deep and challenging problems, which have been further revealed, and exacerbated, by Covid. These include stark inequality, persistent poverty, disappearing small businesses, racial oppression, failing family farms, fraying community institutions, and entire cities and towns that have been marginalized and left behind.

There are many drivers of these trends. But there is one phenomenon in particular that has profoundly shaped all of these dynamics, and every single sector of our economy — the consolidation of corporate power.

Concentration has reached extreme levels. Most industries are dominated by a handful of corporations. As we detail in this report, concentrated economic power has reconfigured multiple sectors in ways that have both weakened the broader U.S. economy, by stifling investment and innovation, and harmed working people and communities. This centralization of power in private hands is threatening Americans’ fundamental right to liberty and equality.

Too often policymakers try to alleviate symptoms. This guide calls for dealing with the root problem. Concentration didn’t happen by accident; it’s not the result of inevitable forces. As each section of this guide details, it’s a product of deliberate policy choices. While some of the changes needed are federal, especially antitrust and financial reform, states and cities have potent tools and, as we show, some are using them. During the last Gilded Age, local leaders were the first to take action against monopoly power. This is a guide to the policies that state and local policymakers should enact to rekindle that fight against corporate concentration.

Each chapter offers an in-depth look at a crucial sector, describing exactly how corporate control has risen and manifested in the sector and its consequences, and enumerating the specific actions and policies states and cities can take.

Throughout this guide, we show how some places have sidestepped the tide of consolidation in one area or another, how they’re better off as a result, and how other cities and states can adopt their approach. For example, North Dakota’s public bank, which cities like Oakland and Philadelphia are looking to emulate, has enabled local banks to thrive, vastly expanding the capital available to local businesses and families. Cleveland has used a number of purchasing policies to shift 39 percent of its procurement budget to local and small, or local and minority- or female-owned businesses. Wilson, North Carolina, freed its residents from the monopoly grip of Charter Spectrum by building a city-owned broadband network that has supercharged economic development, while connecting low-income families to fast, affordable Internet. Ohio and Kentucky are regulating pharmacy benefit managers, such as CVS Health, to ensure that these powerful middlemen can’t use predatory tactics to run locally owned pharmacies out of business and overcharge Medicaid. San Jose, Calif., broke a landfill monopoly and used the dramatic savings generated by increased competition to radically restructure its solid waste system to emphasize recycling.

Over time, we’ll be adding to and updating this guide. We’d love to hear your suggestions and learn from successes (and failures) in your communities. Please write to us at info@ilsr.org

Finally, a note before you jump in: There’s no need to read this guide in order. Each chapter stands alone, so feel free to move around. If you’re looking for broader background on America’s monopoly problem, start with the Introduction.

https://ilsr.org/fighting-monopoly-power/

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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby norton ash » Mon Mar 01, 2021 9:23 pm

Thanks for this, Iam. Build back basically.
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Iamwhomiam » Tue Mar 02, 2021 3:43 am

You're welcome, Norton. Please share it with folks you feel would find it helpful.
Neil Seldman to Albany several years ago when my organization, Citizens' Environmental Coalition, sponsored the first Zero Waste conference to be held in New York. Former Chemistry professor at St. Lawrence University Paul Connett was another presenter. Paul is co-founder of Fluoride Action Network and is known around the world as an expert on Waste to Energy, an awfully polluting industry, successfully quashing proposals for building new incinerators in many countries. Incineration of solid wastes is a false solution for reducing waste, as the process demands a continuous feed of garbage to maintain its operating temperature without needing to shut down and restart the incinerator.cause Investing in one can be financially crippling for communities that do. Just about the time the bonds the community had to approve and issue to raise funds necessary to build the incinerator, it has lived out its 20 year lifetime and now needs complete retrofitting, which will far exceed its cost to build. the community will have to raise money by issuing new bonds. Also, once a community chooses to build an incinerator the community must keep outside attorneys and engineering firm under contract forever. So how much waste do they save from being landfilled? In truth, not much. About 1/3 of the garbage winds up as toxic waste requiring special handling and disposal at only a toxic waste landfill (there's one in NYS, south of Rochester, iirc); about 1/3 winds up polluting our air, waters and lands; and 1/3 is actually generating energy. What burns in garbage is organic material. Plastics that cannot be recycled should be banned from being manufactured anywhere. Organic material should be composted.

