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In my opinion, both lead to monopolies and oligopolies.

Ekianjo is right, in the sense that entities with lots of capital will become rent-seeking entities in over-regulated/mis-regulated markets because of very high barriers to entry. Examples include ISP's and insurance markets.

You are also right, in the sense that entities will rush to control a heavily de-regulated market. To that end, companies with lots of capital can afford to outspend or acquire their undersized competition. Examples include Air-transit post-1978 and the Internet 2.0.

There isn't one single legislation that led us here and there is no one-size-fits-all solution that can solve each monopoly. We have to evaluate each industry and each market on its own to determine how the state would break the oligopoly.

It's hard to not mention and ascribe some degree of responsibility to the government. This is especially true of current events books written with a majoritarian viewpoint, which believes that the government has a strong role to play in the market. The only writers/journalists/etc that I've seen advocate for a non-state oriented POV are Austrian libertarians, and I have encountered very few of them.

I agree but you can't realistically build policy around "working to be better humans". Walls, guns, surveillance, etc are all easily deployable policies with easily measurable results. I don't enjoy the surveillance state or waiting 2 hours for airport security but it is tolerable...to an extent.

It's pretty sad how much Americans pay for our higher education compared to many other developed countries. I recently met a few college-aged Brits who just graduated with ~$5,000 in debt. How can we be paying an entire order of magnitude more for school?

This is actually very common, especially in "bulge" tier companies. My best friend interned at GS and has accepted a job there; apparently, all newly-hired analyst/traders bust their ass for the first 2 or 3 ish years before getting "hired away" by a better paying, less demanding company (typically in private equity, VC, asset management, etc). Same happens in the accounting industry.

Gotcha. Thanks for the link

> Now you need to commit to building enough housing to meet their projected job growth at HQ2 over the next decade, as well as a public transportation plan to keep up with it.

I like this plan. I imagine forcing them to buy certain amounts of municipal bonds on a semi-regular basis could effectively "force" them to give back to the city.

I wouldn't argue that tax breaks should be "illegal", but rather be proportional to the marginal utility that the company brings to the city (job market, investment, spending, etc) and inversely proportional to the marginal cost that the company brings to the city (infrastructure spending, housing, over-burdening of existing city resources).

Not the guy who you commented to, but I'm guessing he thinks it's due to the talent pool they can recruit from by locating in a large metropolitan/suburban area.

Is the education spending comparing the actual dollar amount or is it adjusted for PPP? Or is it by percent of federal/state/municipal spending?

This is probably too reductive, but ultimately it's profitable to do so. Facebook is not in the news business, they're in the data/advertising business.

You have a number of points I agree with, but I find other points troublesome.

For instance, the costs of censorship are, interestingly enough, also the costs of not censoring free speech. Slowed scientific progress (due to the rise of anti-intellectualism), emotional distress (pretty obvious how some types of free speech cause this), and atrocities (e.g. Charlotesville) could have been avoided through censorship. Those are the material costs of allowing unbridled, "hate group" free speech.

On a side note, I am very personally conflicted on this topic. It was strange to read your comment and strongly agree with some statements and then very strongly disagree other statements.

What does GP mean?

That's fairly true, although I suspect the reason for the press' attitude towards Trump lies in the ratings/advertisement-driven nature of media. I don't think they're necessarily being held to different standards. Trump's daily tweets are cannonfodder to any (faux)journalist whereas Obama rarely gave anything for the media to criticize, which is why they harped so much on his birth certificate.

To your second point, I think the sheen of Obama's Presidency is definitely beginning to fade a bit. His failure to truly effect change in the Arab Spring showed amateurism in foreign policy. If there's any irony, it's in the Nobel laureate selection process (at least for the Peace prize); Kissinger won the damn thing in 73, which should tell anyone that the whole award is a farce.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything in the thread, much less my comment.

I think both of your statements can apply to any President. For instance, Trump has called for "fire and fury" against NK and "bombing the hell" out of our enemies. He's embraced torture as a mechanism for obtaining information and a cursory Google search shows that Gitmo conditions have gotten significantly worse over the past year. Frankly, this seems like a misdirected personal crusade of yours against Obama when virtually every administration has blood on its hands.

I'm not sure this is a very convincing argument to make. The underlying economic conditions have not changed drastically in the last few months or even years. The tax plan's effect on the economy is presently a projection. Apple's decision to repatriate this sum is a no-brainer: America's economic landscape hasn't changed, but the deal that was offered has changed.

It may be an over-simplification but it is more universal or common than you might think. I recently discovered that my father's entire family emigrated from their home country as a result of political persecution. This is a pretty common theme in American history. In fact, much of the progress and greatness of the United States was built by immigrants because of the opportunities this country gave to them.