Competition is GOOD!

Competition

I just saw an American Express ad on TV urging its members to do business with small, local businesses and not just the mega corporations.  Awww....it's that nice of them, looking after the little guy like that?  How sweet.  What's that....ulterior motive?  Why yes, yes they do.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with a high-up-the-ladder marketing guy with Lowe's a few years ago.  He told me that consumers had the impression that, because of their volume, Lowe's (and Home Depot) received better pricing from appliance manufacturers than the smaller local retailers.  He said that was not true, and that they in fact paid a bit more.  I asked why that was?

He told me that the two large box stores combined already accounted for something like 50% of all appliance sales.  The appliance manufacturers understood that if they allowed the small retailers to disappear, and Lowe's and HD had it all to themselves, the two big boxes would effectively OWN the appliance makers.  They would bark "jump", and the manufacturers would have to reply, "how high, sir?"  Therefore they gave the small retailers a slightly better price to keep them competitive and in business. 

Until recently American Express was the only credit card the giant members-only store Costco accepted.  Ten percent of all Am Ex cards were issued thru Costco, and 20% of Am Ex total loan portfolio was with Costco.  Feeling like they had the power to pull American Express's strings, Costco demanded that Am Ex cut their processing fee and raise their rewards program, both benefitting Costco and hurting Am Ex.  

American Express realized the folly of having too many of their eggs in one basket and bid Costco adieu.  Now they're trying to boost their business with thousands of small retailers so as to never be held hostage like that again.  And that's, as Paul Harvey would say, "The rest of the story."

So with this in mind, please tell me why we let the Big Six banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) control roughly half of all American banking, with the other half divided up among roughly 6,000 "others"?  Tell me again why we shouldn't break up the Big Six?

Who do YOU bank with?

S

Screwed again, and we didn't even get a kiss

So our politicians tell us that we're broke....way past broke, actually....because of all the old-timers now signing up for their Medicare and Social Security, which, by the way, they PAID for over their working lives.  (And if the tax rate was insufficient to keep those trust funds properly topped off, whose fault is that?)

But wait....now we find out that a cool $76 BILLION DOLLARS in special-interest tax credits was included in the recent "fiscal cliff" legislation.  Lobbyists such as the firm headed by former Senator's John Breaux (D-LA) and Trent Lott (R-MS), representing companies like General Electric and Citigroup, secured for them an extension to the provision that allows multinational corporations to defer US taxes by moving profits into offshore financial subsidiaries.  (Their profits are all credited to subsidiaries in low-tax countries like Luxembourg where they might have nothing more than a PO Box.  They then pay Luxembourg taxes, not US taxes.)

Known as the "active financing exception", this is the tool that GE (and quite a few others, too) uses to avoid paying nearly all US corporate taxes.  Also blessed with sweetheart tax breaks were companies like rum distiller Diageo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, the American Wind Energy Association and the Motion Picture Association of America. (I checked and Park Place Custom Homes didn't get crap!)

Obviously their shareholders are ecstatic, but how is the taxpayer's interest served here?  

This scam was one the Obama administration insisted be included, and the Republicans feebly and quietly objected to, then voted "aye" anyway.  ("I'll vote for yours if you'll vote for mine?")  I wonder if we went back over the past 30 years or so and looked very carefully how much of our $16 TRILLION DOLLAR debt could be attributed to these kinds of giveaways?

No....no kiss, or dinner, or a movie, or even cab fare home.  Just a plain old fashioned screwing.  "I feel so....so used."

S