I remembered a bit more about the video I believed Grizzly had posted that featured ILSR: It was an island nation or an island of Indonesia that was overwhelmed with garbage and the woman featured an island representative. They sought out the assistance of ILSR and their Waste To Wealth program to help islanders better manage their waste and to derive from it whatever profit they can. (I sure hope that's coherrent!)
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Elvis » Sun Mar 07, 2021 5:20 am

Iamwhomiam wrote: (8 subjects, Banking; Broadband; Electricity; Food and Farming; Pharmacy; Small Business; State Attorneys General; and Waste. Each topic listed there is a link.

https://ilsr.org/fighting-monopoly-power/


building publicly owned banks
:yay
https://ilsr.org/fighting-monopoly-powe ... onopolies/

the only state where community banks have flourished in recent decades is North Dakota, which has four times as many local banks per capita as the national average. Local banks and credit unions hold more than 80 percent of the deposits in North Dakota. Their strength is largely owed to the Bank of North Dakota (BND), a state-owned “bankers’ bank” that is the only one of its kind in the country. The deposit base of the BND is the State of North Dakota. All state funds, excluding pension funds, are deposited with the bank.

BND doesn’t lend directly to North Dakota businesses and farmers. Its lending is mainly done in partnership with local banks and credit unions. They originate the loans, while BND provides part of the funds and assumes part risk on its balance sheet. In this way, BND expands the lending capacity of the state’s community banks and credit unions. As a result, the volume of small business lending per capita in North Dakota is about three times the national average.[24]

Another critical function of BND is the role it plays in municipal financing. BND lends directly to local governments at lower rates than the municipal bond market provides. This stands in contrast to what’s happened in many other states, where city residents are on the hook for municipal finance schemes peddled by Wall Street and loaded with hidden costs.[25]

BND’s profits belong to the people of North Dakota and are periodically transferred into the state’s general fund. Over the last decade, BND has generated about $1 billion in profit, and more than $400 million of that, or about $3,300 per household, has been shifted into the state’s general fund to support education and other public services.[26]

A handful of states and cities have passed or are considering legislation to create their own public banks modeled on the Bank of North Dakota. In 2019, New Jersey’s governor issued an executive order to launch a state-owned public bank within a year.[27] California has also passed a public banking law. It doesn’t authorize the chartering of public banks immediately, but establishes a framework for cities and counties to apply for a public bank license, which would require a business plan, an independent board, and FDIC deposit insurance, among other requirements.[28]

:thumbsup Good ideas upon which to build!
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Feb 15, 2022 7:47 pm

.

Given recent developments in Canada (govt freezing/seizing bank accounts, etc.), it'd be prudent to revisit and strongly consider the above.
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Elvis » Sun Feb 20, 2022 5:05 am

Belligerent Savant » Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:47 pm wrote:.

Given recent developments in Canada (govt freezing/seizing bank accounts, etc.), it'd be prudent to revisit and strongly consider the above.


Link?

The government can freeze your bank account whether it's a private bank or a public bank.
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Harvey » Sun Feb 20, 2022 9:15 am

Link? One can hardly move for examples. Let's begin with the declaration of Emergency itself, which invoked the Emergencies Act:



What are these powers?

The Emergencies Act temporarily revokes all Canadian rights and law and grants total legal immunity to all those wielding it. Read the act for yourself: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/E-4.5.pdf

How might they be used?

https://www.rt.com/business/549372-cana ... ocurrency/

How did this act come to pass? Here's a fascinating article on the subject posted yesterday by Alloneword, think Canadian GLADIO: https://unlimitedhangout.com/2022/02/in ... -measures/

And it isn't difficult to see how this is already being used to fire ordinary people who supported a popular working class revolt:

Was the hacking of Ottawa trucker convoy donors a US-Canadian intelligence operation?

