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Comment by rich_sasha | Hacker News Reader

I might be wrong, but for the most part, is this just an American issue? big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Tech, Big Sugar, etc? Europe has less international heavyweight companies, true, but also doesn’t seem to be in the grips of cartels anywhere near as much as the US.

Maybe I’m just being oblivious...

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Samsung/LG/Hyundai/Reliance come to mind.

I think it’s more a problem of technology enabling massive economies of scale so the big players can always be the lowest price. And also technology is so complicated that few have the resources to be able to compete. Even Intel struggles with TSMC, and how many different teams of people are there in the world that can make fabs?

I would encourage you to read more about what tobacco companies have been doing in developing countries. Big tobacco is certainly a global problem.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/big-tobacco-di...

You are wrong. The German car industry practically runs German politics.

Agree, the German car industry is so big that its interests obviously affect German politics. And since Germany is the most influential country in the EU, this makes the German car industry automatically very influential (in a not so positive sense).

And the state of lower saxony owns ~12% of Volkswagen!

Remember "Japan, Inc." due to Keiretsus (and to some extent Chaebols in SK).

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