We’re entering the 2020s and it’s fitting that we’re in the Second Golden Age. Or at least that’s what Robert Reich argues.
It is time to use antitrust again. We should break up the hi-tech behemoths, or at least require they make their proprietary technology and data publicly available and share their platforms with smaller competitors.
There would be little cost to the economy, since these giant firms rely on innovation rather than economies of scale – and, as noted, they’re likely to be impeding innovation overall…Republicans rhapsodize about the “free market” but have no qualms about allowing big corporations to rig it at the expense of average people.
If we’re in the Second Golden Age now, I wonder if we’ll enter a Second Depression in the 2030s? As the saying goes, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Check It Out: Welcome to the Second Golden Age
The problem is the Big money guys like Apple don’t innovate – they buy patents and companies that innovate – Apple didn’t innovate the touch screen or swipe-to-unlock or haptic or multi-touch – they BOUGHT those technologies and then quash the competition via patent abuse. Just research how many suits Apple loses v how many they win – it’s about equal which means this practice is SOP. This practice is also ANTI competitive. Thankfully Apple has been quite myopic in the current world preferring to ride the iOS toy pony as opposed to positioning themselves in the AI, EV, AR future. Where’s the car? Too late now. Oh well. All this means is it’s going to be a good time to buy Apple stock again. And then one day – but not now it WON’T be a good day to buy Apple. Anybody who doubts the stock market should just look at the chart since the day they were born. As long as we have FIAT currency and the Middle East still buys into the Petrodollar BS – the market will always go up. Always. The key is to not trade – just buy and keep.
I believe it, but do I believe it enough to pull all my money out of the stock market? Hmm, probably not. :-/
In answer to your question about a second Depression, yes.
I just listened to a podcast with the CBC Ideas series from Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist Christopher Hedges. He’s just written a book titled America: The Farewell Tour. He outlines how not only is the US headed for a really big collapse, but things are in fact far worse than the First Golden Age, or in fact worse than France under the Louis the XVI. Inequality, wealth concentration, violence, scapegoating, people ignoring truth for the comforting lie. A new Great Depression? No this one will make the first one look like a summer rainstorm.
Forgot the link
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/christopher-hedges-farewell-america-1.4911396