And what's more, some of those powers are in the process of being hard baked into the Canadian constitution...

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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sun Feb 20, 2022 2:29 pm

Elvis » Sun Feb 20, 2022 4:05 am wrote:
Belligerent Savant » Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:47 pm wrote:.

Given recent developments in Canada (govt freezing/seizing bank accounts, etc.), it'd be prudent to revisit and strongly consider the above.


Link?

The government can freeze your bank account whether it's a private bank or a public bank.


Holy shit, Elvis. Really? It almost frightens me to think how many -- smart, well-read people -- remain ignorant to what's happening right now around them.
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Elvis » Tue Feb 22, 2022 5:07 am

Belligerent Savant wrote:Holy shit, Elvis. Really?


Holy shit, what? Public banks are bad because the government can freeze accounts, like in any other bank?
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Harvey » Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:42 am

You appeared to express incredulity that the Canadian state is stealing citizens money (on the pretext that they are working class racists.)
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:41 pm

Belligerent Savant » Sun Feb 20, 2022 1:29 pm wrote:
Elvis » Sun Feb 20, 2022 4:05 am wrote:
Belligerent Savant » Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:47 pm wrote:.

Given recent developments in Canada (govt freezing/seizing bank accounts, etc.), it'd be prudent to revisit and strongly consider the above.


Link?

The government can freeze your bank account whether it's a private bank or a public bank.


Holy shit, Elvis. Really? It almost frightens me to think how many -- smart, well-read people -- remain ignorant to what's happening right now around them.

Elvis » Tue Feb 22, 2022 4:07 am wrote:
Belligerent Savant wrote:Holy shit, Elvis. Really?


Holy shit, what? Public banks are bad because the government can freeze accounts, like in any other bank?



You bolded the bit Re: seizing assets and then asked for a link, which suggested -- to me -- that you weren't aware of this recent development.

Yes, the govt can seize any identifiable asset in such a scenario (public or private bank), though I'd expect the big corporate banks would capitulate far more readily.

It also remains that case that decentralized cryptocurrency -- if properly stored, e.g. not in an online wallet or exchange, but rather in cold storage -- may be the best bet for retaining funds if the gestapo comes (virtually) knocking.
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Elvis » Tue Feb 22, 2022 5:53 pm

No, I wasn't aware of truckers' donor list being hacked, that's why I asked.

This thread is about monopoly power, and my point is that public banks impinge on private banks' monopoly on issuing credit, and that's a very good thing.
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby stickdog99 » Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:04 pm

Obviously, the issue is not public vs. private when you live in a fascist state. The issue is centralized subject to total authoritarian control vs. decentralized and beyond the easy reach of total authoritarian control.
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Elvis » Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:33 pm

Fascists consistently work against public banking because public banking puts credit creation in the hands of the people.

If every anti-fascist effort is futile, why are we even talking about it? Just for something to talk about? I'd rather take a walk or read a book or play guitar than engage in endless sophistry over some foregone conclusion.

On the other hand, reducing big banks' power over money creation & resource allocation can be done—if people don't just helplessly throw up their hands and concede power to fascists.
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Re: Fighting Monopoly Power

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:32 pm

.

Who's throwing hands up? Decentralized ledgers and currencies were developed precisely to fight back against (centralized) State power and fascist takeover attempts.

(Putting aside for a moment the probable intel agency origins and application by certain powerful interests as a vehicle for more-nefarious CBDC implementation)

Centralized storage will be subject to seizure, as Canada's recent developments demonstrate. Digital currency exchanges/wallets are also subject to seizure, but as i mentioned in my prior response, there remain options for the holder. Banks offer no such options.

I certainly applaud credit unions and local banks, and would encourage their patronage, but developments are escalating faster now. Banks -- any bank -- won't offer the customer assurance when the gestapo comes knocking.

Time to re-calibrate, and quick.
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