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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (419001)	3/29/2011 6:03:10 PM
From: J.B.C.	5 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793778

Consider this scenario : GM, Ford, Chrysler get together and form 1 company. Happy auto suppliers. That's essentially what did happen. They operated separately, but they negotiated 1 union contract. Many business aspects were shared. They owned the world, UNTIL the gas crisis of the 70's. They were unable to adapt to the surge of foreign automakers that had to deal with expensive fuel costs. AT&T would have had to weather a digital revolution in cellular technology had they remained a single entity, would they have been able to do it? Probably not. For example, Kodak owned the film industry, but barely survived the digital film revolution. They were a $94 stock in 1997, currently a $4 stock. Look at Xerox, they owned the copier industry. They own technology very significant to today's desktop computer, they gave it away to Apple, FOR NOTHING! Because their management didn't know what the had. They also barely survived. Just because a company is large doesn't mean they're agile enough to ward off a small business threat. IBM couldn't compete with Apple either, and they created Bill Gates in order to maintain computing prowess. Many have been indoctrinated with big is bad, but economically you couldn't prove it. Bill Gates, AKA Microsoft is another good example. What did he do? He developed a software system that ended up immensely helping productivity. I can create a spreadsheet and send it to you, and chances are close to a probability of 1, that you can open it because you also have EXCEL. Had Microsoft not created a office software package, there's a great possibility there would be no standard. Hurting productivity. There is no rational reason that a large company is bad in a free market system. How about the other side of that big enterprise, the USPO. They have a monopoly, but its a government protected monopoly. How's that working out? Billions wasted annually to maintain this dinosaur. What if the government opened up mail service to any entity? My bet would be that FedEX would eat their lunch.