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NOV 1998 FEATURES: Oligopoly! Highly Concentrated Markets Across the U.S. Economy Terminator Seeds: Monsanto Moves to Tighten Its Grip on the Global Agriculture Financial Deregulation Fiasco: HR 10 and the Consequences of Financial Concentration INTERVIEW: The Microsoft Monopoly DEPARTMENTS: Editorial The Front The Lawrence Summers Memorial Award Money & Politics |
Corporate ConcentrationOligopoly! Highly Concentrated Markets Across the U.S. Economyby Amy Taub and Robert Weissman With the embers still glowing frrom the slash-and-burn merger mania of the 1980s, this decade has witnessed a merger rush of far greater magnitude. U.S. corporate combinations proceeded at a record pace in 1998, smashing the pinnacle established the vcar before. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports more than 4,700 major Mergers occurred in 1998 (the FTC's reporting year end's in September), with the transactions combined totaling more than a trillion dollars. The 1997 record was 3,400 mergers worth S700 billion. The result is an increasingly concentrated national economy, with fewer and fewer corporations exerting more and more market - and political dominance. MORE >> Terminator Seeds: Monsanto Moves to Tighten Its Grip on Global Agricultureby Hope Shand Biotechnology/Chemical giant Monsanto stands, on the brink of engineering a massive transformation of worldwide agricultural practices through introduction of suicide seeds - genetically engineered seeds that beget sterile progeny. The owners of the patent for genetic seed sterilization refer to it as a "technology protection system," but critics have dubbed it "the Terminator." Advocates say it will spur investment in plant breeding worldwide, critics fear it will bring ruin to resource-poor farmers, destroy biodiversity and dangerously consolidate corporate control over plant genetic resources. MORE >> Financial Deregulation Fiasco: HR 10 and the Consequences of Financial ConcentrationFinancial Deregulation - the merging of banks, securities firms and insurance companies under common ownership - has become Capitol Hill's longest running and most expensive show. Like a bad Halloween horror movie, the issue appears as a rerun in Congress after Congress. MORE >> The Microsoft Monopolyan interview with James Love James Love is the Director of the Consumer Project on Technology. The Consumer Project on Technology is active in a number of issue areas, including intellectual property, pharmaceutical drug and biotechnology pricing, telecommunications, privacy and electronic commerce, plus a variety of projects relating to antitrust enforcement and policy. Love and the Consumer Project on Technology have also emerged as leading critics of Microsoft. MORE >>
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